Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive50

Administrators' noticeboard/Archive50

Sockpuppet block of User:Professor33

I have indefintely blocked User:Professor33 as a sockpuppet of blocked user User:Giovanni33. I have also extended User:Giovanni33's block to 1 week for repeated 3RR and for using a sock. Rationale behind the sock:

1. Usernames.
2. Edit pattern. I blocked Giovanni @ 16:22, June 29, 2006 for violating 3rr [1]. At 16:25 Professor comes in and reverts to Giovanni's preferred version diff.
3. They edit similar articles in similar ways. Special:Contributions/Giovanni33 , Special:Contributions/Professor33

Professor has indicated that he is not a sock [2] and that he intends to mail admins about the issue [3]. I'm bringing it here for full disclosure and review.

Wikibofh_(talk) 17:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've reviewed checkuser evidence in this matter and I do not believe that there is any sockpuppetry going on. The secondary evidence is also weak. I strongly urge an unblock and an apology. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Kelly, there is extremely strong linguistic evidence, combined with the fact the we know that Giovanni has a record of using puppets, and there is a long history of new users turning up, supporting Giovanni, reverting to his version, following him from one page to another, and using the same linguistic idiosyncrasies. I will e-mail you the linguistic evidence. Obviously, I do not want to make it available in public, as that will alert him to what he should avoid with future puppets. The admin who blocked was not aware of the linguistic evidence, at the time of blocking, though I have since e-mailed some of it (not all, as I was changing from one computer to another). Deskana and some other admins are also aware of it. I will also post a fuller statement here when I get time. I would urge that nobody consider unblocking without reviewing the evidence, which I am willing to e-mail to any administrator on request. When he first arrived at Wikipedia, he did not know about userchecks. Now that he does know (having been caught out after putting on a pretence of not knowing BelindaGong, while she was following him around, reverting aggressively to his version, taking advantage of our reluctance to report new users), he is unlikely to make that particular mistake again. By the way, Giovanni is claiming on his user page that I'm not a linguist, and don't have any degrees in lingsuitics yet. I'm also willing to e-mail evidence of my bachelor's and master's degrees and several diplomas in language studies and linguistics. AnnH ♫ 08:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

AnnH is entirely correct that the linguistic evidence alone strongly indicates that these posts, as well as those of MikaM, Kecik, etc., propagate from one real-world user. Please do accept her offer of e-mailing the details. Combine this with the editing patterns, and the presumption of reasonable doubt is no longer tenable.Timothy Usher 08:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Giovanni also claims that he's never used sockpuppets before. To be frank I'm getting sick of cases like this. It's clear that at the very least Professor33 is a meatpuppet, due to certain things which I've observed which cannot be just random chance. I refer to the evidence that AnnH speaks of. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS} 08:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this block as well. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I also endorse this block. I stumbled across this incident via IRC and upon looking at both accounts contributions, it seems evident to me that both accounts are being controlled by the same person per the extremely similar writing styles and tone hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 10:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

While we're at it, can we also indef block puppets User:MikaM and User:Kecik, to whom all these lines of evidence equally apply? I have no problem with this user editting Wikipedia, so long as he sticks to one username.Timothy Usher 10:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not endorse this block. Kelly Martin has performed the checkuser and there is little solid evidence (read: something that you can prove) to that these two are related. Professor33 sent me a polite e-mail last night asking for help in this matter, and I agreed to look in to it. In addition to the checkuser showing negative results, the "linguistic evidence" that was used was sketchy at best. I am not convinced that these two are the same. I am going to look into this further, but I am heavily leaning towards unblocking this user. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 13:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the e-mail that I sent to Professor33 in response to the e-mail he sent me. I will not post the e-mail he sent me unless he gives me permission to do so. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 13:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Eugene,

First off, I would like to note that a "CheckUser" has been performed on both your account and 
Giovanni33's account. The results were not similar at all, so there is very little "solid" evidence
that you and Giovanni are one in the same. If you wish to provide further evidence of who you are, 
such as some type of identification, feel free to email me and I will forward it as necessary.

Secondly, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a devout Christian. That, however, does not 
affect how I edit articles. I intentionally avoid most Christianity-related articles, and therefore 
I can not say anything one way or the other in regards to any Christian-focused cliques, extreme or
otherwise.

Reviewing your edits, I must say that you could have made better usage of the talk pages. When I say 
"better usage", I am refering to the multiple reverts that have taken place. It appears that you 
have been involved in a few edit wars which could be viewed as disruptive. Although you are probably 
not connected to Giovanni, edit wars are bad. Try to seek a clear consensus before doing something 
that a number of people disagree with. If this fails, I suggest that you seek mediation. Also, don't 
be afraid to walk away from an article for a while. If you let things cool down a bit, you'll find 
that people are easier to deal with.

At this point, I will suggest that you are unblocked pending any concrete evidence of sockpuppetry. 
My suggestion is to tread lightly when you are unblocked, and do not be afraid to ask for advice 
and/or help if and when you find yourself in a dispute.

If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me.

Regards,
Alex Schenck
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Linuxbeak

Hello, Linuxbeak. First of all, I wonder what you mean by saying that "the [checkuser] results were not similar at all". Have you seen the checkuser results? I thought only people with usercheck privileges saw checkuser results, and Kelly didn't say that they "weren't similar at all". She said she did "not believe that there is any sockpuppetry going on". She didn't say that they were in completely different areas. I never expected Giovanni to be caught a second time with a checkuser — he knows about it now. He didn't know at the time when he either registered a second account as BelindaGong or got his wife to join in order to get an extra three or more (often more, as we didn't want to report newcomers) reverts per day, and to follow him around, support him on talk pages, and vote on issues he was voting on. Do the checkuser results show that it's so far away that it couldn't be his work address, or another place that he drives to in the morning? The receent pattern has been that the last edit as Giovanni33 each morning is around the time that he would be leaving the house for work (according to his time zone), and then Professor33 logs on about an hour or two later, logs off around the time that he'd be finishing work, if he's in Giovanni's time zone, and doesn't edit at weekends. Giovanni then logs on as Giovanni33 around the time that he'd be getting home from work, and then edits in the evening and the night. Also, if his story that Freethinker99 is a separate person is true, we know that he's capable of getting a friend to join in order to revert to his version (which is still a violation of WP:SOCK. When he accidentally signed while logged on as Freethinker, he claimed that he was over at his place, and was showing him how to use Wikipedia (i.e. showing Freethinker how to revert to Giovanni's version while Giovanni was blocked).

Secondly, what do you mean when you say, "The linguistic evidence that was used was sketchy at best"? The linguistic evidence has not been made public, and can't be, as it would alert Giovanni to idiosyncrasies that he should avoid in future, so how can you know that it's sketchy? I will e-mail you the evidence if you send me an e-mail requesting it — on condition, of course, that it is not made available to anyone other than an administrator. Please note that Giovanni has a history of puppetry, gross violations of 3RR (I mean REALLY gross violations, continuing defiantly after warnings — on one occasion making 11 reverts within 19 hours, despite warnings — not the kind of accidental fourth reverts that could happen to anyone), and gaming the system, taking advantage of our reluctance to report a newcomer; and that several new users have started reverting to his version and supporting him on talk pages straight after registering.

Please note, as well, that Giovanni publicly acknowledges his IP, and on any occasion when one of the suspected puppets made a not-logged-on edit and acknowledged it, it was always geographically close. Please see also Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Giovanni33 and Talk:Christianity/Archive_24. Also, when he was blocked after the BelindaGong puppetry was revealed (they had put up an active pretence of not knowing each other while she was reverting to his version and following him to different pages, voting for what he wanted), Freethinker99 (talk · contribs) arrived at the Christianity, talk page, said he was new but had read the talk page and agreed with Giovanni (first edit)[4] and then reverted back to Giovanni's version (second edit).[5] He was asked to review WP:SOCK, and said, "I have. Thanks."[6] Giovanni was asked on his talk page (the only page he could edit) to state frankly whether or not he had any connection with any of the new users who were reverting to his version, and he denied it — but forgot that he was logged on as Freethinker99![7] He then changed the signature[8] but we had already seen it.

Various explanations were given — he was married to Belinda, and had not wanted to make that public. He was a friend of Freethinker, and was at his house, showing him how to use Wikipedia. When he denied having any connection to any of the editors about whom he had been asked, he had not seen Freethinker's name, which had been added to the original question later, but had been on his talk page for fifty minutes when he answered, and was DIRECTLY above the first words of his denial while he was typing.

It is extremely disturbing that Kecik has 40 reverts to Giovanni33 out of a total of 45 article edits, that his seventh edit was a vote for something Giovanni wanted[9] at a page he'd be unlikely, as a new user, to find by chance (and he didn't have "e-mail this user" enable), and that he was here for nearly four months before he made his first edit to an article that Giovanni was not looking for support at (and then only after I had commented so many times on the pattern of his contributions) — and that nothing has been done about this. MikaM's contributions are similar — this vote is his/her sixth edit, and as with Kecik, e-mail was not enabled, and it's unlikely that a brand new user, who was supporting Giovanni at Christianity, would find that page just by chance.

And yes, I stand by the linguistic evidence linking Giovanni33 not just to Professor33 but also to eight other users. I strongly urge admins to e-mail me for the evidence before they consider unblocking. AnnH ♫ 14:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• I brought the block here so that it could be reviewed. Personally, I believe he's a sock, and don't have access to checkuser. Kelly and Linux are respected admins, and if someone decides to reverse the block I'm not going to be upset. However, even if User:Professor33 is unblocked, I do think that User:Giovanni33's block should stay, and have said so to him in reply to him via email. This was his 5th unique 3RR block by 5 different admins. [10] and perhaps a week will be a wakeup call. I considered a WP:RFCU, but the notices at the top gave me the indication that I should not do that given the evidence I had. If people are interested in the emails I have sent to both the Professor and Giovanni, I will happily post them, but they don't say anything I haven't said in public. Wikibofh_(talk) 14:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have seen the checkuser evidence, and it's certainly not inconsistent with the idea that they are sockpuppets. Moreover, I've seen the other evidence as well, and some of it is quite compelling. Please remember that checkuser is not a magic crystal ball; it can certainly be helpful in proving or disproving sockpuppetry, but ultimately decisions about sockpuppeting are made the old-fashioned way. As has been the case in the past with Giovanni33, there's either standard sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry going on here, and the evidence indicates to me that it's far more likely that it's plain old sockpuppetry. In my view the block is justified. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Comparing the edits, it's clear to me that Professor33 is Giovanni33. The writing style, word choices, and habitual errors are all consistent. His timely arrival to support Giovanni just when he 'runs out' of reverts is icing on the cake. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:26, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly totally satisfied that they are sockpuppets, or perhaps meatpuppets. You can't really accuse me of sharing a Christian POV either. Although I attend a Catholic college and was born and raised a Catholic, I am most certainly an atheist. The linguistic evidence is far too compelling for it to not be a sockpuppetry case. --Lord Deskana ^{Dark Lord of YOUR OPINIONS} 22:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've seen the linguistic similiarities, which can't be made public, and it seems clear that the Giovanni and Professor accounts are connected. IP evidence is only ever a part of the total evidence, because people can use different IP addresses for different accounts, but the linguistic evidence would be hard to explain away. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur that User:Professor33 is a sockpuppet account of User:Giovanni33. This should be no surprise looking at the edits and the fact that Giovanni33 has used sockpuppet accounts in the past as in the case of User:BelindaGong, User:Freethinker99, User:HK30, User:Mercury2001 and User:MikaM. Those most familiar with editing patterns of articles are certainly able to be the best judge of similarity of edits in terms of word choices, POV and sudden appearances in the "nick of time" to avoid a three revert rule violation. Is there an Rfc on this matter yet? And if not, why not?--MONGO 17:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I endorse the block. It seems highly likely that User:Professor33 is a sockpuppet account, or at the very least a meatpuppet, of User:Giovanni33. I see no need for an Rfc if the block is upheld. If not, then an Rfc would be strongly indicated. Checkuser does not help with all socks - consider HollowW aka Eternal Equinox, who edits from a variety of IPs. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that Giovanni33 has evaded his block. He acknowledges in this section of his talk page that his IP is 64.121.40.153 (talk · contribs). That's a static IP. He acknowledged a recent post from that IP by logging on and replacing the signature as recently as 1 July.[11] On 3 July, while blocked for 3RR and sockpuppetry, he logged off as Giovanni33 (presumably the autoblock was cancelled at that stage), and made this post in defence of Alienus. In case anyone doubts that it's Giovanni, compare it with this, this, and this, where he comes to the defence of Alienus.

He was asked in this section if he had evaded his block. (Note that he had evaded it by using an IP on a project page.) He replied,

Since im blocked and I'm not supposed to edit any articles, I have not. Not even a single article even when I've run into several mistakes on a few of them. I've also not editing under any other usernames, have not edited any talk pages except my own, despite what you think. It that clear enough?

It's not the first time that Giovanni has evaded a 3RR/Sockpuppetry block. See the contributions of Freethinker99 (talk · contribs), especially this most significant one.

As I'm involved in a content dispute with Giovanni33, I'll leave if for other admins to decide how this should be dealt with. AnnH ♫ 03:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Since 64.121.40.153 (talk · contribs) is Gio's account, and since he used that IP to evade his block by making this edit 08:04, July 3, 2006, I have reset Giovanni33's 7-day block from that date, four days from today. -Will Beback 09:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And I have blocked user:64.121.40.153 for the same period. -Will Beback 10:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Giovanni33 has agreed to stay away from chritianity articles for the time being. As long as he does that I see no reason for further debate.Geni 14:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Satchel Cohen hoaxer

It looks like a ring of sockpuppets and hoax articles. List is being compiled on User:Tyrenius/Satchel Cohen hoaxer. It has been listed on Requests for investigation. Tyrenius 09:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have a problem with a slightly creative application of G3 (pure vandalism) here? Just zis Guy you know? 15:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Not I, especially since on AfD an avalanche of pure white snow is building against retention! - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

They're all starting to come up now on AfD with unanimous "delete", and, bearing in mind the background research into them, I don't think anyone is going to object. Tyrenius 16:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It is done. A Wikiquote admin will need to do the needful as well. Just zis Guy you know? 17:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. Thanks. Saves wasting any more time. I've left a message on Wikiquote. Will the sockpuppet aspect be dealt with via RFI? Tyrenius 17:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You want them blocked? I don't mind doing that. Just zis Guy you know? 09:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for swift and effective action. Tyrenius 03:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm really getting fed up of death threats now...

While the person in question is probably just trolling for a reaction, I have a right to be f**king pissed off with the sheer amount of death threats I've been receiving lately for being an admin on this site. This one is the most recent of a line of threats I have received. I would like to make an official report of it because I don't believe that kind of thing should be allowed. However aside from going the police who probably won't do anything anyway what can I do to follow this through and report this troll for threatening me? -- Francs2000 22:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it's bullshit. The IP tracks to Chicago, Illinois. Here's the IP provider:[12]--MONGO 22:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This seem to be happening more and more is it not? From the 8 months or so I have been on wikipedia this kind of stuff seems to become more common. (including the "outing" business recently). Which really is too bad. But besides reporting it to the ISP and perhaps the police, I don't see any other way. Garion96 ^(talk) 22:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's Chicago PD contact info. --Aude (talk contribs) 22:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the threat from Francs2000's talk page. Now can a developer deletethe offensive revisions from the text?? --Sunholm(talk) 22:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, a developer isn't required for that anymore. There are 17 users with the ability to hide revisions like this and they are listed here. --Woohookitty^(meow) 22:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you not do that for the moment please? I have emailed my friendly local copper with an enquiry as to what they can do about it, and so the entyr would need to remain for the time being so that they can see it. Many thanks for your message though. -- Francs2000 23:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Why would you "destroy the evidence"? Titoxd^(?!?) 22:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

People don't like stuff like that hiding in their talk page history. I say oversight it... but I guess what I think doesn't really matter. --Lord Deskana (talk) 23:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind it lurking there, and if I really had an objection to it as an admin I can get rid of it easily enough without poking oversight people with a stick. -- Francs2000 23:07, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for deleting it, I thought I was doing right. Sorry. Well, Libellous revisions were removed from GWB by developers. --Sunholm(talk) 23:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's still there in the page history. --Aude (talk contribs) 23:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Francs2000, I thought you were requesting it to be oversighted. Sorry, I misread it. Don't apologise Sunholm, you've got nothing to apologise for. Reverting it was the right thing to do. --Lord Deskana (talk) 23:11, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I am trying to help where I can. --Sunholm(talk) 23:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

My enquiry was ways that it could be reported, not "can someone please remove it"? It's an easy misunderstanding to make. -- Francs2000 23:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to take up dedicated responsibilities of contacting the ISPs of people who threaten physical harm to an admin. How this would work I'm not sure, but a go-to place for admins who feel threatened is needed. --mboverload@ 01:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Threatening death or rape is a felony in virtually all U.S. jurisdictions (and probably most other countries). This psychopath is hopefully only a slight physical threat to any Wikipedians but he is likely a dangerous presence in his local community. I doubt his antisocial behavior is or will always be confined to Wikipedia. Even if he never acts on threats, this behavior is chilling to people when made by someone locally -- that's why the law treats even threats of this sort as serious crimes. He should be reported and I'd be happy to do so. Does WP:LEGAL still apply in this sort of case? I hope not. --A. B. 01:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's going to block you under LEGAL for reporting a death threat to the police. In fact it could be a crime to do so as it would be obstructing justice. However, it may be time for wiki to set up a dedicated service for automatic reporting of such things. There's no reason why they should be tolerated. Tyrenius 01:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

There is already ISP reporting via WP:ABUSE, no reason this couldn't be done there as well. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 07:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

If the police acted in the episode that troubled Phil Sandifer I would think they would respond when direct threats as these are made. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-04 08:29Z

Yeah, hand the offending revisions, the IP adress and a Whois trace of the IP and the timestamp of the edits to the apropriate law enforcement agency and charge him with death treats. That should be enough for the police to get a warrant to get his identity from his ISP. No reason to write it off as trolling, even if it is just hot air (wich is likely) it's not something that should be tolerated, and a visit from the cops should make him think twise about doing it again at the very least. --Sherool <span style="font-size:75%">(talk) 12:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Just so that you all know, I reported this incident to the police in the UK yesterday. It will now be investigated under the crime of threatening with the intention of creating fear (or something like that). -- Francs2000 08:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope the threats against you stop. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-07-06 08:29Z

Another death threat today against RHaworth, this time by 64.5.146.13; that IP address is registered to a US radio station. (I suspect it may be another zombie PC being used by the same guy that threatened RHaworth and Francs2000 a few days ago.--A. B. 19:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

UK Protection from Harassment Act 1997
(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct- -- (a) which amounts to harassment of another, and -- (b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.
and a more serious crime:
4. - (1) A person whose course of conduct causes another to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against him is guilty of an offence if he knows or ought to know that his course of conduct will cause the other so to fear on each of those occasions.

--- (2) For the purposes of this section, the person whose course of conduct is in question ought to know that it will cause another to fear that violence will be used against him on any occasion if a reasonable person in possession of the same information would think the course of conduct would cause the other so to fear on that occasion.

Tyrenius 03:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Addendum on 9 Jul 2006

The anon editors have refused to discuss despite a message on the talk page and two messages on edit summaries. Hereby I request an action on these (or this) disruptive anon editor(s). --Deryck C. 02:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

En masse addition of Military History WikiProject tags

Grafikm fr (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been using AWB en masse to add a Military History WikiProject tag to dozens of article talk pages. I stopped him when he had just finished off on articles starting with numbers and had gotten to "A6". I wanted to get invite further discussion on whether this is a good idea outside of the Military History WikiProject; hence why I am bringing this up here. It is my opinion that an automated en masse addition of what is essentially a WikiProject advertisement to hundreds of article talk pages, chosen solely because they occupy a military-related category, isn't a good idea. Some previous discussion is located at User talk:Cyde#Re: Spamming, but please keep new discussion here in this centralized location. --Cyde↔Weys 19:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A few thoughts:

• WikiProjects, despite being informal, are generally regarded as a basic and quite legitimate form of editor collaboration within Wikipedia. Further, the use of talk page templates to advertise WikiProjects is a long-standing practice.
• The question of WikiProject scope is somewhat tangential to this. I cannot recall any limitation on the potential number of articles a WikiProject can deal with, and cannot fathom why such a restriction would be beneficial, in any case.
• Aside from advertising the existence of the WikiProject to editors in the applicable subject areas (which is quite important in its own right, since projects that fail to recruit editors effectively tend to wither and die in short order), the tags also serve to introduce articles into the bot-assisted article assessment program run under the guidance of the Wikipedia 1.0 project.
• The question of whether AWB is used seems rather unimportant, in my opinion. So long as the tagging itself is legitimate—and I'm not aware of any complaints in that regard—the use of a tool to make the admittedly monotonous task easier seems perfectly acceptable. Kirill Lokshin 19:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

To what Kirill said, I'll add a few things to explain:

I've just went through ~300 articles of a military-related category. Only 61 were tagged and 2 ignored because they were not military-related. Meaning there was ~240 articles in this category that were already tagged, through infinite pains, by hand, before that (and not by me). So it is a matter of being methodic: why .44 Magnum was tagged and .22 Long Rifle was not? What is the logic?

I'm not a bot and I'm not applying tags blindly. If an article is really out of scope, I don't tag it.

I do exactly the same job as was done before, only it goes 10 times faster. I really don't see what the problem is. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Unlike most of the project tags kicking around, these ones are preset to allow for notes about quality rating, completeness, importances, etc. The project is pretty active, and seems to have a good deal of article rating/validation/etc going on; it seems to me that this sort of thing is greatly helped by identifying and tagging articles for people to get to, since it allows category sorting, report generation, etc. (In many ways, it's probably better than slapping "This x-related article is a stub..." in the main namespace)

(Yes, indiscriminate bot-adding is a bad idea, but it's hard to distinguish between indiscriminate and eyballing-and-approving each time. Were any of the marked pages inappropriate?)

To my eyes, it's not "advertisment", it's infrastructure for the development of articles. Yes, it's not much use to start with, but people can't go and work on articles before someone's found them... It seems to be working fine; I say leave them to it. Shimgray | talk | 20:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It was not bot-adding. I check the title carefully and if needed, open the article. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Apologies - I was caught by an edit-conflict and hadn't seen your reply. Shimgray | talk | 20:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts) The problem is there are so many different WikiProjects out that if all of them went around tagging related articles en masse, the average article's talk page would be flooded with half a dozen advertisements for various WikiProjects. Look at the huge list of WikiProjects here and tell me it wouldn't be a bad thing if even 10% of them went around tagging all articles that were possibly related. It's just not a good idea. Quite literally it is spamming namespace 1. --Cyde↔Weys 20:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of the WikiProjects on that list don't use tags. Most of them are also quite catatonic. Care to guess at the relationship between the two? ;-)

(This aside from the fact that even double-tagging tends to be rare, and is becoming increasingly rare as smaller WikiProjects are being absorbed into larger ones. I don't believe I've ever seen a talk page with more than two WikiProject tags on it.) Kirill Lokshin 20:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The "spamming" problem from having five or six tags seems more due to the size and style of the templates. If this *does* become an issue, reformatting the project tags might prove a good idea... but this is useful infrastructure, and people do seem to be using it to build an encylopedia. So why make their lives harder for something that isn't a problem yet? Shimgray | talk | 20:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• The addition of the tags seems proper to me. This is a very active project and the scope of the project seems to be all pages that have a military topic. As such, then all these articles should probably be tagged as such. I do note, however, that looking into the far future, we may have problems with articles tagged by a dozen different wikiprojects. (E.g. As it stands today, a military war-ship made by a prominant manufacturer in Texas could conceivably be tagged by wikiprojects on Military, Ships and Texas. How many more wikiprojects might the same ship fall into next year or ten years from now?) Just the size of the cumulative talk page tags could theoretically be a problem. My opinion is that this hypothetical problem is not serious enough to attempt to solve ahead of time before it actually exists. Let's let these projects grow and tag articles and see what happens. Johntex\^talk 20:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • "The scope of the project seems to be all pages that have a military topic" -- hrmm, yes, because they're defining their own scope. What happens when WikiProject United States comes through, with an acknowledged scope of the United States, and tries to tag hundreds of thousands of articles? I just don't see why it is necessary that every single article in the encyclopedia dealing with military history (we must have over 10K such articles) needs to have a tag advertising this WikiProject. --Cyde↔Weys 20:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
    • For assessement purposes for instance. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
      • How about they put the tag on once it's actually assessed, rather than putting up thousands of these tags that will doubtless remain blank (and useless) for months? --Cyde↔Weys 20:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
        • They won't get assessed until somebody knows they exist (usually not the people with enough time to do mass-tagging, either). Category:Unassessed military history articles has been getting reduced in size quite consistently. Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The United States WikiProject has a large number of child projects (many of which do tag things); it's likely that a most-specific-project tagging rule would be adopted by them should they desire to add tags. (In any case, creating current restrictions based on hypothetical problems seems somewhat questionable.) Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Might we think of a better infrastructure than having each WikiProject tag each article they have identified as being somewhat related to their topic area? This just doesn't scale well at all. That's the reason I brought this here ... for community review. I still don't think that having WikiProjects tag each article they're even tangentially related to provides enough benefits to outweigh the signal to noise decrease inherent in adding more colored boxes to the top of talk pages (once it gets past two, does anyone even read them?). I've thought this for a long while and haven't said anything, but when I ran across the massive addition of tags today, I felt like I had to say something. Hopefully we can come up with a better system. Why not have all of the article assessment ratings on a centralized page? Why should it all be scattered around on individual articles? WikiProjects are project-space stuff ... can't they do it in project space and project talk space rather than spreading their colored boxes all across article talk space? --Cyde↔Weys 20:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It was tried. It really doesn't scale for any more than a few hundred articles. Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Talk:Joseph_Stalin for instance to see that there are alredy such cases of pages having a lot of templates. And people live with it. Don't know where the problem is... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll point out that nobody has really offered an argument against the fact that advertising relevant WikiProjects—even in the absence of any other purpose for the tags—is a very useful thing (assuming that you like having active WikiProjects around, obviously). WikiProjects that fail to recruit editors die; there's simply no way around that fact. That's why the idea of talk-page tags was developed in the first place. Kirill Lokshin 20:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

My thoughts on the subject - it wouldn't be a horrible idea to restrict the WikiProject tags to those articles where either (a) your project makes up a substantial portion of the editors of the article, (b) the article is obviously inextricably linked to your project (eg WP:NFL and National Football League), or (c) the article is an abandoned stub or short article relevant to your project that you intend to improve. There was one case a few weeks back with Talk:Calvary Chapel and Wikipedia:WikiProject Charismatic Christianity. The issue more or less dropped because it was really just two of us arguing and the the project basically has such a broad definition of what "Charismatic Christianity" is that if you have ever met a Charismatic, you probably qualify ... it really wasn't worth it to me to continue debating the issue. Still, I would use this as an example of something that should NOT be tagged. Nobody from Wikipedia:WikiProject Charismatic Christianity has contributed to the article itself. The link between the two is tenuous (Chuck Smith was once involved in a charismatic movement, therefore Calvary Chapel must be a charismatic church, even though they never self-identify as such). At any rate, this is more along the lines of a policy proposal than an administrative issue, but I would definitely suggest restricting tagging in some fashion. If nobody from your project is going to touch the thing, it doesn't need to be tagged as belonging to them. BigDT 20:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that might be more of an issue with the particular WikiProject you mention having a somewhat unusual (or controversial?) scope. Is it your impression that it's a more widespread issue? Kirill Lokshin 20:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. Looking at the list, there aren't that many where inclusion is overly debatable. Most of the ones that could be contentious (for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Evolutionary biology, if they wanted to be annoying, could tag every living thing saying, "well, it evolved didn't it") seem to exercise restraint. This is one I imagine could get really annoying really fast if they did article tagging. So really, the answer is probably no, I don't see a widespread problem now ... but it could be and, as we have another incident here, some standards wouldn't be a bad thing. BigDT 21:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that there are two opposing risks to allowing projects like MILHIST to tag the approximately 11,000 relevant pages they estimate exist. If this is permitted, there is a risk that some pages might eventually have several tags from several projects. If not, it's likely that more pages will be orphaned than if not. I tend to think that allowing an active project like MILHIST to tag thousands of pages will do more good than harm, although maybe there needs to be some procedure to remove tags from dead projects. A lot of projects are doing great work, and MILHIST is one of them. TheronJ 20:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

A way to remove dead projects in general might be helpful; the only way I've seen any disappear is by getting absorbed by a more active project. Kirill Lokshin 20:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In case of WPMILHIST, we're in cases (b) or (c) in 99% of the articles. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think these wikiproject tags are almost always useless and almost always harmless; if it makes people happy to add them, so be it. But I would like to see the people who design the templates trying to make them as small as possible- no pictures, and directions to the project page rather than using the template to add lists to every talk page. Henry^Flower 21:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The design of the template is different story - if a page is tagged, the initial template can be changed at will afterwards... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• Cyde, the assessments are centralized. You can try having a look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Military history articles by quality. However, a system where there isn't at least some sort of distributed rating will fail to work, as prior experience has showed the WP:1.0 and WP:WVWP projects. It is impossible to edit a page with 10,000 entries, so that's why you have a bot filling them out automatically. If there are several WikiProjects that could have "jurisdiction" over an article, And yes, Cyde, I really don't see a problem with all of them tagging the article (which won't happen, because not all WikiProjects tag pages, and not all WikiProjects are even active). More eyes looking at one article → better article. If it truly annoys you, you can always turn off the coffee roll templates on your personal CSS. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:18, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Ooh, is there a standard div id I can use to turn off all WikiProject notices? Granted, this just solves the problem for me personally, and not for anyone else out there who doesn't know how to do it, but I might as well solve one problem. --Cyde↔Weys 23:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
    • They all currently use class="messagebox standard-talk"; that's the same as all the other talk page banners ({{featured}} and so forth). I suppose we could introduce a distinct class just for the project notices, if people want to turn only those off. Kirill Lokshin 00:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
      • It's a good idea to standardize on a separate one for WikiProject banners, methinks. I'd want to hide WikiProject banners but not the usual talk page stuff. --Cyde↔Weys 00:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
        • I was thinking of going through with a bot and giving every header in Category:Article talk header templates an id of "t_Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive50", as honestly I hate seeing all of them. Adding a class="...wikiproject" or such (even if it doesn't have a class defined by default) would be useful too. Kotepho 05:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised the first time I saw these templates, but I like the idea about rating articles on both quality and importance. True, many articles have only been tagged and not rated yet, but a large number of articles have already been rated. Valentinian ^(talk) 23:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• This discussion seems to be related to Wikipedia:Avoid using WikiProject talk page templates. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • If it's just about talk page color, I can ignore articles with an empty talk page. How's that? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it would seem that no one is really against this tagging, or am I missing something? :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is the correct venue for this discussion; if there really is disagreement about this practice we should find a better venue for discussion and seeking consensus. That said:

• WikiProjects do some great work and help foster community. I'd be very reluctant to impose any restrictions on them unless absolutely necessary. I don't see any such necessity right now.
• I'd fully support using a special div type for WikiProject banners. It's never occured to me before, but if some folks don't like seeing those tags then I have no objection to making those editors happier by making such a simple change.
• WikiProject banners are essential for Mathbot-based article assessment, as pointed out above.
• I believe the banners are useful to WikiProjects and therefore to Wikipedia in other ways, which I won't list here.
• "Turf wars" and which articles "belong" to which WikiProjects and how this is determined are some things which might at some point need to be talked about, but not here. We've (WP:BEATLES) had a few disagreements in the past and some of our articles are also tagged by the Albums and Films WikiProjects and probably others. However, different Projects tagging the same article doesn't even break the Wikipedia 1.0 assessment, especially for "article importance" because the importance is importance within the WikiProject, and then the enyclopedic importance is assessed by also factoring in the importance of that Project. Having multiple gradings therefore doesn't break the system at all. --kingboyk 18:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Freakofnurture brought up an interesting point on IRC. Whether or not the talk page tab at the top of the page is red is useful feedback to the reader. Oftentimes I find myself wanting to know if a page has any discussion on it; if the tab is red, I don't even have to load a separate page. However, if all of these articles are going to be tagged en masse with this WikiProject banner, then none of the tabs will be red any longer, and some reader feedback will be lost. Also, I question the value of putting a banner on a page with so little traffic/interest that it doesn't even exist. What do you guys think about only putting the banner on talk pages that already exist, and not creating the ones from scratch that don't? --Cyde↔Weys 20:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

See what I suggested above :) (18:21 UTC). -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds acceptable then. Since no one else seems to be objecting I think I'll bow out. --Cyde↔Weys 20:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, there would be three main reasons why we would prefer the banner even on empty talk pages:

• The article rating component of the tags applies regardless of whether there's any other discussion going on.
• Many of these pages are extremely low-traffic in terms of actually having discussion (some manage to make it up to FA status without any comments there). The banners still provide useful links for both the editors of those pages and other people (who are often more likely to get assistance with the article from the project than merely by posting to an empty talk page.
• This will require a dedicated effort of trying to keep track of newly created talk pages so that we can tag them, rather than tagging everything in one go.

Whether you find any of these arguments convincing is, of course, up to you. Kirill Lokshin 20:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Indeed. The reasons for such taggings seem to heavily outweigh the reasons against (one or two folks don't want to load a talk page to find just a WikiProject banner). I reiterate that since this is currently the way things are done, and we're quite deep into Wikipedia 1.0 assessment now, this isn't the correct forum either. If this is a genuine issue affecting many editors (and I don't think it is) let's have a policy debate. --kingboyk 20:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The article rating component only applies if you're actually rating the page. I don't see the point of turning a red talk page blue with an empty rating slot. Yes, if you want to take the time to also make an assessment of the page then it's a different situation. Also, I can't believe that an article has made it to featured status with a red talk page. Can you give me any examples? I still don't think the questionable benefits of having a WikiProject banner on a previously nonexistent talk page outweigh the loss of feedback provided by that talk page's nonexistence. --Cyde↔Weys 20:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, aside from the project banner and the fac template, obviously. In any case, if you want an example, Italian War of 1521 had three tags and not a single word of actual commentary on its talk page when it was featured; does that count? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Hrrmmm ... I didn't think such a page existed. Anyway, nice article. I shall read it soon. --Cyde↔Weys 20:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 21:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Then you don't (or more likely don't want to) understand the assessment system (and indeed the WikiProject system). Knowing which articles a Project is watching over, and which are unassessed, is an important part of how the average WikiProject operates. This is the way things are done (and for the benefit of the wider Project); and admin action isn't going to stop it. Make a policy debate out of if you don't like it (that's an invitation not a threat :) but please don't, we have enough to do with W1.0 assessments), but for now it's status quo and c'est la vie. --kingboyk 20:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Edit --kingboyk 20:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Please, let's not have any "not-threats" here either. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Happy now? :) --kingboyk 20:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I know how the assessment system works (when the assessment is left blank it's put into a "to be assessed" category, right?). I just don't think it's worthwhile creating talk pages out of nothing to put them into a blank category. You could save yourself a lot of page edits if you just compiled a simple list of pages to be assessed. --Cyde↔Weys 20:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do find it useful. Every now and then, a lonely article pops out into Category:Unassessed hurricane articles, and that is picked up on Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Tropical cyclone articles by quality log (and the summary), so I know a new article was created, so I can go assess it. So, useless to one doesn't mean useless to all. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

(Sorry, me again) Actually, I would like to add that prior to the W1.0 assessments scheme I would, in the case of very large Projects, agreed to you. I remember creating new articles on albums and shortly afterwards a {{Album}} template would appear saying "this is part of WikiProject Albums". I remember thinking at the time "who the hell are they, why are they taking credit for work they had no part in, and what use does that tag serve appearing on thousands of talk pages?". I do believe that the W1.0 assessments changes things considerably, however. --kingboyk 20:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind having these ratings for every article but I don't see why they should have to get there through a single very active project - the importance and quality of an article aren't tied to a particular project. And, as others have mentioned, things are being tagged that seem rather marginally related to military history - I noticed Ágrip af Nóregskonungasögum was tagged. It could just as well get a tag from a WikiProject on Norway, or on the Middle Ages or on literature. Couldn't we just have one generic talk page template for people who want to rate articles for quality and importance? We could still have a parameter allowing us to specify individual projects or "task forces" that could help with the article. Haukur 21:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Quality: perhaps. But importance, at least the way it's set up, varies from project to project. Something very important within the topic of "Norway" might not be that important within the topic of "Middle Ages", and vice versa. And there are also other things like project peer reviews/collaborations/etc. being listed in these tags. I think that trying to combine them all would be far too chaotic to bother (not to mention resulting in a template that would freeze the database anytime it was edited). Kirill Lokshin 21:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I am supposed to be on wikibreak, and about to be away from the computer for a week, but I thought I should chime in, since I wrote a bot (User:WatchlistBot) to maintain a watchlist for a project. I was inspired by Wikipedia:WikiProject Hawaii, and used it for Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics. The bot can also tag all articles in a category as belonging to a project. This feature worked well for the main Numismatics articles (not Exonumia), but it ran into trouble in the Exonumia directories so I'm not using that feature now. I started this because I wanted to be able to watch what was happening in the Numismatics project, and had no awareness of 1.0. You can see the watchlist if you want. The {{Numismaticnotice}} does not include a rating, but I find it useful anyway. As a new user, I had no idea that there was anything to Wikipedia beyond the articles and talk pages until I followed a link in a template. Ingrid 22:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Sadly WP:AUWPTPT failed miserably. --SPUI (T - C) 11:05, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say "fortunately" rather than "sadly" as that essay is a terrifically bad idea. As I said in the talk there, tagging articles, including tagging by multiple projects, is terrifically valuable, and the advantages, short and long term, far far outweigh any minor inconvenience that having them might entail. The fact that WP:MILHIST has taken an amazingly large number of articles under its wing, and is steadily improving them, is something to marvel at, not something to consider harmful. And the idea that these project boxes are "spam" seems to show a fundamental misunderstanding of projects and how things get done. ++Lar: t/c 11:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

My block of User:Michael Dorosh

I have revoked the editing priveleges for this account after this edit following clear instructions in both that article's edit summary history and on the article Talk page that unfree image cleanup should not be reverted. Per User:Jimbo Wales' encouragement to be strict about fair use abuse, this account should remain blocked until the user commits to not interfering with unfree image cleanup. One such a commitment is received, any admin should return editing priveleges immediately. I am cross-posting this here for review and to be clear that any admin considering lifting this block after receiving such a commitment should not hesitate to do so. Jkelly 18:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You did the right thing, in my view, and I note that he has now given his commitment and been unblocked, so the whole thing was cleared up in just a few minutes. AnnH ♫ 18:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't have blocked him over this. First off, the photo is a copyrighted by the Canadian government and is the official picture of the Canadian prime minister. A strong claim could have been made that the use of this photo to illustrate an article about the prime minister is valid under fair use. In short, this wasn't a nonsense fair use claim and you should not have blocked the user for disagreeing with you over it. In addition, I find it distaste that you blocked an editor over what was an editorial dispute you were involved in. You should have gotten another admin to do that.--Alabamaboy 18:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be confused about two things here. The first is that I didn't block someone for a lousy fair use claim. I blocked an account that was replacing a free image with an unfree one. The strongest fair use claim in the world wouldn't matter -- we don't use unfree content when we have free, reuable content. The second point is that there was an editorial dispute. My first edit was to revert back to the free image -- I'm not involved in any sort of "editorial dispute", unless enforcing Wikipedia:Image use policy and our fair use criteria is now an editorial decision. Jkelly 19:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the (admittedly not very applicable in this particular case) general point that determining whether a free image adequately replaces a fair-use one is, in some respect, an editorial decision, I am uncomfortable with the fact that we're handing out indefinite blocks to editors in good standing without even a warning. Unless the editor is actually refusing to follow image policy when asked to do so, there is no need for an indefinite block to be imposed. Indeed, in a situation like the above where the violation is very limited in scope (a single image on a single article) and the editor is not causing any substantial damage, I am unconvinced that we need apply a block at all before asking/warning/instructing them as to the relevant policy. Kirill Lokshin 19:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is the Talk page note I left. Assuming that is insufficient warning that reverting image cleanup is not okay, what would you suggest? What is better in these situations? Revert-warring, page protection, or blocking? Jkelly 19:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Leaving the same request you did on the editor's talk page, but without imposing a block; there's always time for that if they refuse. Kirill Lokshin 19:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We should all note – in general, and not just specific to this situation – that there is a distinction between an indefinite block and a permanent one. While both are implemented the same way technically, they can be handled very differently in practice. A permanent block is imposed on an editor who has exhausted the community's patience or by decision of the ArbCom; such a block is accompanied by the sentiment 'Good riddance, you're not welcome back here' (if not those precise words). Other indefinite blocks may be placed to mean 'You're doing something that you shouldn't be doing, after you've been asked to stop. Once you agree to stop, you'll be unblocked; I had to block you to get your attention.' Such blocks are meant to be lifted quickly and by any admin as soon as – but not before – the appropriate condition has been met. Particularly since we have the {{unblock}} template, such 'indefinite' blocks should represent a small inconvenience for the blocked editor. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Except that such subtle semantic games are rarely a consolation to the target of the block, particularly when we use overly formalistic languaged like "revoked the editing priveleges for this account".

In general, requests and suggestions should be preferred to warnings, which should be preferred to blocks; not because it's any more difficult to remove blocks from a technical standpoint, but because of the effect of harsher measures on (usually) well-meaning volunteer editors. Kirill Lokshin 20:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually agree with you – and with Jkelly's revised opinion – that the block was hasty in this case. But I don't think that any 'subtle semantic games' are being played here. Jkelly provided clear conditions for the lifting of the block, and was clearly monitoring the situation—Jkelly attempted an unblock eight minutes after Michael Dorosh agreed to abide by the policy. (I also applaud Jkelly's decision to post a notice on this page, so that other admins could review the situation.) If we're going to talk about the language editors use, I'd say that the intent and meaning of Jkelly's whole comment – particularly the part that reads "One such a commitment is received, any admin should return editing priveleges immediately." – are clear. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand why you replaced the image and I agree it was the right move (assuming a better quality version of the pic can be found). The problem is that User:Michael Dorosh made what appeared to be a good-faith edit, reverting the image for a better looking one which had a valid claim at being fair use. Since you originally replaced that image, you were free to revert his edit and explain to him why he shouldn't have done that. Blocking an editor for one apparently good-faith revert, especially when the editor reverted your own edit, is not justified. If User:Michael Dorosh had reverted that image over and over, the block may have been justified but it would still have been better for another admin to block him since you were involved in the edit in question. Best, --Alabamaboy 19:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This is still not the correct sequence of events. User:Thivierr was the one who was doing image cleanup here. Thivierr was then reverted, reverted back, and posted at Wikimedia:Media copyright questions asking if they were confused about image policy. That's how the matter came to my attention. I reverted back to the free image, and left a strongly-worded note at Talk:Stephen Harper. Your argument seems to be based on the idea that I have some sort of personal investment or conflict of interest here. That's not the case. Jkelly 19:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that User:Michael Dorosh is complaining on his talk page about still being blocked despite agreeing not to revert that image again. I thought his block was lifted.--Alabamaboy 19:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I've cleared the remaining autoblock now. Kirill Lokshin 19:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This was a clear over-reaction and a violation of WP:BLOCK. Please engage in discussions with user before issuing blocks. Joelito (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. There was discussion. Assume good faith towards admins, please. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Unrelated to the rightness or wrongness of anything, I hope that a better, useable picture can be found. This one is truly terrible (it is not the fault of the photographer, the picture was taken during a speech, which is bad enough for a portrait, and then it was cropped to show just the head). As an interim measure, the picture could be made far better with some simple editing (use the original and then recrop, of course). We should encourage this to be done before uploading the picture, if we don't already. :-) -- Kjkolb 19:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree. After all, this is the prime minister of Canada. If someone had replaced Bush's official picture with something like this people would think it was vandalism. While we should not use non-free images when a free image is available, if the free image is of horrible quality then (perhaps) the non-free image has a decent claim to still being used under fair use (notice I said perhaps, I'm still not sure on this).--Alabamaboy 19:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to suggest that the original picture should be used, just that a freely useable picture should be found that is better than the current one. I suppose if there was a valid fair use claim that it would be preferable to use the original, but I don't know at what point quality is so bad that it cannot be considered an alternative freely available picture, or if there is no such point. I guess that we should be grateful that it isn't a child's drawing. ;-) -- Kjkolb 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Jkelly, I'm glad to hear that you don't have an editorial stake in this article, although the issue of which image to use does appear to be an editorial decision and since you edited the article to use one image that seemed to me to have involved you in the dispute over the image. I still believe, though, that there was no need to block the editor over this one revert. Simply explaining the situation to him would have been enough. After all, we block people for a pattern of abuse after giving said editors sufficient warnings. Best, --Alabamaboy 19:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that he should have been warned first. I don't know if it is true in this case, but people frequently don't read edit summaries or the talk page before editing or reverting. Also, if he was aware of the message(s), he may have thought that he had a legitimate fair use claim when he reverted. That makes it a disagreement over whether an image is fair use and not a willful violation of policy (deliberately using an unfree image that is not fair use). -- Kjkolb 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No "fair use" claim justifies replacing freely-licensed content. See Wikipedia:Fair use criteria for more details. This is perhaps where some confusion lies. Jkelly 19:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There was a discussion here where it was argued that up to date information was more important than license. Also, here was argued that, if the free image was not "suitable", a fair image should be use instead. Useful reading. -- ReyBrujo 20:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It has also been argued that we should get rid of WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. Jkelly 20:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to the conclusion both talk reached, not whether the discussions had any valid point for changing the policy. Discussion is good, especially in a topic that is easily "abuseable" by a casual user who happens to be browsing around. -- ReyBrujo 20:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That there is confusion is the point and we should consider that users may not have read things like Wikipedia:Fair use criteria. I am not arguing that the content should have not been removed. I am arguing that an indefinite block without warning was a bad idea. A user may think that he or she is correct in replacing poor quality free content with high quality unfree content that he or she thinks it can be used under fair use. It does not matter if the content cannot be used under fair use because that only tells us that the content should be removed. It does not tell us whether an indefinite block without warning was the correct thing to do because that depends on the user's intentions, not whether they are right or wrong about a fair use claim or a policy. That is why I think a block without any warning, especially an indefinite block, is a bad idea in this type of case. -- Kjkolb 20:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Consensus does seem to be that a note at the article Talk page was insufficient warning that blocks might happen. I'd like to invite further discussion about whether page protection or revert warring are better alterantives. I'm concerned that there seems to remain some confusion about whether or not reverting unfree image cleanup is some kind of individual judgement call, and that we should treat replacing freely-licensed content with unfree content casually. All of that said, if consensus is that blocks shouldn't happen without significantly more warning, I'll commit to not blocking for image use violations without a warning on the user's talk page, and consider this to be a bad block on my part. Jkelly 19:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that part of the issue is confusion over the meaning of "alternative" in the criteria; this can be interpreted as meaning either any free image, or only a free image that is a suitable replacement within the context of the article. In other words, it may be unclear whether we should prefer free images even where there are concerns that their quality is so deficient as to make them useless; or whether we can temporarily retain the fair-use images (in places where we have legitimate claims for such, obviously) until a suitable free image can be obtained. Kirill Lokshin 19:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The non-free image was re-added by User:Michael Dorosh [13], and re-removed by me. I request admin action on this. --Rob 04:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

On the general issue of use of the free image, I feel the standard should be: would we use the free image as the lead photo, if there was no alternative? If the answer is yes, we should only use a free image. The free image does not have to be as good as the non-free image. That's an impossible standard. Very few people/organizations are going to donate professional studio quality photographs to Wikipedia, and we shouldn't pretend they ever will. Also, I concede the low quality of the free image. But that's fixable by a industrious Wikipedian either taking a new photo of Harper, or getting somebody who has a photo, to donate it (e.g. a supporter who wants their leader to look good). There's no incentive for such hard work, if we're unwilling to give preference to free images. User:Michael Dorosh is demanding the free image be as good as the non-free image. But that's unreasonable. It need only be "good enough". Also, I note there's this public domain option as well. --Rob 04:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Links to racist sites & anti-Islamic POV

The article on Inayat Bunglawala was edited by an anonymous user, who inserted links to the far-right, racist British National Party and included POV statements like "claims to be a moderate but revealed himself to be a born jihadist." It also included unsubstantiated claims of death threats made by Bunglawala to the anti-Islamic far-right weblog Little Green Footballs, which have not, as far as I'm aware, been discussed anywhere but on the aforementioned weblog.

I request that the administrators look over the edit history of the article, investigate the links to the British National Party and Little Green Footballs, and take appropriate action against the user: 24.79.43.137.

JF Mephisto 18:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks to me like simply inputting information that isn't reputably sourced. As offensive as you may find it, in my (non-admin) opinion, its no worse than any other article being edited with nonverifiable content and this user shouldn't be punished more strictly simply because what he input was pov and sourced to a weblog, or deemed anti-islamic. Batman2005 19:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, logging in as anonymous user to input links to racist organisations (namely the British National Party, which has leaders convicted of race-related offences as well as links to Holocaust denial and violent groups) in order to support Islamophobic comments, I believe, is significantly more than just using "nonverifiable content." It's vandalism and abuse. JF Mephisto 21:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand though. In this edit [14] Zeq inserted initially the information that you're reporting 24.79.43.137 for. It was subsequently deleted and readded by several users on quite a few occasions. You're claiming that 24.79.43.137 "logged in from an anonymous user to input links to racist organizations" is not in keeping with assuming good faith. You'll notice here [15] that the page was blanked by 81.151.251.74 and then the user you are claiming is pushing an anti-islamic pov (24.79.43.137) merely reverted the page [16] blanking without adding anything that was not present before the blanking. The only vandalism I see on this page is the intentional blanking of all content by 81.151.251.74 which is covered on the admin noticeboard against simple vandalism. What you have here is a content dispute between yourself and several other users. It should be discussed on the talkpage civily and all users should try to work towards a consensus on the content of the article. As is now, there is nothing that 24.79.43.137 has done on that page that warrants any action by an admin. The IP user was reverting the blanking of a page, not pushing his/her own agenda. Batman2005 22:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

SIDE NOTE in this edit JF Mephisto, the user who intiated this report, added the semi-protection tag to the article. JF Mephisto is not an admin and does not possess the necessary permissions to protect/unprotect pages. I left a message on his talk page about falsely representing adminship. Batman2005 19:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Montanism

This article is undergoing an edit war - just keeping under the 3RR. Can someone do something else to solve it? Rmhermen 23:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I have contributed to this article, as have a number of quality editors... The other person reverting, has made no contributions to Montanism whatsoever, but just waded in out of nowhere a couple days ago, and announced that he says the article is no longer "allowed" to start off with "Second century AD" - but rather, must say only "Second century" - leaving the reader to figure out from the context that it is AD and not BC. He has made all kinds of ultimatums to me, including on my talk page, and when I don't answer all of his petty arguments quickly enough or to his satisfation (I really have several much more important tasks than minor details like this), he starts reverting again. Unfortunately, none of the other actual contributors to the article beside myself seem to have noticed, perhaps they are all on vacation this summer. I would love to see what some of the other people who actually wrote the article think about this. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia (and this article in particular) is not of your property. This means that a right contribution made by anyone has the same value as your long-standing contributions. Your complaint, however, shows the way you work. You immediately revert my edits, but "have several much more important tasks than minor details like" answering my comments. Only recently, and after reverting your reverts, I got some kind of attention from you. You gave your points, I countered them (I would say I showed they were wrong or of lesser importance, but this is POV) and you simply told me to wait for "other people who actually wrote the article", after reverting, of course. Is this your way to settle the matter, ignoring other's comments but reverting their edits?--Panairjdde 01:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't know. But the fact is I have have not "ignored", but have replied to each and every one of your comments, as the record will show. I guess I just didn't respond to your satisfaction. I consider this an minor irritating nuisance over something quite petty, that is beginning to get more than just a little out of hand. I know this article is not my property, and never insinuiated that it was. I am only asking you to please chill out until we can get a third opinion besides yours and mine, preferably from someone who has actually had something to do with the actual article. Thank you again. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 01:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I was talking about comments on your talk page. I usually avoid using edit summaries to discuss my position, they are not suited for this purpose. And I got angry for the way you had time to revert but not time to answer. You remembered a bit later to talk, and only after reverting to your version.--Panairjdde 01:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, a look at this editor's contributions has shown that he has now taken it upon himself to go all across wikipedia, making sure that "AD" does not appear in any article. Is this not defeating the spirit of the rules regarding Eras??? AD is customary, traditional and explicitly allowed by the rules, it specifies what calendar is being used, even when it is obvious, that's just the way its always been done. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mr. ፈቃደ,

I would like you to understand what other people are doing, before attacking them. I have been removing redundant ADs and CEs, as well as uniforming usage in the articles. I think I need to tell you (because you claim to have no time to read my posts or understand my edits, but you have plenty to revert my edits) that this means that I remove AD/CE where not necessary, inserting them where necessary, and making articles that use both AD and CE to use only one of the two formats (apart special articles that use both, of course). This does not mean that I am deleting AD from all the articles. I also noticed in your talk page, that you have several problems with dealing with others' edits about AD/BC/CE/BCE matter, so, before claiming I am going "spirit of the rules regarding Eras", understand what the MoS says, and meditate on it.

Thanks. --Panairjdde 22:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Panairjdde, of course... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

MarkSteere

MarkSteere (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created a vanity article which was userfied but speedily recreated in main space, kicked up a fuss about its deletion and is currently fighting a DRV battle. I have an email acknowledging that Advocron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and CluePuppet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are sockpuppets of the same user; it is also inconceivable that Mark_Steere (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is anyone else, and PearlMcPurry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is probably the same person as well (contribs deleted with the Mark Steere (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article). According to this email, "If I have to choose one of the three names, I'll go with Advocron, since that most accurately describes how I wish to participate - by advocating for people who are ganged up on by deletionists, and whose new articles in my opinion qualify as notable and encyclopedic." In other words, the account was created to make a point, a point which he has started making at [17] and [18]. I came across CluePuppet because of participation in an AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Puget Custom Computers - this article was created by a search engine optimisation company to promote a client; I thought it was a sock of the SEO spammer but Steere says otherwise. What, if anything, should we do about this user? Just zis Guy you know? 13:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Indefinitely block all the sockpuppets and leave the main account active. While having sockpuppet accounts is fine, using multiple sockpuppets for the purpose of having additional commentary is not. He's been using these multiple sockpuppets to participate in AfDs & DRVs, and he's also been launching personal attacks against the "evil deletionist cabal". Definitely not good faith. Note: only for accounts that are either self-admitted or confirmed (by CheckUser or whatever). --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Mark is disputing some of the sockpuppet accusations (on the Unblock mailing list). I haven't confirmed it with him, but it appears as if he is admitting to User:CluePuppet and User:Advocron (User:MarkSteere and User:Mark Steere would be assumed). He claims not to know about any other accounts. --Deathphoenix ʕ 14:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Note: As a show of good faith, I've deleted the user pages of User:CluePuppet, User:MarkSteere, and User:Mark Steere. I don't know if Mark actually wanted the accounts deleted, but I've explained that it's not possible, and I think he'll be satisfied with having the user pages deleted. --Deathphoenix ʕ 20:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting! Steere's behavior is all too well-known including the use of pseudonyms, racist remarks, boastful texts and very defensive behavior when someone writes anything he doesn't like. He destroyed two Yahoo!Groups and, well, see yourself: Mark's destructive behavior in an SDG forum.

I don't know if the thread will be censored soon, so some short excerpts:

Mark: "priding oneself on how many edits one has conducted is like a terrorist priding himself on how many buildings he has blown up."

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/mancalagames/message/1305

Mark Steere used five e-mail pseudonyms to harass an internet user, of which two e-mail accounts were soon disabled because of criminal content ("violation of TOS).

In one e-mail he wrote about himself:

"Mark Steere (...) seems to be a self absorbed pompous idiot."

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/abstractgames/message/916

In others he pretended to be a German Nazi.

Mark Steere wrote a boastful vanity article about himself (perhaps he would call it "megalomanic") for the English language Wikipedia using a pseudonym. He was asked in the discussion on the article's deletion: "I would urge Mr Steere to moderate his responses to the issues raised here, and refrain from personal attacks on Calton or any other editor." (I wish Aaron would say something similar).

Discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mark_Steere

Inappriapriate behavior in SDG forums:

Ultra-defensive behavior (confusing critisicm of his game with a personal attack on himself).

http://forums.superdupergames.org/viewtopic.php?t=233

And, well, one SDG thread was closed because of Mark's uncivil remarks.

http://forums.superdupergames.org/viewtopic.php?t=427&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

I was a co-moderator of this forum (ie. stacking games at Yahoo!) and revived it after there was not a single post for 11 months. You (ie Mark) posted racist remarks about Russians to which I objected. However, the owner of the group defended your actions, so I left the group simply because I didn't want to be part of a group in which racism is acceptable. After that you started to "stalk" my e-mail account with numerous abusive e-mails using pseudonyms, but all sent from your computer.

After I left the stacking games group, Mark wrote that all Germans are Nazis and Dieter Stein (another member on this forum) responded to him:

"Mark, please calm down too.

Dieter

(BTW: I am German and I do not feel urged to always "dispel the myth that Germans are Nazis". That myth is your problem, sorry)"

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/stacking-games/message/183

Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests

Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests has had a backlog for over 24 hours now. --ais523 12:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleaned, I've removed the tag, thanks. -- Omniplex 10:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Request on my talk page

I had a request on my talk page to take a look at Category:Adelaide_Football_Club. User:Seth Cohen has created an individual page for the team roster of every season (Adelaide Crows 1991 Playing List, Adelaide Crows 1992 Playing List, and so on). Now, my question is, can these be speedied (for having no real content)? Or do they need to go through AFD? I'm inclined to apply common sense and speedy them, but last time I did that, I got no end of grief. Will have a word with the creator either way. Proto///type 12:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say, send them through AfD as a group nomination. They do have content... I don't think the community will want that content though. Mangojuice^talk 12:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't you just redirect them back to the main article? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:55, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I'd do - they can be split out again if there is anything notable about an individual player list. Just zis Guy you know? 13:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD history problems

Hi folks, things aren't working the way I thought they would. It seems that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brooklyn Beckham is a nomination closed on 20 March 2006. When this article was renominated, the nominator didn't create a new AfD, rather, he cleared out the old page and replaced it with a new AfD. I tried to split the two versions by deleting the page and restoring all the edits from 20 March 2006 and back. I then moved this page to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brooklyn Beckham (old nomination), and restored the latest history to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brooklyn Beckham. However, things didn't work the way I thought they would, and after multiple attempts to delete, move, and merging histories, I am now left with the old 20 March 2006 AfD, and while the AfD says that there are deleted edits in the article history, when I try to restore the edits, it says that there are no edits in the history! Can a more MediaWiki-savvy admin take a look at this and fix it, then tell me what I should have done? Thanks, --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Clear your browser cache. I'll try to split it. Prodego ^talk 16:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, okay, thanks. I saw things were okay, then restored to my last "closed" version, but I'll leave the splitting to you. Please let me know how you did that so I can repeat the steps when I have to do it again in the future. :-) --Deathphoenix ʕ 16:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

All done. Just clear your cache before checking the history, and you should be fine. Prodego ^talk 16:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks. It's that damn browser cache. :-P --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact, it's the server that's not invalidating the proxies properly. It's a longstanding problem which happens with the history page when you have deletions or undeletions (it shows more often when you are doing a page history merge/split). --cesarb 21:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion please

As entertaining as this one-sided discussion is, I think it needs an external eye. I have also received an Email from ghirlandajo regarding is "eff off" edit summary, how necessary he is to the project and similar matters, which I will disclose if requested. Ghirlandajo has been warned before (notably in an ArbCom case) about his confrontational editing, uncivility and personal attacks. Circeus 18:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily have issued a block of any length for this, but he is being overly aggressive and confrontational. It's clear that you are not in a content dispute (in particular, you did not reinstitute your edit after blocking him), but it would have been better if someone other than the person the "eff off" comment were directed at had conducted the action, since it could be seen as an impassioned response to an insult. Deco 19:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't care much for the "eff off" (although his severe issues with WP:OWN are something else). It's really the "troll" comment for leaving a {{civil2}} on his talk that triggered it. Circeus 19:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's quite necessary to impress upon Ghirlandajo the fact that nobody—no matter how many articles they've started—is exempt from the requirement to stay civil. It will be regrettable if the only way to do this is through blocks—it would certainly be much easier for everyone involved if he were to change his behavior of his own volition—but, if nothing else works, I suppose there's not much else to be said. Kirill Lokshin 19:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

So you may congratulate Circeus that he saved Wikipedia from such a rude person and disgrace as myself. Either you create an encyclopaedia or a talk group of well-mannered pansies. If good manners are more prized here than content creators, I shall depart gladly. Just make sure there is a good substitute that will write articles about Russian history and art for myself. Since I joined the projetc in 2004, nobody has emerged to claim the place. Moreover, a large portion of my 2,500-entry watchlist doesn't figure in the watchlists of any other editor. Unlike manga or Star Wars articles, the topics from Russian history and art do not attract much interest from admins. It's enough to scan my watchlist to see numerous articles vandalized during my brief absence from WP. But it was your choice to oust me from this project and you have to live with it. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, the regretable and totally inappropriate "Fuck off" comment was from months earlier. Please do not use it to justify anything here. Second, eyes at the talk page provided by Circeus are invited indeed. I think admins should avoid borderline actions in cases where they are involved, especially since user:Circeus admits here that he "mostly hasn't been doing much user-related stuff since becoming an admin and that he needs guidance, so he wants to get some guidances". Blocking is the most serious punishment available and one has to be absolutely sure when using it, especially due to an issue where the user involves himself. I regret that Circeus lost temper. I suggest he removes his block himself and if he after WP:TEA thinks the block still may be warranted, refers it to other admin's attention at WP:ANI. --Irpen 19:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The Fuck off (or more exactly "eff off", occured today [19]. Within twenty minutes, having done a single revert, I was called a "revert warrior" (see previous diff) and a troll. Ghirlandajo, with all his edits and experience, and having been warned by the ArbCom, should have, of all people, been aware that such comportments are not accepted on Wikipedia. Circeus 19:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I then agree the remark was inappropriate. The rest of my message stays then, see above. Your referring the case to experienced and uninvolved admins at WP:ANI would have been the proper thing to do. I think you are taking this personally. You have the full right to do so, but not to use Admin tools while at it. Is there any reason not to have others decide on the issue? Please think of it calmly. Whether you self-revert your block or not, I think this is truly a borderline case and you should have posted it to WP:ANI for others to act on it. I do not accuse you in acting unethically. I think you simply lost the temper, also judging for your entries at talk, but that's just my opinion. --Irpen 20:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems pretty trivial to me (especially considering that Ghirlandajo is not a native speaker of English). Anyway, at least we now know that we ought not disagree with admins, or else... --Tēlex 20:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Telex, c'mon. Jkelly 20:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

My point is, JK, that even if it was done with the best of motives, it seems more like a revenge block than anything else. As there was interaction (i.e. conflict) in an article editing capacity, I think C was perhaps too involved to be issuing unilateral blocks. IMO he shouldn't have blocked, but asked someone else to review the situation (you maybe). --Tēlex 20:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Telex, if memory serves, Ghirlandajo has insulted me in the past, so I suggest that your example helps demonstrate the point I was trying to make below. Jkelly 20:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Circeus, since you were an involved party, you should take the affair straight here, and not blocking him yourself. My $.02 -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

So the way to make sure one never gets blocked for incivility is to just insult every admin who warns you? That's a brilliant system. Jkelly 20:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't get your sarcasm... They were involved in an edit war over Spanish Baroque article prior to that comment. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia, but if memory serves, you can't be a judge and a party if you're an admin... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It's very borderline whether there was an edit war; certainly the cause of the block is only tangentially related to the Spanish Baroque article itself. While it would have probably been a cleaner solution for Circeus to bring up the issue here rather than enacting a block personally, the block itself seems quite justified, so it's a fairly minor point. Kirill Lokshin 20:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I see your point Kirill. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we brush the motives aside. Circeus was right to refer the case to this board. More correctly, he should have gone to WP:ANI and let others, with experience and uninvolvement, to sort it out rather than using the strongest possible tool in his disposal. There is no foul play here. We all loose temper at times. We should simply realize when this is happening and have some [{WP:TEA]] to cool down instead of pressing buttons. --Irpen 20:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• As it is, Ghirlandajo's block should have expired by now. Circeus 20:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Too bad then. Self-reversion by the blocker would have been a useful gesture, even if a symbolic one. --Irpen 20:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If someone would be so kind as to look at this. I'd prefer avoid any additional interaction with this user. Circeus 20:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll try and talk to him... (Incidentally, I already did several days ago because of another incident) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In this case, the guy clearly violated Blocking policy, which says not to block prolific content creators without prior consultation with more experienced wikipedians. Circeus might have consulted myself on this issue, as I don't think he will find many wikipedians who have contributed to WP more stuff than I did. As I said many times before, as long as this project doesn't want my participation full time and no apologies from the offender are forthcoming, alternative projects (such as Russian Wikipedia) will benefit from my attention. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Oh for heaven's sake this is a storm over nothing in a teacup, people swear at those making tiresome edits all the time - If every dedicated editor was banned for swearing then the encyclopedia would just be full of pokemon and pop-singers. Ghirla needs to calm down and Circeus learn that people of different nationalities are all different some more hot headed than others. In certain parts of the world if you are tiresome and pedantic you will get sworn at, and Ghirla need to learn not to swear at the pedantic. The problem here is that we have too many untrained admins running about like prefects in a third rate prep school. Solve this problem and we shall all be happy. Giano | talk 20:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Copyright question

This edit [20] shows the insertion of a block of text lifted verbatim from the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Leaving aside the fact that copy & paste of big lumps of text is almost always a sign you are doing something wrong, and the fact that it's part of a POV pushing campaign by Vaquero100 (talk · contribs), I'd like to know form the copyright spotters here what would be the copyright status of lifting large, uncredited blocks of text from the Catholic Encyclopaedia. I've restored the redirect for now. Just zis Guy you know? 21:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Our article on the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests that it's public domain, so this seems okay from a legal standpoint. The issues of properly crediting the source (e.g. {{1911}}) and of the suitability of such an old text for inclusion are, of course, quite separate. Kirill Lokshin 21:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Assuming there hasn't been a new version published recently aprox zilch.Geni 00:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Unless I've missed it, and that would mean that I *really* haven't been doing my job, the Catholic Encyclopedia, in it's entirety, is PD. It is, of course, polite to credit the source, but there should be no issue with including the information. It does, however, need to be vigorously fact-checked for accuracy, since it was published before Vatican II and the other sweeping changes of the 20th century. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 06:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that weholesale copy-pastes of entire articles should be on Wikisource, not here. Just zis Guy you know? 12:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

No we have complete copies of EB1911 articles around.Geni 12:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

New England vandalism

The page was recently semi-protected, then unprotected. It needs semi-protection again. --AaronS 22:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who protected it and subsequently unprotected it during the last disruption. The circumstances at that time involved an uncooperative editor who was ttrying to push a particular POV while attacking other editors, all the while using tons of different IPs. The past days' vandalism are just that, standard good ole fashioned random vandalism, no coherent attacks visible, so protection is not necessary. Just be vigilant. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Major sockpuppeting problems on anarchism

There are some major sockpuppet problems with anarchism, leading to edit warring when even some of the most divergent interests were compromising and proceeding in a NPOV manner. The page has been semi-protected, but banned user Hogeye has worked around semiprotection by creating new accounts, waiting a few days, and then delving into the fray that he created. It's highly disruptive, and this article was finally starting to see some good progress. I don't have the time to go through the administrative channels, but I would appreciate it if anybody who does have the time, and is interested, would take a look at the issue and try to resolve it in a judicious manner. --AaronS 22:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I second this post, Hogeye continues to use both open proxies and throwaway accounts to edit on this and other anarchism related articles, and it is getting incredibly annoying. The Ungovernable Force 22:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

URGENT

Someone really needs to stop this guy, he is fast deleting every single "AD" from wikipedia in express violation of policy. What will it take to get an admin's attention??? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

What guy? --mboverload@ 22:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

He is talking about me, it is a continuation to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Montanism. I already answered there, and he duplicated his request with this "URGENT". Note that he is going to revert many of my edits. I am losing my temper with him. (written before following text, blocked by edit conflict)--Panairjdde 23:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Panairjdde, of course... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

He was already asked by one admin to "STOP IT" On the Montanism page... Now he is enforcing his own interpretation of the MOS to decide that AD "isn't allowed" on scored of pages... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I came to the conclusion that is useless to discuss with this guy. He does not read my points, but is promptly reverting most of my edits. I hope something can be done to settle this matter. Thanks.--Panairjdde 23:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Lokks like Codex Sinaiticus has a friend, User:Crculver, who just reverted 15 of my edits, calling them vandalism. What should I do, start reverting them, or this matter is going to be solved?--Panairjdde 23:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Somebody do something PLEASE!!! He is edit warring with me over the article Paul of Tarsus. He wants it to say Paul was born in 9. How is anyone supposed to deduce from that whether Paul was born in 9 AD or BC? I wouldn't even know myself. In the past 20 minutes alone, AD has disapeared from another whole slue of articles. His interpretation of the MOS is overly rigid. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This is an example of CS way of thinking. If I write Paul was born in 9, what does it means? According to Manual of Style, AD/CE year does not require tags, and in this article no other year is BC/BCE. What should I do, stop editing because CS loves to see AD everywhere? As regards Paul, I left AD for the year of birth, as a compromise, but this is going to be ridiculous.--Panairjdde 23:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Read it more clearly. AD is acceptable. It is also traditional practice. And the MOS makes a point of saying that crusading across the wiki invading articles and messing with it is seriously frowned upon, because it starts edit wars, as we are now seeing everywhere. Even on the Montanism page where this all started, consensus is to keep the AD. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not the place for this discussion. Let's continue it on Talk:Montanism.--Panairjdde 23:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

THIS ISSUE IS STILL NOT RESOLVED Numerous Admins have pleaded with him to stop, ignoring them, he has now resumed his campaign to delete all AD's that he considers to be redundant. He is also one of thre most argumentative users I have ever seen in 1 1/2 years as a wikipedian. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Eyre

Could a disinterested admin please close this discussion? All of the referenced articles besides just the George Eyre article are clear hoaxes and damage Wikipedia's reputation. I wouldn't mind seeing the rescinded Jehu Eyre deleted as well, but if not, I'll list it for afd after completion of the George Eyre discussion. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Anybody? User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

After reviewing the evidence and references I have deleted all articles related to George Eyre, including the withdrawn Jehu Eyre. My reasoning is available at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Eyre. Please review it. Joelito (talk) 22:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Indianchief copyvio? NN bios

Indianchief refuses to respond to concerns about his posting of non-notable potential copyvio (they don't look original, but I can't find a web source, I presume they're from books) bios (such as these [21] [22] [23] [24]. Would it be possible to block this user for something like 4-5 hours (he seems to come back every several hours and post 2 more, I presium he's typing them up) with a message to respond to the concerns?--digital_me^{(TalkˑContribs)} 02:53, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Block range against User:Leyasu

A number of sockpuppet IPs with Leyasu-motives have been coming in from the 86.132.13* range, after the fourth blocked with numerous edits on Heavy metal music-related pages, I enacted a 24-hours range block. See also /Arbitration enforcement#User:Leyasu and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Leyasu#Log of blocks and bans. Circeus 03:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Leyasu has resumed editing as 86.132.128.145 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 86.132.132.22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) so far. Might reinstate range block. Circeus 15:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

He is also accusing me of "abuse of admin powers to violate policys." Comments? Circeus 15:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

After demanding a Request For Checkuser, which Circeus refused to do, he then admitted that he doesnt care about policy or article integrity, banning not just ips changing the article, but experienced and new users alike. Anybody who has changed the article from Circeus preferred version has been banned. This is a violation of Admin Powers.

In the meantime, another range block has been issued. That is Six IPs within 2 hours, the total of which have violated 3RR on several articles. Circeus 15:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

See also this edit to the arbitration page. I have a hard time believing a random IP user could find it without being thoroughly aware of Leyasu's backstory. I propose that leyasu's ban be prolonged to indefinite for his disruptive behavior and constant block escaping. Circeus 15:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection hasnowbeen applied to all articles, thanks to the brilliant User:Master Diablo. I am kicking myself over not thinking of it sooner Circeus 16:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Robert Steele

User:Robert Steele says :

"I am going to tell you this just once. If you ever again publish anything on OSINT without a reference to my web site, I am going to black ball you where it will really hurt. I consider you to be a world-class dip-shit for failing to credit my work. Robert Steele 23:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)" [25] WAS 4.250 03:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and warn them to mind WP:NPA and block if this continues. Thanks Naconkantari 03:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Now if that isn't simply begging for the removal of all spam links to his website, I don't know what is ;-) Just zis Guy you know? 12:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Ferick

I'd like to bring to your attention that a few moments ago, a user has vowed a revert war on the Kosovo article, even though we have discussed it. He wrote: "Unless we find some kind of compromise, this is going to perpetuate an endless revert war." [26] I'm sure you're all aware of the agreements made on the Kosovo article, and I'll paste some text from the talk page by a valued admin:

Ferick and Ilir are consistently ignoring a key requirement: we report what our sources tell us. Our sources tell us, literally without any exceptions, that Kosovo is formally an autonomous province of Serbia under UN administration. See the list under Talk:Kosovo#What other encyclopedias say above, and as TSO1D says, the CIA World Factbook too. Ferick and Ilir have consistently failed to provide any reference that says that Kosovo isn't de jure part of Serbia. Their claims that it isn't are pure original research and simply aren't admissible in the article. -- ChrisO 19:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

::Ferick and Ilir have consistently tried to push the POV that (a) Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia, not Serbia; (b) it's not part of Serbia now; and (c) it's only regarded as part of Serbia because of a UN Security Council resolution seven years ago. We've already been through this at length in Talk:Kosovo/Intro changes proposal. Neither Ferick nor Ilir have provided any evidence to support their claims and they've consistently failed to explain why they are right and every other source - encyclopedias, books, newspaper reports - is wrong. Without sources, their claims are simply unverifiable and constitute original research, which are disallowed under two of Wikipedia's fundamental policies, WP:V and WP:NOR. -- ChrisO 22:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

To all these arguments, Ferick has acted very dismissively, and is now threatening a revert war. I say we stop this before it escalates into a full-scale revert war, lock the page or block Ferick (and I prefer that you block Ferick) --KOCOBO 05:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Don’t like doing new article or speedy delete patrol? You’re missing out.

Testify! --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously. Every once in awhile you get some priceless jems that you never want to let go of. Serve your community! =D

Pandaroo is a very attractive girl who is very nice and very fun. She was born on June 7th 1988 and lives in California. She has just graduated from high school and is now moving on to college. she spends most of her time photographing different sceneries and photoshopping them as well. On rare occasions, she enters 64digits.com, and leaves her mark, which is looked foward to by the guys of 64 digits.

Speedy deletion needs YOU! --mboverload@ 09:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I've heard rumors of a listing of new pages, but rarely see any reference to it and never a link. How would one find such a creature? CovenantD 10:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You can find it several ways. One is that people with Cologne Blue (and I assume some of the other themes) have a link to "New pages" on the left hand side (or somewhere on the page). This is the direct link for the page. It's also on the Special pages listing. I used to be a patroller of the page. Kind of gotten out of the habit recently. --Woohookitty^(meow) 11:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Uncoöperative user

If there is a more appropriate place to put this, please let me know. User:EmmSeeMusic has been adding his message board to the Big Love article. I promptly removed it, citing WP:EL because the message board has under 100 posts and fewer than 25 registered members. Before this, he made some nasty remarks on the talk page that led me to believe he's more interested in advertising his website than following policy. He undid my revert, saying that my revert was a personal attack on him. I do not want to engage in an edit war, but it's clear this guy will keep adding his fansite regardless of policy. What's the most appropriate action to take in this case? Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 13:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Upon reading the history of this page again, I think this user believes that I am operating a competing message board, and am removing his message board out of spite. I assure you this is not the case, as I often remove non notable fansites from articles (search for the phrase WP:EL in my contributions]). Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 13:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Harrassment link on user talk page.

Can someone look at User Chadbryant's talk page, under the Paragraph "Notice to Admins". He has a link to what can best be described as a libelous hate site about a person he apparently has a real life issue with. This looks totally out of line with Wikipedia policy.

[27] Talk page in question.

[28] Link to the website itself.

TruthCrusader 14:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

So I guess its ok to post links on one's user page to a website that one maintains with the real life information of someone the user has been in a flamewar with AND fill the website with libelous and false information. Wow, just wow. TruthCrusader 15:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am in dialogue with him on his talk page to resolve this. Tyrenius 16:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Unblock requests

I've seen a few unblock requests, and no consistent way of handling them (from a simple technical standpoint, what to do with the unblock request template). I made {{Unblock denied}} as an idea for how to handle this - replace {{unblock}} with {{{{Unblock denied}} and add the reasons for declining. This keeps the unbblock argument intact and removes from the unblock category. Let me know if this is a good idea. Just zis Guy you know? 18:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is a thorny problem. Another question is how to handle repeated unblock requests from the same user. To my mind it is reasonable for a blocked user to request a second opinion after one admin has rejected an unblock request but when two or more admins have declined it I suppose it's reasonable to short-circuit further appeals (keeping in mind that the blocked user can still post to the mailing list). Haukur 19:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Rather than 'number of admins' I'd suggest some sort of 'passage of time' measure. If a group of ordinary users get into a content dispute with some admins and are blocked for it they shouldn't be barred from requesting unblock because the involved admins declined their request (which I have seen done). Maybe put a timestamp on 'unblock' that expires (and removes them from the category) after 12 hours or somesuch. --CBD 19:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That's actually an excellent idea. Haukur 19:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, for the above situation... it should probably be clarified (in the blocking policy) that handling an unblock request ought to be done by an uninvolved admin. People are going to differ about how involved is uninvolved and so forth, but it should at least be established that in the "ordinary users in content dispute with group of admins" case described above, it's unseemingly for someone from that group of admins to be the ones who reject an eventual unblock request. There are many, many admins on Wikipedia, and no pressing reason why an involved one would need to reject the request, since it hardly matters if it takes a few hours more for a request to be rejected. --Aquillion 00:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea. People declining requests are often leaving the unblock template active to allow for a second opinion. If we add a category for declined requests to your template, then we can decline an unblock, use your template, and still allow for someone else to come around to give a second opinion. NoSeptember 19:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That has the exact same problem - removing the {{unblock}} is inviting reversion. Why not just leave it and deny it? --SPUI (T - C) 19:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, sure, but we've got to remove it at some point or the category will get hopelessly cluttered. What solution do you propose to that? Haukur 19:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Not sure - maybe something substed by day like prod? Or you could do what some IRC folks do for {{helpme}} - have an IRC bot that monitors the cat for new additions and advertises them in a channel. --SPUI (T - C) 19:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, now you're talking. Prod templates live for five days, how long do you think it's reasonable to let unblock templates live? Haukur 19:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You could leave them indefinitely and simply only use the recent categories. --SPUI (T - C) 19:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

What I've often seen is admins enclosing the {{unblock}} template in <nowiki> tags and providing an explanation of the denial rationale immediately underneath. That lets other admins see that a request was made and denied. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that when you do that you remove the user from the category, so if you use the category to find who is requesting to be unblocked, this user will no longer be listed. NoSeptember 19:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That's rather the point—it keeps the category from getting clogged up. An editor can seek a 'second opinion' by restoring the template with an explanation why the first admin's review was mistaken, or can pursue any of the other methods of requesting an unblock (email the blocking admin, email to the mailing list, query on IRC, etc.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That's also what leads to a revert war - the blocked editor places it back, and the admin that denied denies it again. --SPUI (T - C) 21:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

JzG, I've incorporated a category into that template (Category:Reviewed requests for unblock), moved it to {{unblock reviewed}} (which is a less confrontational name) and updated the instructions on the regular unblock template. --bainer (talk) 05:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

This sounds eminently sensible. We should make the reviewed requests a subcategory, and then I think we have a workable solution. Just zis Guy you know? 20:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

What are the "sandboxes"?

I think I finally managed to find the correct place to ask this question. Basically, I'm not exactly sure what your website does and I wasn't sure it was true you could simply go edit a page. I gave it a go as a sort of test and some "messages" flagged up saying I was a "vandal" for just trying something out and got ordered to go to some "sandboxes". I wasn't linked to the said "sandboxes" and I had a look around but I couldn't seem to find any "sandboxes" or what exactly they entail.

I'd also like to ask what "vandalism" is in this regard. I've also envisaged vandalism to be ostensibly linked with spray cans and walls. If I caused some kind of permanent and serious damage by trying things out then you have my apologies.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. -- Paul Simms

My Messages Page is here (Asssuming anyone can view anyone's "talk page")

See Wikipedia:Sandbox for the sandbox you've been pointed to. See also Wikipedia:Vandalism for more details about what is considered vandalism on Wikipedia. --cesarb 22:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Sandboxes are test pages where you can test things without affecting "real" articles. There's more than one because there are many users, if they'd all use the same page for tests there would be conflicts. Registered users get a user page, and then they can use this (or subpages) for tests. As long as you have no account go to WP:SB - that's a shortcut for "Wikipedia sandbox". At more or less regular times a program automatically cleans the sandbox, removing all old tests.

BTW, this is not exactly the correct place for questions, check out Help:Contents. Be bold in updating pages, -- Omniplex 22:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Possible illegality

I was working on the George W. Bush article in the discussion pages. I noticed that Queen Of Sheba left a remark calling for the death penalty for the president. I believe that is illegal and should be removed from the discussion.

BMIKESCI 23:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)BMIKESCI

You need to fix your signature by signing ~~~~ Quen of Sheba should be blocked. I'm going to take a look now. ForestH2 | + | √ | - 23:05, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It also wouldn't hurt to run a quick checkuser on BMIKESCI and Queen Of Sheba--152.163.100.200 23:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, minor correction, "User:Queen Of Sheba" doesn't actually exist, thus any checkuser should be directed at User:Shereen and/or User:BMIKESCI--152.163.100.200 23:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not illegal to either publicly or privately call "for the death penalty for the president". But it is trolling. Joking about assassinating him is also legal, but can result in a talk with the secret service who will wish to make sure that it was indeed a joke. WAS 4.250 13:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Image:Prepaidvisa.jpg

I mistakenly uploaded full-blown detail images of prepaid VISA cards and I would like the history deleted so no misuse can happen. Thanks

Done and done. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Articles I can’t be bothered to babysit - Drew Pickles

Anons and one off accounts keep on adding a "internet fame" paragraph to this article. Of course, it's an absolute crock of shit, referring to newgrounds flash animations created by the "Barney Bunch". Notable? Hell no. But I can't be bothered to keep such a contentless article on my watchlist. Can someone look at the article, look at its history and see what the editing is about. As it's a content thing, I haven't given out vandal warnings to the other editors, although that's what it basically is, vandalism.

I'd request semi-protection, heck, I think it'd be fine if it was just redirected to the Rugrats article and locked. But I feel that the request would be rebuffed because activity isn't high enough, and I can just watch and revert, something I don't want to do. Please don't try for a compromise with these guys. - Hahnchen 14:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

All of the Rugrats articles are a disgrace, but I don't mind watchlisting cruft until I can get around to doing something about it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, Anti-Barney humor is awful. It's like a BJOADN page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Nuke form space, it's the only way to fix that cruft-o-rama. Just zis Guy you know? 20:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Moved userbox issue

Template:User Jimbo v. Willy has been moved to User:Ikiroid/User Jimbo v. Willy. The original template space name was salted with {{deletedpage}}, but an administrator forgot to add the <noinclude> tabs around the template, so now a bunch of userpages have a WP:SALT notices. Could someone either fix this formatting error, or better yet, replace it with {{GUS UBX to|Jimbo v. Willy|Ikiroid/User Jimbo v. WIlly}}? Thanks.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC) Never mind, JzG took care of it.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Amorphis albums

There's something funny with this category [[Category:Amorphis albums‬]], seems to link to [29] Could some one take a lot at it move it to the proper [[Category:Amorphis albums]]? Spearhead 19:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Should be done now. Not very difficult to fix (just erase and re-type the "s]" sequence and you'll be sure to catch the hidden character.) Circeus 20:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

A category for seven albums all of which are listed on the article is unnecessary anyway. Just zis Guy you know? 20:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly, according Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums it is standard to make "Artist albums" categories if there is only *one* album to add to it. See Category:Albums by artist for countless examples. --Rob 20:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

thanx for the fixSpearhead 22:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Djm555000

Heads-up on this guy — Djm555000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) — he's doing massive repostings of previously deleted material, including copyvio'ed images already speedy-deleted previously due to copyvio status.

List of harry potter sweets was zapped via AfD (recreated by user). Also has reposted Image:Chocolate Frogs.JPG and Image:Chocolate Frogs from cards.GIF even after receiving fair-use heads-up from me and others on his talk page after his first upload Image:Frogs.GIF. HE is claiming "made it my self" [sic], but it's a clear copyvio as it's a scan from a Harry Potter trading card. Similar copyvios with Image:Bertie Bott's Beans.gif and Image:Jelly world on map.GIF among others.

This person appears to have been given plenty of room to learn, and still seems insistent on circumventing process to enact his or her will. — Mike (talk • contribs) 02:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I left a nice note trying to explain things to the user in question., and Zscout370 and someone else took care of most of the images (I threw two more chocolate frog images from the user into the speedy-delete queue), so hopefully all is taken care of -- but if any of you guys just generally keep eyes on users for a bit, you might want to keep an eye on this person. I'll try to as well. — Mike (talk • contribs) 03:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

user:Gibnews

User Gibnews has been persistently censoring the Gibraltar article. His behaviour falls short of outright vandalism but it consists of imposing his NPOV view on all other users by daily revertals and refusal to engage in constructive discussion or consensus building. He accuses all wikipedians who do not agree with him on a number of issues (a majority of editors of the Gibraltar article) of being "pro-Spanish" and spreading "lies and propaganda".

The main problem with his behaviour is that he has erased dozens of respectable sources included in the article by a number of users over the past months. He considers they are not worthy of being included in the article since they contradict his biased POV. He has even gone as far as erasing the disputed tag from the article while imposing his view on all other users who disagreed with him.

A number of users (including myself, user:Asterion, user:Ecemaml and many others) have given up on contributing to the article but I have noticed that others (such as user:Panchurret) continue to contribute sources which are promptly erased by user Gibnews.

I am suprised that he has not be banned (or atleast warned) by Wikipedia administrators as user:Gibraltarian has.

For proof see the following examples of his behaviour.

Unjustifiable deletion of valid sources on the Gibraltar article by user:Gibnews (including the UN, OECD, IMF and -ironically- the Gibraltar government websites):

[30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]

--Burgas00 13:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Just want to add that this is a long standing issue that goes back several months. I used to be involved when Gibraltarian was hitting it hard. They badly need a third opinion or mediation or something. --Woohookitty^(meow) 15:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

How about a Request for comment on this issue? 16:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree but I dont really know how that is done...--Burgas00 17:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

All you have to do is add {{subst:RfC|Gibnews}} to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gibnews and follow the instructions on the template. You can then list this issue at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct#General User Conduct. Be advised, however, that in order for your RfC to proceed it must be co-certified by another user on your side within 48 hours. 17:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The simple fact of the matter is that there is a concerted campaign by entities in Spain to blacken the name of Gibraltar. Wikipedia is yet another media where this is practiced. I am in daily contact with people in the Gibraltar Finance centre and my views reflect their comments, rather than second hand opinions from the Spanish media, notoriously inaccurate when it comes to reporting anything about Gibraltar.

Please read this by David Parody, Chief Operating Officer Financial Services Commission

I have expanded and improved the pages on Gibraltar considerably, including content, pictures, and have been working to improve the references and citations. Let me remind you what it used to look like when it was a home for blatent baseless Spanish propaganda, alleging money laundering, drug smuggling and that Gibraltar was the destination of the Prestige.

ALL FALSE

I also refer you to my talk page where I have been advised:

Neither British nor Spanish feel comfortable about your fucking rock. In fact, the Spanish government only speaks about this issue from time to time, as a mere remnant of irredentism (but without real interest on the matter). And the British...it´s only a headache, crowded with financial pirates...So what about the monkeys? They would be live up to be good rulers. And who wants the only european territory with monkeys?

I think I have tried hard to assume good faith, and to discuss things politely - even with the above entity - and to make Wikipedia a better place. Those who agree, please support me.

--Gibnews 16:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely with Burgas00. And it's true that Gibnews has made a lot of good contributions to the Gibraltar article, but he lacks completely of good faith and just wants an article which represents exclusively his biased POV. The fact is that he relentlessly removes complete paragraphs and references to OECD or IMF reports, even trying to confuse with Edit Summary, e.g.: [48]. --Panchurret

I've added some feedback to Talk:Gibraltar. Gibnews seems to have some misunderstandings about the requirements of WP:NPOV and WP:V. S/he also does demonstrably appear to assume bad faith on the part of other editors. Prickly defensiveness and assumptions of bad motives don't make for a good editing environment IMO (and that applies to both sides - the Spanish editors shouldn't try to provoke Gibnews). -- ChrisO 22:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Finding contributions from a range of IP addresses

Is there a tool to help look for contributions for a range of IP addresses? Or the ability to search based on only the first part of an IP address. For example, any edits from any IP that starts with "255.0". Thanks. --mtz206 (talk) 18:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Not for just logged out users. However, checkusers can find ALL edits by an IP range, whether the person who made them was logged in or not.Voice-of-All 18:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The next version of VandalProof will be able to do this in under 30 seconds. --mboverload@ 19:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I just wrote a script for this :).Voice-of-All 22:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting verifiability question

Main page: Wikipedia:Administrators noticeboard/Incidents § Interesting verifyability question

I believe this spans BOTH pages, so I'm just going to make a link from here in case some people do not read both boards religiously (as I do =D)--mboverload@ 23:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Sneaky vandal to be aware of

The blocked user HeadleyDown (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (under whatever names he edits) is likely to be looking for another area of Wikipedia to attack, having been blocked multiple times in as many months.

This note being posted because of his extremely subtle approach to extremely destructive vandalism, and the way he gradually drives bona fide editors off Wikipedia. He is almost impossible to spot (appears to be "just another POV editor or clique with personal attack tendencies and extreme views") unless you have seen his "style" elsewhere before. Editors ultimately burn out either from AGF, from wikistress, or from rebutting personal attacks.

Please read the LTA article on him, to become familiar with his approach, in case articles you work on (or try to resolve disputes on) are affected in this manner.

User has gradually tried (successfully) to destroy a number of articles, and burned out a number of administrators and article mentors, before being identified as a specific problem. With a long history (18 months+) of this activity, two RFArb's, and having just been removed from two articles, there's little doubt he plans to continue if he is able. Hence this post.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for the info, FT2! ~Chris ^{(squirrels!!)} 01:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• Since he is so destructive and persistent, I was wondering why there has not been an effort to stop him by contacting his ISP or through legal means (at least it is not mentioned on the LTA page). -- Kjkolb 07:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

In part because he's only this last few weeks finally been recognized generally as a significant vandal (as opposed to a problem on one article). Before that he seemed to everyone, just another POV/NPA problem on one article. It took a lot of checking to document the scale and modus operandi and show he is a significant vandal. He fooled Arbcom twice, and dozens of experienced vigilant editors who were suspicious and saw his attacks play out for months on multiple articles, but still couldn't "prove" anything more than usual problematic conduct. That said, his preference is for long term POV/dominance of articles/sock-rule, so being aware "this could be HeadleyDown's work", as opposed to "just another typical POV/3RR/NPA editor" and blocking on sight solves much of it. If caught he will deny and counteraccuse, playing the game that not giving good faith to his edits shows extreme bias.

Examples of dismissals that worked: (1) dismissively letting him know he's spotted, (2) response to new meatpuppet why they can't edit despite claiming to be a different person. I'll add a few examples of HeadleyDown in action to his LTA entry tomorrow, for ease of recognition. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I see. Thanks, Kjkolb 07:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Guys. HeadleyDown here. I'm just following up on FT2's propaganda campaign. I left Wikipedia quite a while ago, but with some fair concern over FT2's propagandist editing.

You should know that I (and the Hong Kong skeptics society) left Wikipedia on fairly good terms overall. [49] We edited exclusively from Hong Kong. IP checks can verify this. The HK skeptic soc improved the article using very solid verifiable fact, well supported and corroborated in the literature. Those facts were added under the helpful and strict scrutiny of mentors Woohookitty and Katefan. We most certainly never committed any vandalism whatsoever. FT2 is working to remove verifiable facts in favour of pro-NLP argument.

[50] [51]

Woohookitty can give his version of the story if you seek a neutral source on this matter. Here is how Woohookitty actually left the NLP article:

[52]

Woohookitty left the article a few days afterwards complaining to FT2 that there are too many meatpuppets (the NLP group also have proven meatpuppets that were never blocked (eg Comaze, and GregA, who worked together with FT2).

FT2, it turns out, is strongly biased towards NLP, is certified in the subject, and is willing to selectively edit (as seen in my talk page), post his own opinion, and generally add argument and promotion to any article that takes his fancy.

I know I'm no saint, but FT2 is here to abuse Wikipedia extensively by including most facts but arguing and promoting his own agendas (hard to detect but undeniable when detected). In short, I wish to extend the goodwill that I left Wikipedia with, and urge you to scrutinise FT2's edits as they are highly biased towards his own agendas. He also seems to be compiling a list of unrelated editors that he wants to conflate with me. He is abusing Wikipedia. Regards. HeadleyDown (Wei).

User:J-Bones and User:Fratboy101

These two users seem to have been at war with each other since the start of this month, vandalising user pages and especially targetting Delta Chi. Fratboy101 hasn't edited for a few days, but J-Bones has started frivolously adding deletion templates to articles such as Merle Haggard. I made it quite clear to him that he would be blocked if he continues in this manner. These two are obviously not interested in contributing usefully, and I'm tempted to block them indefinitely, especially J-Bones. They're just wasting everybody's time. Raven4x4x 01:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been following (and warning) these two for sometime. J-Bones' edits today were over the line and I've blocked him/her for 1 week (this is the second block that user has drawn). Gwernol 03:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Since J-Bones' edits are mostly or entirely vandalism and even include a death threat, perhaps a one week block is more lenient than the situation calls for. -- Infrogmation 04:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

User talk:Ste4k

Hey -- Interesting situation here, and I'm hoping for some more input. This user left me a message on my talk page; when I went to respond to him, I noticed that he had formatted his talk page with an unclosed <div> tag that formatted the text in a way that I can best describe as completely and utterly unreadable. To summarize, it's a very small font with medium-dark purple text on a dark purple background. Even when I select the text, I couldn't read it because it was too small. I first removed this formatting, he replaced it, and then we started talking. His side of the issue is that, for whatever reason, normal formatting is too big for him to read comfortably, and that since he can read his user talk page, that's the important thing. I think this might be an issue with his browser settings, but that aside, I feel like the communication the user talk page is there for is a two-way street, and something this unreadable just goes too far. I'd like some input from others about this; the relevant bit of policy is, from Help:Talk page under "Etiquette": Feel free to decorate your personal pages as you see fit, but keep in mind that your user talk page has the important function of allowing other editors to communicate with you. People will get upset if they cannot use it for that purpose. Thoughts? An in particular, I'm interested in a straw poll: who finds the current format (seen here, just in case it changes) readable? Mangojuice^talk 20:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Never attribute to malice that which can aeqately be explained by incompetence. Just zis Guy you know? 22:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It does not seem like you have clearly explained how it looks (and yes, it's nearly impossible to read). Perhaps a screenshot will be explain the situation clearer. joturner 23:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

That text is impossible to read, it might as well be hidden text. The text is potentially the tiniest text possible, and then it is a slightly lighter shade of purplish brown on a dark purplish brown. There are no normal monitor adjustments that could be made to make that text readable. Kevin_b_er 00:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed it. I believe it is akin to protecting your talk page, I'm not sure if there's a rule against this kind of thing, but I know it's against the spirit of the wiki. --mboverload@ 00:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Actually there are rules against what you did. Here are the guidelines that you are evidently unaware of and which you hadn't the time to research before making me a target to step upon for your RFA campaign. Perhaps you should study the rules before rushing to become an enforcer. Ste4k 12:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't read it, one colorblind user said that he cannot read it, so it was a good thing that the formatting was removed. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Per the initial comment: I am quite embarassed, a female (not a "he"), and felt quite violated by this disruption over such a petty thing that in no ways has helped to improve the quality of articles on WP, hasn't any consideration for my eye-sight, was previously discussed and mentioned that I did NOT wish to be singled out in any fashion, especially not to be made a personal issue of, and this discussion could certainly have taken place among administrators without the necessity of bringing my talk page to the attention of abusive trolls which distrupted any plans of mine to work on articles this evening. I was told by the admin that such a discussion would take place, but I was not invited to the discussion, nor was it pointed out to me and I found it on my own. If any of you would like to take the honor of giving me medical advice on how to retain what is left of my eyesight after 30 years of working with computers professionally, please go right ahead. I will ignore your advice however, and wish you the best of luck with your own eyes. As I previously advised the admin that brought me to everyone's attention, if you wish to create a policy discussion on the matter, please do so, change the current documentation, or whatever else you like. Just leave me out of it, but be guaranteed that I will be aware of it when it changes. And per your comments, Mboverlord, please review WP:AGF, WP:CIV, and learn the difference between the words "know" and "presume". Ste4k 04:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Wait, you're lecturing ME on good faith and civility? Hehe. Have a nice time outside of Wikipedia. =D --mboverload@ 05:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

What does your statement mean? Ste4k 09:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to say this once and one time only. What I did is not against the rules, I DID notify you, and my actions have been supported by multiple administrators and users. I am not to blame for your stubborness and refusal to explain why exactly you have a problem with it. If you don't like what I did, revert it back. Simple as that. It's a wiki. Have fun. --mboverload@ 12:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

== == Problems with User:Tajik == ==

Please have a look at People of Afghanistan, Hazara. This user is vandalizing by changing population numbers to what he thinks is true rather than what most resources say, etc. Thanx User:hadi1121 11:12, 11 July 2006 (EST)

In the Hazara article, I don't see any vandalism. I do however see that you are both revert-warring (and close to violating the three-revert rule). Perhaps the issue can be solved if one of you two can find a source to support your respective versions. joturner 02:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Manual of style

If you check the history tab on that page, you will find that JackLumber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been in an edit war with various anon users over "Commonweath" spelling. The anon users feel that the Commonwealth column is "important" but JackLumber keep deleting it becuase of his insistance that there is "no such thing as Commonwealth spelling" because Ireland has nothing to with the Commonwealth but uses "British spelling," and therefore inconsistantly that each Commonwealth country has its own spelling system (reminds me of doublethink). Whay do you think? Myrtone

There's _nothing_ inconsistent about it. Ireland doesn't "use British spelling"; rather, Britain and Ireland share the same spelling system. The OED, for example, regards the English of Great Britain and that of Ireland as one variety of English, with its own regional dialects (Southern England, Scotland, Ireland, etc.). Those "various anon users" are most likely the same user, who, btw, is apparently wikistalking me. Anyway, we have worked out a compromise, as you can see if you take a look at that page and history thereof. The Commonwealth column has a {{fact}} tag, since it's unsourced, unlike all the others---and therefore I still think it should be removed, but I don't care that much, I prefer to constructively contribute to the encyclopedia. Someone else pointed out to you that each country has its own spelling system, but you apparently didn't get it. JackLumber.

No what I was saying is that you seem to think that spelling in UK and Ireland is "the same" but yet consider every English speaking country beyond the British Isles to have its own (unique) spelling system, I didn't realise that you and those users have found a compromise, so I will remeber that for next time. Myrtone

PS Jack was blocked by Samuel Blanning (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) earlier this year for 3RR (which by coincidence is also the name of a radio station here in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia). Since the block expired, Jack's behaviour has been less than civil, for example he has been engaged in vandalism and other incivilty:

Yeah, sure. Look who's talking. I won't point out here all the questionable contributions you have made since you joined Wikipedia, it's not my gig. I'll let admins check out your rap sheet. JackLumber.

Well, Jack, I wonder why you aren't an admin yet. Myrtone

• here where he calls my spelling knowledge "faulty" (in Australia, we tend not to think of British spelling as any different (officially) from Australian spelling, and we are all taught in school that Australian spelling is *not* American Spelling, but we tend not to be taught that British spelling is any different)

I didn't say that you are to be blamed for not knowing those details. Who said that Australian spelling has anything to do with American spelling?!? JackLumber.

"Who said that Australian spelling has anything to do with American spelling?!?" I didn't, I was just pointing out what we Australians often beleive about spelling that we are even taut in school. Myrtone

• here where he strikes out "blasphemy."

Can't you possibly see that blasphemy is just a figure of speech? I already pointed that out to you, and I was more than polite. JackLumber.

• here where he claims to "researve the right" to edit other user's comments.

I don't claim anything. But that's my talk page, and I don't want misleading or untrue statements on it. Did you just say editing other users' comments? JackLumber.

Editing other users comments is reguarded as vandalism/disruption in wikipedia policy. Myrtone:-(

• Longhair (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) then left a reminder, but I am not sure whether the adive was fully followed or not.

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. JackLumber.

• In this edit he seems to call me "Albert" (not even my real name, however I am a covert user so please do not ask me about it), followed by an out of context and incomprehensible mention of "French spelling."

"Albert" is not you, but User:Albertde. There's not just you, you know. Defense (with an s) is not properly French spelling, but Anglo-French spelling, kind of like colour (with a u).

I really don't know why you have it in for me. But oftentimes you unfairly talk behind my back [53], [54], (as on this very page), taking my words out of context, mentioning my name in edit summaries for no apparent reason [55], [56], these edit summaries being at times incomprehensible [57], [58], the very edits being at times incomprehensible [59], [60]. This ranks as personal attack, I guess. You can't force people to keep tabs on you. JackLumber. 12:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I appologise for that I you think it is a personal attack. But now I understand you edit summary I mentioned. Myrtone

Thinredline & Will Beback

Thinredline (talk · contribs) has asked for a review of my behavior: [61] and [62]. He is a new editor working on Climbing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and related topics. -Will Beback 07:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Reichstag patrol on high alert... Just zis Guy you know? 13:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

EASY, AUTOMATED checking for copyright violations

Lets be honest, finding/proving a copyright vio is a complete bitch. You copy random strings from the article into Google, put some quotes around them, and spin the dice. No longer! Break free from your chains of boring grunt work!

I have come across many admins and users who don't know about this site, and I think they should.

http://www.copyscape.com/

Copy in a wikipedia page's URL, hit search and in around 5 seconds it will find any copyright violations! Just a few minutes ago I used it here. Have fun, and lets get the copyrighted crap out of Wikipedia =D (remember that wikipedia mirrors are no violations, heh) --mboverload@ 08:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for block agains vandalism

From Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism:

• Burak18 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) keeps on adding weasel words text to Turkey national football team. If you check his contribution history, it is very similar to those of 82.92.94.108 and 82.168.59.236, who were already blocked for the same edits. -- Panairjdde 10:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Geni decided this is not vandalism, even if the same edits has been sanctioned for the same user(s) with a block for vandalism.--Panairjdde 13:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)