Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead use Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. If opening a close appeal, use {{RfC closure review}} When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive366#IBAN_appeal

(Initiated 27 days ago on 18 October 2024) This shouldn't have been archived by a bot without closure. Heartfox (talk) 02:55, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Heartfox: The page is archived by lowercase sigmabot III (talk · contribs), which gets its configuration frum the {{User:MiszaBot/config}} at the top of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Crucially, this has the parameter |algo=old(7d) which means that any thread with no comments for seven days is eligible for archiving. At the time that the IBAN appeal thread was archived, the time was 00:00, 2 November 2024 - seven days back from that is 00:00, 26 October 2024, and the most recent comment to the thread concerned was made at 22:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC). This was more than seven days earlier: the archiving was carried out correctly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

There was no need for this because archived threads can be closed too. It is not necessary for them to remain on noticeboard. Capitals00 (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. It is back in the archive, and hopefully someone can close it there. Heartfox (talk) 05:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Is_WP:RECALL_a_policy?

(Initiated 16 days ago on 28 October 2024) Discussion has slowed for the last week. I think the consensus is pretty clear, but I'm involved. – Joe (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline

(Initiated 96 days ago on 9 August 2024)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline is WP:PROPOSAL for a new WP:SNG. The discussion currently stands at 503 comments from 78 editors or 1.8 tomats of text, so please accept the hot beverage of your choice ☕️ and settle in to read for a while. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Talk:International Churches of Christ#RfC: Referring to International Churches of Christ (ICOC) as a cult in the lead

(Initiated 56 days ago on 19 September 2024) Legobot removed the RFC template on 20/10/2024. Discussoin has slowed. Can we please have a independent close. TarnishedPath^talk 23:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... I've read the whole discussion, but this one is complex enough that I need to digest it and reread it later now that I have a clear framing of all the issues in my mind. Ideally, I'll close this sometime this week. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. This issue has been going on in various discussions on the talk page for a while so there is no rush. TarnishedPath^talk 03:26, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 456#RfC: using photos of record labels from Discogs?

(Initiated 46 days ago on 28 September 2024) Discussion has died down and last vote was over a week ago. CNC (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 37 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall#RfC: Should we add text prescribing just signatures, no discussion?

(Initiated 11 days ago on 3 November 2024) The amount of no !votes relative to yes !votes coupled with the several comments arguing it's premature suggests this should probably be SNOW closed. Sincerely, Dilettante 16:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Turkey#RfC_on_massacres_and_genocides_in_the_lead

(Initiated 37 days ago on 8 October 2024) Expired tag, no new comments in more than a week. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Total
CfD	0	0	0	3	3
TfD	0	0	0	5	5
MfD	0	0	2	5	7
FfD	0	0	1	1	2
RfD	0	0	13	27	40
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 November 3#Category:Online-only games

(Initiated 26 days ago on 19 October 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:22, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Feminist art movement#proposing merge of Feminist art into Feminist art movement

(Initiated 302 days ago on 16 January 2024) It would be helpful for an uninvolved editor to close this discussion on a merge from Feminist art to Feminist art movement; there have been no new comments in more than 2 months. Klbrain (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... may take a crack at this close, if no one objects. Allan Nonymous (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of pholidotans#Merge to Manidae

(Initiated 14 days ago on 31 October 2024) Discussion only occurred on the day of proposal, and since then no further argument has been made. I don't think this discussion is going anywhere, so a close may be in order here. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 07:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to close this so soon. Merge proposals often drag on for months, and sometimes will receive comments from new participants only everything couple weeks. I think it's too early to say whether a consensus will emerge. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: OK, so what are you suggesting? Will the discussion remain open if no further comments are received in, say, two weeks? I also doubt that merge discussions take months to conclude. I think that such discussions should take no more than 20 days, unless it's of course, a very contentious topic, which is not the case here. Taken that you've shown interest in this request, you should be able to tell that no form of consensus has taken place, so I think you can let it sit for a while to see if additional comments come in before inevitably closing it. I mean, there is no use in continuing a discussion that hasn't progressed in weeks. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 15:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wolverine X-eye, I don't think thats what they are saying. Like RfC's, any proposals should be opened for more than 7 days. This one has only been open for 4 days. This doesn't give enough time to get enough WP:CONSENSUS on the merge, even if everyone agreed to it. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 21:24, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cowboygilbert: So what should I do now? Wait until the discussion is a week old? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 11:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wolverine X-eye:, Yes. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 17:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cowboygilbert: It's now 7 days... Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 14:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: You still interested in closing this? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 04:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a priority, given all the much older discussions here. I'll get to this eventually, or maybe someone else before me. In the meantime, please be patient. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Quick stats on salted pages

Did a count earlier today, and we have a grand total of 35,613 create-protected (salted) pages across all namespaces on the English Wikipedia. Does anyone aside from myself seem that this number is a big high as far as openness is concerned?

Not to say that we should unsalt all of them, as quite a few of them are justified. However, we could likely do without quite a few of them at this point. --MuZemike 22:20, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I guess we could rank them by protection start date? Also, we should focus on the article namespace, really. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 22:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how start date is going to be particularly relevant in a lot of cases. Obscene or attacking page names will never be appropriate, while by the same token something that was aalted lad week because someone was recreating it could have become more notable in the meantime. I definitely agree that namespace should be used in prioritizing any review. Articles of potentially notable topics are a more pressing matter than WP space pages that wee salted for whatever reason. Any guess what the number of actual salted articles is? Beeblebrox (talk) 22:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the number seems a bit high to me also. I think it would be helpful to have some kind of mechanism for periodically reviewing salted pages. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 23:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Lol, WP:BAMBI, I'd forgotten about that. There should be some fun trips down memory lane looking through Special:ProtectedTitles. Tarc (talk) 00:44, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It's reassuring to note that MASSIVE C*CK is fully protected. 86.148.65.105 (talk) 03:18, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

List created

I've created a list of ~450 articles as a test. I'm sure there were good reasons for protecting these at the time, but I can't see how keeping these "whack a mole" protections protected is really useful today (I filtered out the obviously bad titles). If no-one objects, I'll unprotect them, and then we can monitor Special:RecentChangesLinked/User:Jarry1250/unprotect (I take full responsibility for this). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:49, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to unprotect them I suggest you do it on a case-by-case basis. Unprotecting titles of non-notable people repeatedly created years ago won't do any harm and might help, but no good can possibly come from unprotecting List of faggots. Hut 8.5 15:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, missed that one. Please remove any you notice from the list, I've already removed quite a few. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 20:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see what the point of this exercise is. If time has moved on, and it's now appropriate that an article be created under a salted name, someone is going to try to create it and get the error message and they're going to come here and ask for the create-protection to be removed. If an admin agrees, they'll open it for creation, and all is well with the world. What is the need for going through the list now, when the reasons they were salted at the time may not be intuitively obvious to someone just walking through a list? Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:07, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I just wander how nice you feel to make some Xmas gifts to some stalker, impostors, vandals etc. You unprotected today e.g. Jan Koukal (Infomat) and Jan Koukal (reconcilee) - obviously without thinking about it, without asking at the admin who protected it time ago for the reasons. Shit, just by a chance I saw it. This is my real name which was vandalized hundred times in the past by some guys from another project. There are some dozens of other pages with my name protected by Mike Rosoft. One of the guys who has been renamed several times is still editing somewhere in wikipedia and I have no time to check such pages every day. Please protect again and make some survey next time. Thanks. All the best for 2012. -jkb- (talk) 22:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry for any damage caused. I'm slightly concerned, however, that we're relying on create protection for anything. If you look down the list, it's one long survey of why create protection doesn't work: the vandal just moves onto a different title. And then another, and then another. And then ten more. When it comes to determined abuse, unfortunately, salting simply doesn't work.

To answer BMK, the point of this exercise is that having pages in the article namespace that were temporarily the subject of repeated creation indefinitely fully-protected hurts the encyclopedia. Many of these titles could be perfectly good redirects or stubs, and yet we're preventing people from creating them. And at the same time, it makes me deeply unhappy that the encyclopedia that anyone can supposedly edit, people can't edit for 22,000 pages.

I will say though, mea culpa, I had not considered the "stalker" and "impostor" angles here, and for that I am sorry. I hope we can work to reprotect those where the potential damage is higher than I had considered. I did, however, watchlist every single one of my unprotections, and would have (and will) reprotected them at sight had anyone take advantage of an unprotection. I have also not moved to unprotect and pages outside the main namespace, or those who by virtue of their title alone would cause offence. Of those remaining, I still feel that unprotection is the best step in 99%+ of cases; of course, having read what you write, however, I shall not move to unprotect any more in the immediate future so we can discuss this. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 22:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, another thought: instead of unprotecting further articles, we could merely commute their protection down to, say, 2 weeks. That would potentially allow editors more time to correct errors before unprotection cuts in. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 23:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Jarry, indead, sometimes I really wonder what's on with the en.wiki. Does it hurt somebody when a page is protected? Is it worth the energy to search for the pages and to discus it and to unprotect them? If somebody wants to edit the page, so - see Beyond My Ken above - he/she will be able toask here for the unprotection. But mostly the protections had a sense and a reason. So let it be. We really do not have such problems on dewiki. Regards, -jkb- (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

And, please, protect the two mentioned pages. Thanks. -jkb- (talk) 23:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

@Jarry1250: This is a solution in search of a problem. You are setting the evalauation of a single admin or a small group of admins above the decisions made over the years by hundreds of other admins in response to specific problems that you have no information about. Please just leave well enough alone, the project is in no respect harmed by having these pages create-protected, as I have explained. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:06, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That's your perspective. Needless to say, good-faith newbies seeking to create articles under protected titles will be unaware of WP:RFUP and likely driven away as a result. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 10:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Seconded (and jkb, reprotected). Also, I respectfully disagree with your analysis BMK. Indefinite salt protection was only desired by the protecting admin here in a very, very small number of cases (and should be reapplied where appropriate). Most just wanted the repeated creation to go away, and that would have been equally served by a short protection. Note that of my unprotections so far, most were originally listed in the old form, which, as I recall, had no option *for expiry* at all. So it's hardly fair to say that admins intended indefinite semi- [EDIT: create-]protection. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 10:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC) edited 10:55, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thx for reprotection. All the best for 2012, -jkb- (talk) 12:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with BMK that this is a solution in search of a problem, although periodically reviewing some of these salts might be a good idea. Pages that needed to be salted in 2005 might not have the same problems today. And I think reviewing it by protect date makes the most sense. A little common sense should be sufficient in 99% of these cases (as for the old pages). Perhaps any admin that unprotects a page can pledge to keep that page on their watch list for a year, to ensure no abuse (or perhaps compile a list so that others can check it for abuse). Shadowjams (talk) 22:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

How about we compile a list and unprotect the lot of them. I'll write a bot that checks the list daily for any recreates and notifies the protecting admin. -FASTILY ^{Happy 2012!!} 00:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I would support that. Maybe we do it on a small portion first as a test? And obviously it wouldn't include the obvious vandalism targets (there are some choice examples linked above) Shadowjams (talk) 01:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record - as of now, only 1 of the unSALTed titles has been created - Awkward Turtle, as a redirect to Awkward turtle. I think that this shows 2 things - that recreated pages can eventually be appropriate to create (and a new usr may be scared away if the first article (s)he tries to create happens to be a SALTed article where the only reason is "deprecating protected titles"); and that SALTing one title doesn't scare off anyone who really insists on creating the article - there are too many variations on an article title, and a bad-faith user will take adfvantage of these. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Two thoughts: firstly, I would resuggest a preference for a protection commutation to say, two weeks, over outright unprotection. Secondly, I would also consider filtering by reason, where the reason was one from the dropdown. Repeated recreation vs harassment, as above. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 13:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Filtering by reason is fine, although I don't think that's easy to do. But 2 weeks of unprotection serves almost no purpose. The odds of a legitimate article being created within that window are minuscule, and the odds that a popular vandalism target gets recreated are much higher. Unprotecting of long stale pages with no obvious abuse potential is fine so long as they're monitored, imho. As a bit of an aside, this notion that new users are turned off by protected pages is an overblown concern... more of a foil for unprotecting. Concerns about "biting" new users is an argument that gets trotted out a lot in these discussions without any real analysis or thought about whether or not it actually turns users off (not to mention a lack of discussion about all the readers that are turned off by vandalism/poorly written pages, etc.). Shadowjams (talk) 22:47, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, I think you misunderstood my suggestion, which was to reduced the protection length from indefinite to two weeks, not (as you mention) unprotecting for two weeks (quite the reverse, indeed). - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 23:25, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• - Some article titles are salted as a result of consensus at AFD discussions and I don't think these should be unprotected without very good reason. I also think this is a waste of time. Leave them protected, users will request unprotected it they want to . Discussion has only been going on for a few days and attack titles have already been unprotected. There is not even a consensus here in this discussion that it is a worthwhile or good idea. - Youreallycan (talk) 22:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Firstly, I would say that it is entirely unclear to me that inexperienced users would apply for unprotection especially for example merely to create a useful redirect; and, secondly, I did try to avoid attack titles (I think only 2 have been pointed out so far?), and, as highlighted above, if I did any more I would allow two weeks for protection to be reapplied if need be. I do agree, however, that there does not seem to be an overwhelming consensus at this moment in time for further mass unprotections without further discussion; and I also agreedd above that filtering by reason might be an idea for new protections. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 23:25, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Re. Fastily and scaring away new users, could we not just edit e.g. MediaWiki:Protectedtitles-summary, MediaWiki:Cantmove-titleprotected, MediaWiki:Protectedpagemovewarning or MediaWiki:Protectedpagewarning to include a link to WP:RFUP? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 09:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

But WP:RFUP is bound to be scary to newcomers. Editing any page to request anything is going to put them off contributing at all IMHO, certainly to create useful redirects, etc. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 20:45, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, dare I say editors who are that new and unaware of the ways of Wikipedia probably shouldn't be starting articles in the first place. I think we're bending over backwards here to accommodate something that we would be better off allowing to be a bit difficult. There is definitely a learning curve to Wikipedia, and we really shouldn't be making it easier for people to drive a car when they're still learning how to walk. "The encyclopedia anyone can edit" doesn't necessarily mean "The encyclopedia where anyone can create a new article without knowing what they're doing." Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:15, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, sure, I wasn't referring to complete newbies - if you recall, the community is keen to try effectively semi-salting all titles - but part-timers, semi-active editors and basically everyone else who could write a decent article can't cba going through and unfamiliar RFUP - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 00:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I would argue that any admin unilaterally unprotecting hundreds/thousands of article needs to beblocked immediately and summarily considered for de-adminship. This is one admin literally saying that they can unilaterally undo the edits of another admin without first consulting them, without asking the community...without even doing research into finding out why the problem existed in the first place. This is no different than saying "I see about 10000 editors indefinitely blocked back in 2005...let's try unblocking them and see what's the worst that could happen." And saying that RFUP is hard is no different than saying that emailing the unblock email address is hard. Now, if Jarry1250 wants to contact all of the protecting admins, and, if those admins aren't around, bring each individual article to RFUP for a second/third opinion, then maybe, fine. This hasn't actually been started yet, has it? Qwyrxian (talk) 13:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Qwyrxian. A quite significant number of the apparently "whack-a-mole" protections are either attempts to prevent abusive edits, or there to prevent indefatigable article-spammers from recreating repeatedly deleted articles under other names. A link to RFUP from the protection notice is the way to go. If these articles are to be unprotected, you should attempt to contact the blocking admins first, and at the very least read the blocking admin's comments before unprotecting. I also agree with Qwyrxian about blocking and possible de-sysopping if this carries on without first gaining community consensus. As a first measure to prevent this, could you please re-protect all the pages that you have de-protected? -- The Anome (talk) 13:33, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Use of content on user pages

I am aware that a user here created at least one and possibly many articles in his namespace which are considerably better than the corresponding articles actually in article space (which he has also worked on). Having created them, the user has now requested the pages be deleted, and this has been done. My question is whether it is proper to delete useful content, which has been written and donated under the relevant licence? If not, should the request to delete have been refused, or the pages transferred elsewhere? It struck me that the correct thing to do would have been to place them somewhere to be merged into the official articles. Is he entitled to withdraw the content? From his website elsewhere, I understand it is his intention to publish a book. Sandpiper (talk) 23:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Meh. I'm not much into forcing people to do things. WP:CSD#U1 allows users to request deletion of their own userpage and user subpages. If you wish to improve the articles at Wikipedia so they are as good as what was deleted in that user's namespace, I don't think anyone here would dream of stopping you. --Jayron32 00:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

With the exception of G9, G10, and G12, it says admins may delete, not must delete. Even if it meets the U1 criterion, it doesn't mean you have to delete it; you could, if you so desire, find someplace else to hold it while you work on incorporating it into the mainspace articles, then do a histmerge or whatever attribution technique you're inclined to use. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. We are not forced to delete anything. No admin is required to use their tools anymore than any human is required to edit Wikipedia. This is a volunteer website. --Jayron32 01:15, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

There were a few times when I, using my admin judgement, declined speedy deletions which were technically according to policy. However, I wouldn't extend this to U1 unless the material is either talk page history, or it is clear and significant evidence about a user's behavior. However, if you want a copy of these pages e-mailed to you, just ask any of these admins. You may subsequently incorperate it into any relevant Wikipedia article assuming you follow all other policies and give this user credit. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:12, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Not only may you improve the articles, you may request undeletion of the material, in order to merge it yourself with the proper attribution. The licensing under CC-BY is irrevocable, and applies to everything written here. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

External link now generating browser security issues

The site mag4you.com linksearch is used 86 times as an external link. At meta there is a request to blacklist the site due to browser/security warnings. At this point this is only an issue affecting enWP, so it would seem appropriate that the action is taken here, rather than globally. Someone who is clueful about security warnings should recommend on the severity of the incident and whether we need to blacklist the site and remove/nullify all local external links. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Community ban proposal: User:Malcolm

Fine, forget it. You lot seem to think it's perfectly okay that an admin can engage in abusive behaviour and as long as he offers some mealy-mouthed apology all is forgiven. That is obvious unmitigated horseshit, and you wonder why people think admins get away with whatever they want. For fuck's sake. → ROUX ₪ 01:49, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed by Roux. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed by Roux. Please do not modify it.
Malcolm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Per this, User:Malcolm has been engaging in abusive sockpuppetry to vandalize and hurt the project. It was egregious enough that his admin bit has been removed. Repeating for emphasis: his admin rights were removed. There is not one good reason to allow him back in two weeks when his block is up. This should be a permanent ban; he abused the trust of the community willingly and with malice aforethought. → ROUX ₪ 14:11, 2 January 2012 (UTC) I see you failed to notify Malcolm, as you are required to do - I've notified him now -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose - ArbCom's decision was "As a personal CheckUser action, in consultation with other members of the CheckUser team, I have blocked the master account, Malcolm (talk · contribs) for two weeks. This is in keeping with usual practices for first time socking by an established user, and reflects the seriousness of the disruption". That seems about right to me - we don't issue a community ban the first time we find someone socking. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Just to note, as the blocking CheckUser/Admin, this was indeed my own block; it is not an Arbcom block. The Arbitration Committee end of this issue was the decision to desysop. Risker (talk) 16:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose - the question is, is he likely to go back to sockpuppetry if we don't ban him? I have a good reason to think the answer is no; we should give him one more chance. Loosing his admin bit (probably permanently) is probably enough to teach him his lesson. Note he is restricted to one account. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose I trust in the sincerity of his apology. While his actions are serious, I think we can avoid a ban by just saying he lost his damned mind for a minute but should be on the straight and narrow now.--v/r - TP 15:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose per the humility and sincerity in his apology. Now if only all such matters can be resolved this amicably. -- œ™ 16:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose and unblock now as he's learned his lesson - so far as I can see, vandalism was not malicious, just a bit silly. I bet at least half the regular contributors here have vandalised at least as much as that. There but by the grace of god and all that... Egg Centric 16:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC) In fact I am tempted to nominate him for RFA again in a fortnight. Who will !vote support with me? On consideration, probably not many people - can't be seen to encourage this kind of thing blah de blah - same reason politicians end up in jail for life under their own insane sentencing policies for stealing a lollipop as they had to be "tough on crime", er, wait, am I ramblingg? Egg Centric 17:02, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Egg Centric, he created nine sockpuppets, spread across two months and at least three separate editing sessions. Even if we assume that half our regular contributors have engaged in vandalism – an assumption about our editors' childishness and poor judgement that I don't think is warranted – I would be deeply disturbed if it were to the extent demonstrated here. If you have gone to such lengths to vandalize Wikipedia after establishing your account, let us know so that we can block you now. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Why does it matter if he had nine? There is no difference between two (illicit) sockpuppets and nine sockpuppets. I also see things like redirecting a gazillion pages to Gary Coleman as basically all the same edit. Reasonable minds can disagree. And the fact that the sessions were spread out over months is probably a good thing... just letting out a pressure valve or something, rather than a dedicated campaign. I should note for the sake of completeness that I haven't looked at all his edits as I am too lazy, and don't know what he has done that has been deleted, not being an admin (although, time to shameless plug this since I'm on the noticeboard: Click here)... but that probably doesn't matter. Anyway, I will say this: one would be insane to accept his apology. If you feel that his offence was so bad, you should indef block him (banning doesn't seem right). One doesn't suddenly realise the error of ones ways when one is caught, especially since the socks had been blocked! Egg Centric 17:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC) I don't think that "seeing the error in his ways" is necessary - it's enough that hhe understands that no usage of alternate acounts on his part will be tolerated. The lesson he's learned is that if he socks, he'll be caught and blocked; that lesson is enough to give him a second chance, in my opinion. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:49, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Oppose ban, but let the two-week block run, and note that this individual is very much on a short one-strike-and-he's-out leash with regard to future disruption. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC) "blocks are not punitive" Someone in Malcolm's position understands precisely what he did wrong. The blocking policy accepts that blocks can be made for a deterrent effect - but isn't the de-sysopping enough in that respect? It's far more of a deterrent than a block, I should think. So what rationale does that leave for this block, if blocks are not punitive? I don't see that disruption will be any different whether there is a block or not. Sending a message? Oh, come on! In my view it just harms the encyclopaedia. Egg Centric 21:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• I just want to get my sentiments in before this discussion is shut down for good; I was drafting a comment earlier today, but didn't have enough time to post it. I have to agree with Roux here. As much as I would like to accept Malcolm's apology, I can't say that I feel completely comfortable doing so. Nine socks make a pretty big drawer, and the fact the puppetmaster was an admin makes it even worse. Quoting Roux's proposal: "[Malcolm] abused the trust of the community willingly and with malice aforethought." We've banned admins for socking before (I think the most recent case was Altenmann). Granted, Malcolm did something that those admins didn't (as far as I am aware); he did apologize. Now, do I think it was a non-apology apology? No, or at least I don't want to; but maybe "sorry" doesn't cut it here. Apology or no apology, such gratuitous abuse of trust warrants a community ban. Sorry, Malcolm. --Dylan620 ^{(I'm all ears)} 02:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh look another prematurely closed discussion. 5 people show up quickly and we call it? Please. abusive socking pretty much always leads to an indefinite block.--Crossmr (talk) 02:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The discussion was closed by the user who opened it [1]. –xeno^talk 13:45, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It is actually a bit more complex - on the plus side, his second RfA garnered alot of support and his friendliness was seen as a plus to the community. On the minus side, one block seemed to concern a wipe (instantaneously reverted) of the main page

[2]

Anyway. I think folks need to have a think. My impression is that it was silly rather than malicious, but a fuller picture might help folks think about this a bit more. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:26, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Malcolm (talk · contribs)

Malcolm has asked me to post this Egg Centric 12:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC):

I understand why some of the editors at AN want me banned. If I were an uninvolved party observing actions like mine from an admin, I would probably, at first instinct, want the user banned. However, I think that your (Egg Centric's) point about blocks not being punitive is vital: although I may be deserving of a punishment, that would go against the function of blocking. Blocks exist to prevent damage, not to punish. I gave the community my word that I would no longer engage in vandalism, and I see little potential harm in allowing me to continue to edit after two weeks. If I go against my word, then I'll be easily caught and banned. Simple as that.

I've noticed that, inevitably, some editors doubt the sincerity of my apology. That is a perfectly logical reaction, and there's obviously nothing I can say to convince them otherwise. Again, though, the issue shouldn't be whether I'm actually sorry, but whether the encyclopedia will be harmed further when my editing privileges return to me. I assure you that it won't. You've all seen from my prior edits that I was only a legitimate editor up until a short while ago; I don't think it would be outlandish to assume that I'll be a legitimate editor from here on.

If anyone has any further questions for me about this, please don't hesitate to email me.

Request to Link Protected Page

Hi,

Hope this is the correct place.

I've edited the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_prerendered_backgrounds

In order to add a missing Playstation (PS1) title which is called Hard Edge (Japanese title) (or T.R.A.G. - american title): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Edge

Tried to link the page with redirect, but page is blocked from vandalism.

Could the two pages be linked please; from above game title? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chojin1980 (talk • contribs) 14:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Backlog at RPP

Hi guys, there's a bit of a backlog at WP:RPP, can somebody take a look please? Thanks, GiantSnowman 16:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Unacceptable POV pushing by User:Plot Spoiler

Before any edit war starts, that can get me banned, I wish to seek involvement of administrators in what I see as a serious issue of bias and double standards on such an unacceptable level, by a user named Plot Spoiler, who, BTW, is in violation of the 3RR with this edit. The dispute evolves around a raid carried out by Iraqi security forces against the Mujahedin-e Khalq terrorist group. Referring to a raid by American, British, French, or Israeli forces against a group such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban or Hamas, in which only members of this terrorist organisation were killed, as a "massacre" or a "mass-muder" would be completely unacceptable (and I there is not one example of such labeling in Wikipedia) and thus the same standards should be applied to a terrorist group that targets Iranians and Iraqis. He also insists on removing the sourced fact that the group is designated as a terrorist organisation by Iran, Iraq and the United States from the beginning of the article, and as I said, he is in violantion of the 3RR. Looking at the category page "Category:Mass murder in 2011" you can also see that the articles listed are soley terrorist attacks/bombings or random civilian shootings, not a single article about a government raid against a militant/insurgent group is listed in there and if we look at "Category:Massacres in Iraq," we can see the Iraqi security forces raid against the terrorist camp is equally out of place. It is clear the user in question will not compromise or let necessary edits be done and therefore I will not touch the article as to prevent and edit war, and instead call on administrators need to intervene.Kermanshahi (talk) 19:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Given that "A series of consecutive saved revert edits by one user with no intervening edits by another user counts as one revert", PS has only did 3 reverts (if even that many) in the past 24 hours. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

OP is forum shopping. GiantSnowman 20:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Even if so (and I don't recall seeing that exception ont he 3rr page), the problem still remains.Kermanshahi (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I have notified the user about these threads. GiantSnowman 20:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The article says that the Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee called the incident a "massacre". So it is hard to characterise Plot Spoiler's edits as outrageous POV pushing. Nor has there been a 3RR violation. So this one will need to be worked out through the usual dispute resolution mechanisms, and there appears to be no case for administrator intervention at this stage. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:45, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

That is a very disputed claim, and as we see it does not fit into the massacres category article if compared to any of the massacres listed there.Kermanshahi (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

So work out the dispute. Adding the article to the massacres category is not something in respect of which an admin can take action: it's not plainly wrong and there's been no revert-rule violation. Unfortunately admins can't give content rulings one way or the other. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

In this case mediation is definetly needed, otherwise this will turn into an edit war. He is going to continue reverting and then I'll get banned for edit warring, that's why I reported before hand to see some usefull intervention so the issue can be resolved.Kermanshahi (talk) 21:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

RPP backlog

There is a sort of a backlog at WP:RPP.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Need help moving page

Hello. I want to move 2011 Los Angeles arson spree to 2011–12 Los Angeles arson attacks but the latter already exists. So after a discussion, I redirected the latter so I could move the first page because I thought I could move over redirects. Is that ability reserved for admins or do I just have to nominate the other page for A10 and then move? Thanks, BCS (Talk) 22:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Possible COI and other issues on Thomas Edsall

I just noticed a couple things on the Thomas Edsall article. First the editor making changes appears to be the individual and there may be some Conflict of Interest issues. Second, the User name they are using contains an EMAIL address against our policy. --Kumioko (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I've flat out reverted the edits he made.—Ryulong (竜龙) 00:00, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Great thanks, I woulda done it myself but as a non admin reverting 15 edits might seem a little wrong to some folks. --Kumioko (talk) 00:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Not at all. However, you did not notify the editor of this thread, so I would suggest doing that.—Ryulong (竜龙) 00:18, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I would be happy too. I would have done that but since the username also violates our Username policy I didn't know if it would be deleted. I'll leave a message there momentarily. --Kumioko (talk) 00:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Edmund Grey and Maria Santos

Edmund Grey and Maria Santos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article has revisions that were re-creations of portions of the deleted article per WP:Articles for deletion/List of miscellaneous All My Children couples. The first version was created by the sockpuppet of Dane97, Blue Dog97. I don't know how older revisions contain a deletion portion, but I tried speedy deletion proposal and Redirect for discussion. I hope this works. --George Ho (talk) 01:28, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure which revisions you want redacted; obviously the first one, but the two after that before it was directed as well? I guess that would fall under RD5 (G4 covers this), so I'm not unwilling to do it, but I want to make sure I'm getting all the right revisions. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Do I have to give you specific ones? Obviously, the first because of sockpuppetry. The ones with each more than 10,000 bytes fall under RD5; hopefully, no need to tell you which. The rest you can leave alone. --George Ho (talk) 06:02, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Topic ban for User:Abdelhamidelsayed

Abdelhamidelsayed (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

User:Abdelhamidelsayed is a single purpose account who pushes a very particular point of view in all his edits. This is not speculation on my part, the editor declares as much on his user page:

Abd Elhamid Elsayed or exactly Abd Elhamid Mahmoud Abd Elhamid Elsayed Habsa is an egyptian citizen born the 13 july 1952 in the village of Kafr Elbagour - Menoufia - Egypt , and living in USA. My main mission is to show the whole world that Halayeb (Hala'ib) triangle is egyptian. All the maps circulating worldwide showing Halayeb triangle as disputed territory should be disposed. A true researcher has in the world wide web an enormous source of information and could find by himself all the historic facts about the egyptian claims to the triangle to be true. A lot of historic maps do show the triangle to be egyptian , none of them has showed it to be not egyptian.

To further his "mission" the editor has been editing the article Hala'ib Triangle, and other, related, articles, for several years now. Practically every edit made has been in furtherance of this mission to show that the Triangle (which is disputed between Egypt and Sudan) is Egyptian. Conversations have been ongoing with the editor for a long time, pointing out that because he has a declared point of view, his edits are subject to particular scrutiny, and that if wants to edit the article (which he actually probably shouldn't be doing at all), he must use the best possible reliable sources, which must be in English so that other editors can evaluate them. On this particular subject, he cannot be afforded the normal good faith shown to other editors, because of his declared POV mission. [3][4][5][6][7][8]

Despite this long-running conversation, the editor continues to edit without citing source, or cites sources which do not support the facts they are intended to, or cites sources in Arabic which cannot be evaluated by the vast majority of Wikipedia's editors. Over the years, I have tried to be as patient as possible with this editor, but it's just gone on too long now -- clearly User:Abdelhamidelsayed has little interest in following our policies, and wishes to edit in furtherance of his "main mission" regardless.

I would like to propose a topic ban:

User:Abdelhamidelsayed is indefinitely topic banned from editing any Wikipedia article about or related to the Hala'ib Triangle, broadly construed. He may, however, suggest edits on the talk pages of those articles.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I have notified the editor in question. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, when I told the editor that if he continued I would bring his behavior to the attention of the notice boards, his response was:

do what you want to do , i am ready to fight - happy new year - and hala'ib is still under the egyptian army control and whatever you write here in wikipedia will not change one sand on the soil

indicating not only his willingness to see Wikipedia as a battleground, but also his attachment to the Egyptian claim over the Triangle. (I have no dog in that fight, never having heard of the Hala'ib Triangle before this editor's behavior drew me in to it.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support - as nom. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
• please see NameIn arabic Wikipedia the name is حلايب not حلائب (notice the hamza).--ZealousGnome (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdelhamidelsayed (talk • contribs)
• i provided a SUDANESE GOVERNMENTAL WEBSITE in arabic to show my claims of the correct name in arabic which is حلايب because the user beyond my ken thinks of wikipedia to be an unreliable source which he wrote in the page of the revision history of hala'ib triangle , how can anyone find a english page that corrects an arabic name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdelhamidelsayed (talk • contribs) 04:24, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
  • <sigh> The last comment was made not in reference to BMK's proposal here but in reference to an editing dispute. Please see BMK's talk page for details and for my assessment. Let me add that the editor has a limited grasp of English, which is readily apparent, and something of a battleground mentality. I do believe, however, that what may have prompted the note here may be a misunderstanding over the editing of a word in the article, حلايب. Again, see BMK's talk page. I have suggested to BMK, who notified me a few days ago, that they see how it goes with this editor and that they seek something like this here if trouble continues. I am not sure, though, if this here is really trouble. My apologies to BMK, who is a longtime friend by now, if it seems that I'm advocating for the often querulous editor--I am probably doing so because their English is not really great. Please let it be clear also that I have no opinion on the content of the article; I know very little about the subject matter. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
  • NOTE to Abdel: It seems you do not realize what is going on here. You are not asked to defend this edit--your capability to be a neutral editor on this topic is in question. Drmies (talk) 04:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
    • @Drmies: The final straw doesn't have to weigh all that much. Dealing with the editor for years has been like Chinese water torture for me. If you haven't done so already, a read of his talk page is instructive. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Oh, I've seen it, and I have seen the article history. If I were you, I'd stop looking at it and watch the fourth quarter of the Fiesta Bowl--much less headache-inducing. Drmies (talk) 04:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
        • As usual, you are right -- it's on right in front of me, and I've been ignoring it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

RFC needs closing, please

Can an uninvolved admin close this please? Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#RFC_on_Recognizability_guideline_wording

Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 05:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)