Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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Current issues

False 'New Message' bars on people's user/talk pages

I'm allowed to remove them when I see them, right? It is technically disruptive. HalfShadow 18:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Meh. I suppose you are right but as long as the link doesn't go anyplace bad, I don't really care. Most such removal attempts seem to involve users who are already in conflict over other issues. If this is the case, it would be better to bring the matter to someone else's attention rather than escalate a dispute. Thatcher131 18:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

What Thatcher said. If you do remove them please don't fight over it if you get reverted. It just creates unnecessary drama. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Removing them is likely to be far more disruptive then just thinking to yourself "what a jackass" then going about your business. It's just shit that doesn't need to be disturbed. WilyD 19:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I must really like worms, 'cause check it out -- I'm opening a can. I ask this because I really hate them: why isn't it policy to forbid them? It's either someone posting it for entertainment value, which is prohibited per WP:UP#Games, or it's someone being a dick, which is prohibited by, well, m:DICK. I understand there were beans-y objections to explicitly forbidding them, but it's come up often enough just in the past week. Granted, it is somewhat nice to have the dick-y editors categorized for me, but, well, did I mention how very much I hate them? Ugh. -- Merope 19:04, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Making a rule against it is an interesting idea, because it would put a stop to the edit wars over their inclusion. --Masamage ♫ 19:08, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought there was some sort of restriction against having things that pretended to be Mediawiki features, but I can't find any page at the moment. In any case, there should be a rule preventing such "spoofing". Chaz ^Beckett 19:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I did find an inactive (not rejected) proposal at Wikipedia:Avoid imitating MediaWiki user interface elements. Chaz ^Beckett 19:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It was discussed at WT:UP#JOKE, but it didn't appear to be resolved -- someone threw out WP:BEANS and WP:CREEP and the matter was dropped. -- Merope 19:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me the whole issue could be dealt with simply by having the software generate a more personalized message: instead of "You have new messages", it should say (for example) "Jpgordon has new messages". --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't respond to the text, though, I respond to the box itself. --Masamage ♫ 19:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Well, that's in the category of "your problem and your problem alone." --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 19:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That was supposed to be a general "I". :P My guess is that a lot of people are so used to the orange bar at the top of the screen with the bolded "new messages" in it, that they immediately know what it means without needing the text, and click on the link. I don't think replacing "you" with a synonym of "you" over at the beginning of the line would do much good. --Masamage ♫ 19:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The point of replacing "You" in the beginning is that the spoofs all say "You", not whoever comes to the talk page. Unless someone is a miracle worker in wiki-syntax, I don't think it's possible for someone to spoof what he suggested. — Moe ε 19:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree that it's the orange bar, not the text itself that causes a response. Would it be practical to make the message bar a specific color that could only be used by Mediawiki (i.e. this particular color couldn't be set manually)? Chaz ^Beckett 19:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

For one I think every color is already on Wikipedia, and two, I think it might be problem to restrict the use of the color orange on the site. :) — Moe ε 20:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't thinking of orange necessarily, maybe some seldom used color. It's probably not a very practical solution, though. I think I'd prefer just restricting people from faking the message boxes and asking them nicely to remove them. Chaz ^Beckett 20:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That's why I'm going to be bold and nominate some pages directly used for the prank to be deleted. — Moe ε 20:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not a half bad idea Jpgordon, do you know which MediaWiki file it is when someone gets new messages? Ideally, it shouldn't be that hard for the MediaWiki to recognize the user getting new messages and list the users' name instead of "You" since it already has a link to the talk page and latest change listed. — Moe ε 19:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the message is actually generated in includes/Skin.php. But -- it's a globalized message, and you'd need to reshape every damn message so that it can take the user name parameter. I don't know who does string globalization... --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You should be able to change the colour of real "new messages" bars in your monobook.css, so that you learn to only respond to puke green message bars or something. Sancho 20:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's the solution... put this in your monobook.css: .usermessage {background-color: #669933;}. Of course, you can pick your own colour. Sancho 20:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Now that there is a great idea. --Masamage ♫ 20:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, fine, if you want to be all logical about it. I still think the solution is to ruthlessly remove them and then protect the pages against re-adding them, but that's probably because I'm a power-mad rouge admin. -- Merope 20:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Wait, crap, that doesn't work! The fake messages are the same color since they use the same parameters. I still think that massive rouge warfare is the answer. -- Merope 21:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Aw... I didn't know they completely faked the message bars. Yeah, then this doesn't work. But I like my new color :-) Sancho 21:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. Can an admin please delete? Template:New Message. — Moe ε 20:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. -- Merope 20:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, if you do happen to get a new message at the time you see one of the fake message bars, you end up being greeted by two message bars, the real one above the fake one. I personally have gotten into the habit of looking at the bottom of my browser to check the target location of the "(diff)" link. --Kyoko 21:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That time of year again, is it? The reason it isn't "policy to forbid them" is that we only forbid stuff that is important not to have. And because many people feel strongly about getting to put harmless, non-disruptive, non-insulting stuff on their pages. And I think especially because too many people get too much of a kick out of forbidding, removing, and protecting against, stuff on other people's pages. I don't have anybody who has posted above in mind when I say that, by the way. But please try to think of more useful things to do to help Wikipedia than touring it exploring your "hatred" of some silly joke. Revert vandalism. Edit articles. Avoid obsessing about other people's pages and instigating edit wars, hurt feelings, and humiliations. If the hate is nevertheless getting the better of you, how about going for a walk or something? Bishonen | talk 21:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC).

Those words are so wise that I wonder did they come from Bishzilla, forgetting that she was logged on as Bishonen? The "new messages" hoax is the kind of joke that gets a bit tiresome, but not so tiresome that putting a stop to it at all costs is more important than writing articles, than not hurting feelings, or than not getting into silly edit wars. Don't make a big issue over something that may be mildly annoying but that really isn't doing any harm. ElinorD (talk) 23:39, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Bishzilla would have said it something like this:

Box is problem 1 big. If annoys you 1 big, you are happy, in control of self. If annoys you 100 big, you are problem 99 big. Seek therapy. RoarRR!

Hesperian 00:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Even without any context, that's hilarious. --Masamage ♫ 00:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Making a rule against this would be a serious over-reacting. It's mildly annoying, but you will only ever encounter it on a user's talk page. I find when people put a ton of extraneous material at the topic of their talk page "mildly annoying" too -- but I don't think we should ban those, either. --Haemo 23:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If quarrels joke banner, please apply at Bishzilla Dispute Resolution Board And Swedish Massage Parlor. [/Bishzilla goes off to put joke banner at top of her Dispute Resolution page.] bishzilla _ROARR!! 16:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC).

By the way, for anyone who cares, there's a way to turn the links to black on all fake message bars. Add this to your Special:Mypage/monobook.css:

 .a[href *="USERNAME"] { background-color: #FFFFFF; }

replacing USERNAME with your own username. Ral315 » 19:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer to not have to change my own 'new messages' box at all. :)

That said, you inspired a neat trick. Changing all links that follow that class, and then adding a special case for links that include your own username.

It may not work for specifically the case of background colours, since they may choose to include the 'plainlinks' class, but you can always fiddle with the text decorations. :D

.usermessage a {text-decoration:underline overline!important;}

.usermessage a[href*="Bladestorm"] {text-decoration: none!important;}

That way, all links in your 'new messages' dialog that aren't actually intended for you look normal, but all other links get bars over and below them. Bladestorm 23:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Mark all fake message boxes in CSS?

Anyone else in favor of adding:

.usermessage a[href] { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none; }
.usermessage a[href*="/w/index.php?title=User_talk:"] { color: #002BB8; text-decoration: underline; }

(or something similar) to the global CSS?

It would turn the links in most false user message boxes white, but leaves the links in real message boxes the same as they are now. Dragons flight 07:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Plan! ... until some wise guy figures out how to override the style - Alison ☺ 07:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd rather not. Obviously, it wouldn't bother me, but the same CSS class is used for non-spoofs. For example, for people who say, "Leave a message". Turning that white would make it awfully ugly. And, besides, Alison brought up a good point. If we do a site-wide 'fix', then they will find a way around it. :) Bladestorm 14:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Practically anything we put in the global CSS can be overridden by an inline CSS declaration. This, while nifty, fixes nothing. Sorry. :\ EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for extra admin eyeballs on Chris Benoit

Major story breaking now out of Atlanta that he, his wife, and their five year old son were found dead. Of course, this is touching off the usual fast and furious edit war on the article with rumors (that it was all a hoax), and wild stuff from all over the place. It's already been semi-protected, and I'm gonna try to keep it under control, but it might not be a bad thing to have extra admins looking over it (especially for BLP matters etcetera) SirFozzie 23:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

it was a seven year old son ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 21:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not a hoax – AP has it now too. We should watch all the WWE articles a bit more closely than usual. - KrakatoaKatie 01:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

There was an ANI report on it already, and it was semi'd preemptively. hbdragon88 04:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression that preemptive protection and blocking was against policy, has this changed? Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 21:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It just came informally about due to some really heavy and nasty vandalism going about after Kenneth Lay, Steve Irwin, and Jerry Falwell died. The Lay one (where there was ugly speculation that it was a suicide, or something) gained some media attention. Jerry Falwell gained some attention on wonkette [1] hbdragon88 23:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Just checking

Resolved

As an admin, when I want to delete stuff in my own userspace I can just do it, right? (This is just housekeeping, not anything strange like my talkpage.) --Masamage ♫ 00:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

If {{db-author}} would apply, yes. You don't need to tag it, just do it. As no one else is supposed to be editing your userspace, it probably applies. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Provided it's done in good faith, yes. The user talk page might be an exception, but beyond that, it's difficult to think of any obvious or common example to the contrary. For non-admins, {{db-owner}} works just as well. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

That's all what I figured, and it makes sense; just wanted to be sure. Thanks. :) --Masamage ♫ 01:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. We'll all now have a look to see what you are hiding ;) --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Cjmarsicano blocked for 48 hours

I have been in contact with Cjmarsicano (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for the past couple of days because of a thread started either her on WP:ANI about the WikiProject he is involved in and its complete disregard for fair use policies. I've been trying to explain to him the fact that fair use images of living individuals are replaceable, but he continued to say how he feels that they are not replaceable, and he has been referring to others in this as copyright nazis and then proceeded to leave messages on everyone in the WikiProject's talk page in lieu of WP:CANVASS. I had tried to discuss the issue with him civilly, but he feels that fair use allows him to use the promotional photos in the English Wikipedia's articles. After he was warned about WP:CANVASS, he proceeded to repeat the talk page spamming, but giving out his e-mail the the individuals. This stemmed from his belief that he is the moderator/owner of WP:H!P and had warnings on the page that users who were not part of the project were not allowed to edit it, as well as the fact about fair use images (that myself, Abu badali, hbdragon88, and others have been trying to fix). I have currently blocked him for 48 hours. If this needs to be shortened, extended, lifted, let that be brought up here.—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 02:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Cjmarsicano's reply can be seen here, where he explicitly gave me permission to post the e-mail.—Řÿūłóñģ (竜龍) 03:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

He referred to people as "copyright nazis"? Right there is incivility unbecoming of a contributor who has been here this long. (messedrocker • talk) 03:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, no one linked to the actual WP:CANVASS page on his user talk page until I did (nobody informed him that Abu badali also filed an ANI report on him, either), just 16 minutes before Ryulong blocked him. "Canvassing" is a somewaht vague concept; on Wikipedia the definition is somewhat different than the general idea. hbdragon88 03:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

According to previous discussion (might have been ehre, or another noticeboard) that there is no requirement to tell users they have been reported to anything - the template for doing so was also deleted. Therefore, the fact that no-one said there was an ANI report on him was not violating anything. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it was violating anything. It's just mentioned that users should be notified as a courtesy. The user would have a better understanding of the situation had he read the noticeboard postings. I should also mention that he was at it again and requested that all the H!P members email him. hbdragon88 04:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I take that back. He was at it just before Ryulong blocked him, and has only participated in an rfu debate before then. hbdragon88 04:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Chris Benoit and wikipedia announcing the death of Nancy Daus before it was announced

This edit announced the death of Nancy Daus several hours before it was publically announced by the Atlanta police department which is odd in its ownhowever more interestingly the IP resolved to the ISP Optimum Online resolving to Stamford, Connecticut which is the location of World Wrestling Entertainment headquarters. It seems wikipedia got a news leak before it became public knowledge. Is this anything to worry or inquire about? –– Lid^(Talk) 15:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No, news is frequently added to Wikipedia before a lot of news press releases. One notable time I remember this I belive is when Steve Irwin died. [2] — Moe ε 15:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably hearsay because the anon seems partially informed (due to the "peculiar text messages sent over the weekend"? [3]). Sources claim that wife and kid were killed a couple of days earlier than Benoit, and some implicate him in a suicide-murder. We'll see in the next few days. NikoSilver 16:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I checked that last night and there were several wrestling sites that were reporting it before any news sites had it. Corvus cornix 18:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Besides, that reads hoaxish; it refers to the June 11th fight, weeks before either of their deaths. While it might have been based on anything (the earliest reports were just of a 'husband, wife and child', before Benoit was a named, so not hard to figure out her identity), it's more the sort of thing we lock down recently deceased articles for, and not a real issue. It also seems to have been cleared up quickly. --Thespian 18:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually the line it was added to was Vengeance which was this Sunday during the weekend it is thought to have been when he trangled her. –– Lid^(Talk) 19:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact that a suspected edit by WWE HQ in Connecticut mentioned, quite matter-of-factly, that Chris Benoit's wife (and only his wife) were dead leads me to believe that Benoit contacted somebody after killing his wife, but before killing his kid and himself. Maybe he didn't say "um, boss, I just killed my wife" but something more like "um, boss, my wife has passed away, I'm going to be gone for awhile". Whoever made that edit:

1. Might not have known Nancy was murdered.
2. Definitely knew Nancy was dead.
3. Had no idea about the murder of the kid or about the suicide.
4. Made the edit before the three deaths were reported (in the same announcement, some 16 hours later).

Am I missing anything? —freak(talk) 21:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason to conclude that Benoit contacted anyone. It could be that a policeman contacted WWE, but gave them only partial information. In any case, this sort of thing has happened before: I've known of cases where someone from a news organization has scooped the organization's own story by adding it in here. Chick Bowen 21:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

There are news sources saying that Chris Benoit sent text messages to his co-workers, so yes, he was trying to talk to someone. — Moe ε 21:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well here's what we know:

• The Wikipedia edit to Chris Benoit noting Nancy's death was at 04:01, June 25 (UTC), which is 00:01, (12:01 a.m.; one minute after midnight eastern U.S. time; -- which includes WWE HQ in Connecticut, and the murder site in Georgia) on the night of June 24. [4]
• Sources say that Fayette County Sheriff's Department entered the house and found the bodies at about 2:30 p.m., EST (18:30 UTC) on June 25.[5][6][7]. This is some 14 1/2 hours after the "Nancy is Dead" edit.
• Unless of course the police actually found the bodies the previous day, on June 24, before midnight, the WWE knew Nancy was dead before the police knew. It's more likely that someone at WWE told the police that Nancy was dead rather than the opposite.

—freak(talk) 22:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Hold on, hold on - this seems a bit suspect to me, so someone added that nancy had died before the police entered the house?? Maybe we're trivialising this a little too much, there just seems a little more to this. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Based on the edit, yes. However, there is no reason to believe that whoever made the edit knew that she had been murdered. It could be that Benoit contacted the WWE and told them that his wife had died from natural causes/accident and then when the WWE was unable to contact him the next day, they asked the police to swing by and that's when the police discovered the bodies.--Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What I'm trying to say is, surely we have an ethical responsibility to contact the local police investigating the murder about this, it may turn out to be information they already have, but it may help the investigations. Would anyone mind if I emailed them? Ryan Postlethwaite 22:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it appears that people are running off a fowl stench that symbolizes nothing. If this is true, and more importantly: actually does play any relevance in determing what was the driving force behind such incidents, it would require someone whom had prior knowledge about something that important and was/is in a position of prominent power, why would they actually bother by going on Wikipedia to actually place a bizzarre edit like that. It could be from rumors or information slipping through the grapevine, regardless, it doesn't really appear to have anything that is of crucial or dire need of the care of the community when there are bigger fish to fry and more Zapruder-esque things to disregard. Yanksox 22:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. This discussion should be closed if there is no furthur administrative action needed. Ryan, feel free to e-mail them or take it to WP:OFFICE, but it's probably not worth it. — Moe ε 22:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that WP:OFFICE should, or even could, do anything about this, but I believe this incongruity of events is worth noting in the article if it can be properly sourced, that is, if news agencies publish this startling discovery. Perhaps Daniel Brandt would be willing to contact the press regarding these anonymous edits, as he has so many times before. —freak(talk) 22:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I just want to make one note; I've worked for companies who work for the WWE; worked on their sites (in Toronto 2 years ago on the current site, 5 years ago when I lived in Atlanta and it was WWF. The little > made out of dots that's all over the site is my work, and that's INCREDIBLY lame of me to mention, and not the point). The thing that I want to bring up is that, in *another country*, working on a website, with no access to any 'current' storyline info, just older pics and text for placeholders, I was under a tighter confidentiality policy than I was when I was working for the CDC at 'confidential' classification. I see several people who are discussing it as if it was a 'leak' or that if it comes from WWE, well, they just didn't know. But the WWE is really slick on their PR issues, and there is no way that anyone who works there is not incredibly well versed in how tightly they clamp things down. While I'd not be surprised that someone messed up, said something casually to a neighbour or a kid and they posted it, the chances that a slip like this was posted from a WWE computer are practically nil. --Thespian 22:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

True, WWE isn't foolish enough to slip out information about a employees' wifes death. I think something happened after Benoit made those text messages (what ever they said, presumedly that his wife died) and someone found out in the area of Stamford, Connecticut and posted it here. I don't see any other scenarios possible. — Moe ε 23:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the IP's other edits, it's pretty obvious that this was just a garden variety vandal whose vandalization sadly proved true. SirFozzie 16:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow thats a 1 in 10000 coincidence. ♥Fighting for charming Love♥ 18:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Coincidence or not, I'd have to agree with SirFozzie. It looks like nothing more than a sad coincidence. P3net 19:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I realize that the exact nature of the communication between Benoit and WWE after Nancy's death is yet unknown to us, but I refuse to believe this can be dismissed as a coincidence or a (clairvoyant) "garden variety vandal" as has been suggested. —freak(talk) 19:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually it's pretty much known.. Benoit sent five-six text messages to co workers with his address and the fact that the door was open (that's what caused WWE to call the police to do a welfare check and they discovered the bodies) SirFozzie 19:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that the IP's previous edits were vandalism, this is a dynamically assigned IP. (reverse DNS returns the name ool-45786f17.dyn.optonline.net). There's no guarantee that all these edits were made by the same person, much less from the same physical location. There's also the possibility of an open proxy, TOR node, open WiFi node, or simply a compromised workstation operating from this IP. If you assume that the second edit an hour in which the death announcement was added again was done by the same person, this supports the TOR/proxy/compromised workstation hypothesis. 71.146.153.115 21:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Just saw it scroll on Fox News that the FBI is now looking into the Wikipedia/Benoit issue. --72.16.51.2 00:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Fox news is a bunch of plagerisers — n:Death_of_Nancy_Benoit_rumour posted_on_Wikipedia hours_prior_to_body_being found vs the coverage on the fox website.Bawolff 02:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

That sound's a little POV to me, but regardless I fail to see what more the FBI could uncover, as the IP address (which is all Wikipedia logs as far as I'm aware) is very much public knowledge already. It may be worth nothing that the particular user who made the edit has a history of vandalism. P3net 04:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems like this edit is actually the more important one, naming the source of the rumors as "several pro-wrestling websites" only 1 hour later. -- Renesis (talk) 04:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I am interested as to what websites had this information. As it was unsourced, it may have been an edit to attempt and back-up the earlier revision. It still is rather suspicious, though, but I can't find anything about her death that broke before the official police announcement. P3net 04:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

request history merge of William Arthur Bruce to William Arthur McCrae Bruce

Could an admin please do a history merge of William Arthur Bruce into William Arthur McCrae Bruce, and then decide if William Arthur McCrae Bruce ought to be moved to William Bruce (soldier)? --Eastmain 16:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

First, please merge in the content and create a redirect, and then we can do the history merge. The move isn't really for us to decide--that's a content issue. Thanks. Chick Bowen 03:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Founded by IP adress: 111 New South Road Hicksville, New York 11801. www.news12.com local cable news channel. maybe it's important..or not. sorry for my english. Francesco(Italy)

Hmm? Chick Bowen 16:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

68.192.56.88 again!

Resolved

He has been insulting me again diff after this warning User_talk:68.192.56.88#Where_we_assholes_come_from, third message. Can he get a block now? W1k13rh3nry 18:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

• Blocked for serial vandalism and trolling, which I consider a much bigger problem.--Isotope23 18:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Sizable C:CSD backlog

About 700 items or so. Have fun! EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd get to work on it, but... Naconkantari 04:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I took a tiny stab at it, but I've got work in the morning. Oh, how productive I'd be if I didn't have bills to pay somehow. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

For those playing at home, it's still backlogged Riana (talk) 14:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

...to be fair, though, it's still backlogged, regardless of where you're playing from. ;P EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I know how much screaming and yelling would ensue over this, but it would be so nice if we could automate deletion of redundant images. It really shouldn't be considered deletion at all if the images are identical--no content is being removed from the encyclopedia. Chick Bowen 16:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

What about a separate category for them, similar to Category:Attack pages for speedy deletion? I agree that it'd be nice for there to be a "damn simple" category that could get cleared out faster so we could focus our attention on just the issues that require a bit more thought. Maybe sic the newbie admins on it to give them a taste of things to come. ;) EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think automation would be better and safer. If there were a separate category and people just went through them like mad things, bad people might try to take advantage, but a bot could make sure the redundancy was a genuine redunancy and the image was unused. Chick Bowen 22:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Bell Canada vandalism

In the past 72+ hours, I've dealt with a load of vandals (all probably the same person) with Bell Canada as an ISP. I've traced them all to Toronto, and they all like to point me out as a Nazi (which I'm certainly not). The most recent one was a bit of a...how shall I say this...phallus, who vandalized my and another user's page. Check my user page and talk page histories, and all of those IP's get traced back to the same location. I have a sinking feeling that there will be more, once the semi-protect on my page goes bye bye.

Anything that can be done? --DodgerOfZion 06:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, seems like a too big range to block. However, it is reasonable to indef semi-protect your user page (I had it done to mine). Unfortunately, such an option is probably not reasonable for your talk page - anons may have a valid reason to want to talk to you. If, however, vandalism there gets to be too bad - have it semi-protected for a short period of time. Od Mishehu 06:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

How about if I compile a list of these IPs and go to Bell Canada myself to see if they can track down this donkey fool? --DodgerOfZion 06:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Good plan, I'd say. Also, your userpage has been scrubbed of personal info, deleted and selectively restored. That should help with future vandalism (and there will be more. I guarantee it, given you're a vandal fighter) - Alison ☺ 07:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Unblock Requested

Resolved

An unblock of user:100110100 is requested.199.126.28.20 13:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Declined. Shadow1 (talk) 13:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Block check

Resolved

 – user unblocked. All done and sorted - Alison ☺ 14:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I feel like I had a lapse in judgment when I just blocked User:Deeptit for violating username policy (I encountered the user when reverting his vandalism). I guess I saw the name as offensive (tit), but I don't think it's blatant enough. As soon as I did it I couldn't understand why I felt so sure about it. Now it's making me feel like crap thinking about it, so can someone take a look. I've been an admin for a week and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot here :( Leebo ^T/C 14:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't seem blatant to me. Od Mishehu 14:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It's okay, these things happen. The name seems fine to me (It's the Indian, "Deepti", with a "T" on the end. Deepti is really common in India). I've unblocked and removed the message. And hey, thanks for coming here and saying what you did. That takes a lot of honesty and bravery. I'm sure there are others who would not have - Alison ☺ 14:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for handling it, Alison. I still feel like crap, but at least it's rectified. I'm disappointed that I let myself do that. Leebo ^T/C 14:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, don't feel like crap. You handled it honourably! Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone owns up to them - Alison ☺ 14:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC) (a whole twelve minutes of block time was served!)

Indian names! Grumble grumble :) Riana (talk) 14:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

*you* complaining about Indian names! Outrageous!!! :D --soum ^talk 14:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I know... what's even worse is that I have co-workers in India... I can usually identify Indian names. Leebo ^T/C 14:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Even if the name is OK, someone should keep an eye on account, based on the users first edit --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 15:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Note and question

Note to all fellow admins (man, I love saying that): at the suggestion of Zzyzx11, I have created an alternate account for use on public computers, FV alternate (talk · contribs). I will note it on my userpage—are there any appropriate categories which should be added to the alternate account's page? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:48, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

As long as you say that both are your accounts, and you do not use it for disruptive purposes, there is no requirement of categorizing it. --soum ^talk 14:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Alternate Wikipedia accounts - you could add this, but it's not necessary. Riana (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Check out mine - I've added the userbox, category, etc, etc. Also, see User:Alison/Userboxes - Alison ☺ 15:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I've gone for the category. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:14, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I just have the userbox on my alternate account, though the category isn't a bad idea, either. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• I've also got alternate accounts too. See User:SunStar Net X1 - which edits my userspace only (I assume that's a fairly legitimate reason!) and also User:Cæg - for use at public terminals as well! Both are categorised and used when needed!!

--SunStar Net ^talk 08:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Need help "salting" a page

A user has requested deletion of her userpage and talk page. I have deleted it but I think it should be salted as well. As a new admin, I can't figure out how to do the salting. Can someone else do it for me and leave a note on my talk page explaining what I should have done? Thanx. --Richard 17:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does it require salting? From WP:SALT: "Pages that are repeatedly re-created after deletion in unencyclopedic form or against policy can be protected from further re-creation." Is this page continually being recreated against policy? Firsfron of Ronchester 17:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the directions on how to do it are listed on WP:SALT, if page recreations are really a cause for concern. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 17:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the info. What I think I'm confused about is... if a user requests her userpage to be deleted, is it the case that only that user would be able to re-create it? That is, I am assuming that, short of her account being compromised or usurped, only she or an admin would be able to re-create the page. No one would be able to just come along and re-create an account with that same name. Right? --Richard 18:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The page can be re-created by anyone (though who would? And we don't protect a page unless it's clear there are persistant problems). The account cannot be re-created, even by an admin. 'Crats can usurp a username, if the account has no edits. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Salting it is probably unnecessary, though probably harmless as well. I've been using protected titles recently, as I think it's the preferred method of salting these days. You can go to WP:PT and just follow the instructions there; by transcluding the page and providing a short rationale for the salting (and signing with the date), the page is salted. MastCell ^Talk 18:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I agree that salting is probably unnecessary. I'm still learning the ropes (second day as an admin). --Richard 18:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at WP:PT. Viridae^Talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Assistance requested with WP:BLP violation

If Neil is an administrator, he should know better. Assistance is requested overseeing the Warrior (wrestler) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) page. Burntsauce 20:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Theres a difference between unreferenced material and a BLP violation. BLP violations are context that include contentious statements, unreferenced is not. — Moe ε 21:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

*sigh* lame edit war, trying to apply BLP to a person who has been dead for 7 years. — Moe ε 22:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

And if you guessed the IP Statement I just removed about Rodney Anoa'i was a JB196 Open Proxy, you win a kewpie doll! SirFozzie 23:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Has this happened before?

Resolved

 – Image deleted by Jkelly as a copyright violation. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 22:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:Karine a.jpg is in a rather strange state. It's from a Federal State Department website (PD-USGov-State, etc), and yet it is quite clearly watermarked "© Reuters" ! 68.39.174.238 21:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not public domain. From the source website, "Photographs on this site are in the public domain unless a copyright is indicated. Only public domain photos can be reproduced without permission." Coming from a US government website doe not automatically make it public domain as the government will sometimes use copyrighted materials with permission. -- JLaTondre 22:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Images not getting deleted.

I saw these 4 images with the {{subst:dfu|reason}} after I did a general cleanup of some other related article:

• Image:NFS Underground 2 (screenshot4).jpg
• Image:NFS Underground 2 (screenshot3).jpg
• Image:NFS Underground 2 (screenshot2).jpg
• Image:NFS Underground 2 (screenshot1).jpg

Is there just a general backlog of deleting images, or must they be hunted down to get them deleted?--293.xx.xxx.xx 12:36, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Go to C:CSD, then click "show" next to "Category:Disputed non-free images ". You will see the problem. Jackaranga 12:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Lol looks like there are several thousand of them, I pity the person who is going to have to look through them all and deal with 1000 "you deleted my image" on his talk page. Jackaranga 12:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah after much drama there was sort of a "gentleman's agreement" to temporarily extend the time limit from 7 days to one month for the "no rationale" tagged images. The reason beeing a bot had been run over the images and the result was tens of thousands of images tagged for deletion for lack of fair use rationales, and it was just not possible to write rationales for them all in 7 days. Come 1 July it's open season on these images again though, but given the size of the backlog it will probably take a while to work though it. --Sherool (talk) 13:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I volunteer to at least help out. --293.xx.xxx.xx 17:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Block me!

Hi,

I'd like to request a voluntary block for 48 hours for coming close to violating the terms of my arbitration hearing and violating the spirit of it. I'm a disobedient user and should be dealt with accordingly.

WLU 15:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you just not do it, rather than doing it and requesting a block on yourself? This cries a bit of attention seeking. --Deskana (talk) 15:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

For one thing I've already posted a comment regards this on someone's talk page and better to own up to it than have it bite me on the ass later. For another, I've got work to be done and wikipedia's pretty distracting. WLU 15:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• I've given you a block of a more appropriate length. Enjoy. WilyD 15:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

User requested blocks don't go down well on Wikipedia. --Deskana (talk) 15:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

"I'm a disobedient user and should be dealt with accordingly." I wasn't aware Wikipedia had a 900 number. More seriously, I'm not a huge fan of self-requested blocks, either, and this particular format seems to be a cry for attention. If this warrants a block, we should block; if not, we shouldn't -- further discussion of whether a block is warranted here should probably ignore the source of the request, I suppose. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Move bug

(OK. I know this is the wrong place but I cannot remember where the developers' notice board is.) When I do a move, I get a message like:

The page "$1" (links) has been moved to "$2".

Please fix. -- RHaworth 16:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I confirm this, but MediaWiki:Pagemovedtext hasn't been edited. Will ^(talk) 16:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems like $1 and $2 aren't being passed at all, based on what's coming up in the resulting message. (RHaworth, you're probably thinking of Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) for the main such forum on Wikipedia itself, but bugzilla: (off-wiki) is the appropriate place to report bugs; VPT is a good place to get a sanity check before reporting them, though.) --ais523 16:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Another MediaWiki page has broken in similar circumstances (MediaWiki:Removedwatchtext and MediaWiki:Addedwatchtext. It appears to be related to some templates transcluded on these pages, {{MediaWiki unwatch page}}, {{MediaWiki watch page}}, {{MediaWiki direct link}}, and {{MediaWiki direct link 2}}. My current understanding is that these templates were developed to work around some other issue with MediaWiki parameters, so beyond noticing that possible connection, I'm not sure exactly what the problem might be. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Substing {{MediaWiki direct link}} and {{MediaWiki direct link 2}} fixed it, which means template parameters do work now? Prodego ^talk 20:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Hrm, odd behavior at Removedwatchtext and Addedwatchtext, with that fix implemented -- watch/unwatch a page, which brings up the Ajax message box; click the watch/unwatch link in the Ajax box, and it works, but sends you to a full-page MediaWiki message, where the watch/unwatch link no longer receives the $1 parameter appropriately. Anybody else care to give it a shot? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Curious edit to Chris Benoit

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

Resolved

 – this is also being discussed here

Fox news story[8] about the Chris Benoit murder/suicide involves Wikipedia. Not expecting any discussion, just want to make sure people are aware.Risker 17:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Refering to this edit. It seems that whatever necessary action we should take as editors and administrators has already been taken.↔NMajdan•talk 18:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for AFD closure

Resolved

 – Closed as no consensus (default to keep).

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Automatix (software) has been open for several weeks without being closed or relisted. There seems to be a pretty solid consensus for keep, but I've participated in the discussion - can someone else go through the motions? Zetawoof_(ζ) 20:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. —Kurykh 20:46, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Immediate fix required

MediaWiki:Pagemovedtext must be fixed. A bug in the MediaWiki software has made it no more work as expected. The bug is detailed here. Because it is not likely that they are going to shift back to the previous version of the software, and untill the new version is applied and the new Page Move text is shown, it is wise to revert the page to this or a similar revision.

One can use the test page I provided on the Bugzilla web site, to test the message is working fine. huji—TALK 20:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

See #Move bug thread, above; are you suggesting the same changes, or are the changes made today causing another problem? – Luna Santin (talk) 21:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Admin Bad Faith Edits

There seems to be a problem with a wikipedia admin making bad faith edits. It's my understand of wikipedia's linking and reference policy that editors cannot use a copyright violating source as an external link or reference (particular sites which infringe on the copyrights of others such as youtube). I've come across a site which places its links on a variety of wikipedia pages, each link resolves to a bookmarked area of a given page, and that bookmarked area contains links to "articles" on the subject matter. When you click on an article's link, rather than be provided with original content, you're provided with the site's page in frames, and another website's page placed within a target frame. Since there is nothing on the site to indicate that you're viewing a page from another website, it gives the impression that the content being essentially hotlinked into a target frame belongs to the site you're own (when its basically funnelling copyrighted material without permission). This means that the link is in violation of another site's copyrights, and that we aren't actually linking to the source of the material that the external link was placed on wikipedia for. I removed several of this type of link from a few articles, and an admin reverted them. I explained to the admin why it's against wikipedia policy before making the change again, and the admin reverted the edits and then set all the articles to full protection. This seems like an abuse of admin priveleges, I'd like to know where I can report this admin for these actions. 70.149.165.21 21:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Do you have any links or diffs to where you say this happened? --Haemo 21:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Incivility by administrator Crum375

Resolved

 – Crossed wires - Crum meant no ill feelings. Will ^(talk) 22:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

In a minor editing dispute at The Holocaust (which of two images of the same photo should be used, and whether D-Day should be prominently mentioned), the admin [accused me of vandalism], when there was clearly only good-faith involved [9], [10], and [11]. I've [reminded her/him] of what vandalism is, and that ill considered accusations WP:ICA are considered on Wikipedia to be a form of Incivility. Can someone here remove the false accusation from the edit summary? Jd2718 22:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

He wasn't talking to you I think. He edited at exactly the same minute as someone else changed the caption of an image from "pwned" to "A grave inside Bergen-Belsen, liberated by the British on April 15, 1945.". I would think that was what he was referring to, hence why he said "remove vandalism, victim's face is more imporant[sic], and d-day is relevant" not "remove vandalism: victim's face is more impor[t]ant, and d-day is relevant". Sometimes what happens is there is an editing conflict and he forgot to change the edit summary. Also don't take things to heart like that. I have had much worse (ex:here. Jackaranga 22:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

See this also, don't feel to bad, even if people do accuse you unfairly, just ignore them. If he really meant it he would have added a warning to your talk page. Jackaranga 22:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe that IP should have read about TW before copying and pasting the edit summary. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 22:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I posted this, walked away, and came back to found Jackaranga, Will, and Crum himself had calmed things down. I'm glad for my few minutes away from the computer, and thank all of you for helping (and for your patience). And Jack, yes, your edit summary was a little worse... Jd2718 23:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the edit summary was aimed at someone else. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring at Wikipedia:No original research

I copy-edited this policy on the 27th of June with these edits. These edits did not change the policy, which remained the same but was expressed more clearly in better grammar. One edit was reverted immediately by User:SlimVirgin and the remainder reverted by her today - despite the fact that the changes were generally welcomed on the talk page. Now, two other editors have reverted to the copy-edited version and user:Crum375 has twice reverted back to the original. I have engaged with SlimVirgin on both her talk page here and here on the policy talk page but during this discussion she preformed the initial revert. Could some uninvolved parties please try to work out what exactly is the problem here? Tim Vickers 22:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As a update I've now been accused of WP:POINT, bad faith editing and edit warring, despite that fact that I have never made a revert to retain any changes that I have made to a policy page. I'm not happy about this. Tim Vickers 00:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

That's some pretty pedantic back-and-forth going on there. I don't see why people are so concerned, given that the extremely subtle differences that some seem to see in the copy-edit would be cases of Wikilawyering if they were every put into practice as some sort of defense. --Haemo 00:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, if this were any other page I would have just walked away and let the people who seem to own it work it out amongst themselves. However, I think it is pretty important that the policy pages are as clear as they can possibly be. Having phrases like "it is important that editors situate the research; that is, provide contextual information" will be completely opaque to most readers, especially people with English as their second language. Tim Vickers 00:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Same problems going on at WP:V, with SlimVirgin behaving in a manner that (while I like to assume good faith, she may mean well) but borders on WP:OWN. Numerous other editors have expressed concerns about her wording on the WP:V policy page. At this point, it's important that she works with others on the talk page towards consensus. I'm not sure I see that happening yet. This all appears to be similar to what's going on at WP:NOR. It's very frustrating, to say the least. I generally avoid policy pages, not wanting to be involved in such disputes. But have genuine concerns about the way the policy page stands now, and especially how the discussion and edit warring is going. --Aude (talk) 00:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tim and Aude; Tim appears to also be a victim of WP:BITE. I first encountered Tim on Talk:Veganism, and to the best of my knowledge he does not engage in WP:POINT, bad faith editing or edit warring. As for the troublesome wording on WP:V, this has recently come up in a discussion on Talk:Terraforming in popular culture; SlimVirgin was the original author of the policy that states, "Any edit lacking a source may be removed", which she added at 21:40, 16 December 2005. This problematic wording has led to some editors removing unreferenced content from an article - without making citation requests - even when the content is itself easily verifiable. This has been discussed in at least three separate instances for years,[12][13] [14] without any resolution to this problem allowed on the policy page. —Viriditas | Talk 02:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

He's been editing for a year, so it has nothing to do with BITE. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Tim has stated upfront that he is new to editing policy pages, and in this section he has also admitted that he is inexperienced. —Viriditas | Talk 04:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Viriditas, please make sure you know what you're talking about before weighing in. Tim tried to change "may be removed" to "will be removed" [15] (citing Jimbo, who has said no such thing). If you think the former's too tough, you certainly wouldn't support the latter. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Please excuse my failure for not seeing Tim's edit to that particular section, as you reverted it approximately three minutes after he added it. [16]. Perhaps if there were less reverts and more discussion pertaining to the topic, this would not be a problem. Regardless of Tim's change, that wording is still problematic, and as the links above demonstrate, you have not allowed anyone to change it since 2005. —Viriditas | Talk 03:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It isn't problematic, but strongly supported, so long as the caution advised in the policy is adhered to. I've seen you take advantage of it many times, Viriditas. Tim Vickers's attempt to strengthen it to the point of requiring all uncited material to be removed would have been absurd, which is why it was quickly reverted, and that why he's pissed off. People arriving to edit policies who know nothing about them isn't helpful, and it's not WP:OWN to undo the damage. I probably won't comment here again because this is part of Tim's forest fire, and part of the POINT that I sense is going on; he's started this discussion on four policy talk pages that I know of, plus at least two user talk pages, and now here, even though it has nothing to do with admin actions, and he's already been answered several times by myself and others. SlimVirgin ^(talk)

You seem quite fond of making unsubstantiated allegations that have no basis in fact, so I won't bother replying to the one you've made above. Also, please stop reading motives into Tim's foray into policy editing. He has honestly admitted his inexperience and yet you keep biting. Please stop. —Viriditas | Talk 04:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the only reason Viriditas has turned up here is because he was recently thwarted by me and a few others from obsessively posting to a disambiguation talk page to which he posted 330 times in three days with various insults, before Radiant temporarily banned him from it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

No, the reason I showed up here, is because I have dealt with Tim previously and I enjoyed his contributions, and I don't share your opinion of his editing behavior. Furthermore, I recently had to deal with the fallout of your ownership on WP:V in Talk:Terraforming in popular culture, as I stated above. You are welcome, of course, to believe whatever you want. And, your tendentious, disruptive modification of my comments is not only rude and disrespectful, but demonstrates that you don't care what other editors think or feel, as I have asked you many times not to interrupt my comments but you continue to do it. —Viriditas | Talk 04:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

What do people suggest I do? I don't want to escalate this in any way, and it seems silly taking something so minor to any kind of mediation. Could somebody more experienced than me talk to SlimVirgin about this and persuade her to be less defensive? I agree entirely that policies should not be changed without clear consensus and careful discussion, but defending bad grammar against copy-editing seems to be taking this principle too far. Tim Vickers 03:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Tim had never edited any of the core content policies or guidelines until a couple of days ago. He turned up first (as I recall, without checking diffs) at RS, arguing that scholarly sources should be prioritized over non-scholarly ones, unless the latter weren't available, which would have been a major violation of NPOV. He then turned up at V trying to make the same change, and then at NPOV trying to make some other change, and then at NOR, where he edited in a way that changed a description of what a secondary source is, making it inaccurate — all the while claiming that he only wanted to fix some grammar. I have no idea what's going on. The reverting has led to page protection of two of the policies so far. Some of his edits are pointless tweaks of wording; others make subtle or substantial changes that show he's not understood what he's writing. It almost has the sense of a WP:POINT to it — that, because his scholarly/non-scholarly thing was opposed, he's going to make damn sure he gets to make some changes anyway, and will scream WP:OWN if he doesn't. This is the third day I've had to spend time on it, for no benefit so far. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Does choosing a more reliable source make for POV ? Shyamal 03:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

SV, why didn't you engage with Tim on the policy's talk page or on his user page? Your quick reverts of his good faith work on the policy wasn't helpful for the situation. Whether or not his edits are actually improving the policy or not should be discussed in the appropriate channels. Just because he hasn't worked on policy much in the past doesn't mean that he can't participate now. In fact, fresh views from the "outside" may be just what some policies in the project need. The policies belong to the entire community, not just "established" editors, whatever that means. CLA 04:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

My history owith SV is, in my recollection, a little different from how it is portrayed above. I saw this post at the village pump that raised concerns about a major change made to WP:RS by SlimVirgin. I read the policy and developed an alternative wording on the talk page with other editors. I then compared the old wording to the new one in a straw poll with unanimous support for the new version. I then put this in the guideline and it was then reverted by Crum375. The reason for the reversion given was that the SlimVirgin thought the proposed wording conflicted with WP:V. The discussion therefore moved on SV's advice to the WP:V talk page. I did not add the proposed change to WP:V, as it was contested by SlimVirgin and Crum375. The discussion about how and if to change WP:V is ongoing, with SlimVirgin and Crum375 arguing that the original wording be retained. Reading how badly-written this policy was, I made non-contentious copy-edits to both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. One section of NPOV was so bad I raised it on the talk page here and another editor started making substantial edits to improve this. I reverted these and suggested that we develop an alternative on the talk page, retaining the same meaning but much clearer wording. This was done here but SlimVirgin objected to the proposed draft with the short statement "I strongly object to this, because it's badly written and therefore unclear." and has not responded to any further questions on the talk page about what she found unclear. In general, while most editors on these pages have engaged in constructive discussion, I have not been able to get SlimVirgin and Crum375 to engage in a similar manner. Tim Vickers 04:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me start out by commenting that I generally appreciate SlimV 's work both as a contributor and admin. But her presentation of this issue is a little off. Maybe Tim did initiate discussion to change WP:RS, but at least a half dozen editors participated. A wording addition was proposed concerning the relative reliability of academic peer reviewed sources versus news sources, specifically with regard to scientifically oriented articles only (roughly speaking). This change in wording was supported by at least a dozen different editors with exactly zero editors opposing on the talk page for about 4 days (Discussion here). The addition was reverted twice without a comment by SlimV on the Talk page. Also, Tim didn't just "turn up at WP:V", we were all directed to go there by SlimV because RS (in her opinion) is both deprecated and useless. There's no point to changing it, as WP:V is now where anything needs to be added or changed regarding sources.

I also want to add (obvious, I know, but there's a point) SlimV is an administrator, and I am not. I don't feel welcome to participate in discussion on policy pages, and so I've pretty much stopped because there doesn't seem to be a point in trying. Nevertheless, I do appreciate Tim (and a couple of others) for sticking with it in this instance because I continue to feel that the addtitional language originally proposed on the WP:RS talk page (initial discussion linked above) does not violate NPOV (which has been made clear, just makes me generally ignorant of policies and a bother). R. Baley 04:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

R. Baley, the people who turned up to support Tim Vickers were not experienced policy editors. You could have a thousand people turn up to support it — if it fundamentally undermined NPOV, and I believe his suggestion would have done, it would make no difference, because NPOV is a Foundation issue. Scientific or scholarly point of view has been rejected many, many times. That's not to say we let in nonsense, but what counts as reliable counter-POV on any given occasion is a matter of editorial judgment. I say that as someone who is known to be very strict about good sources. But we simply can't say that scientists will invariably be prioritized in articles they want to claim as their own (though usually they will be). Similarly, we can't have historians always prioritized over other reliable sources about historical events, or literature professors always prioritized over other writers in articles about novels. Should Holocaust historians have the only word when it comes to the Holocaust? No. They should mostly have it, perhaps they should almost always have it, but if there are strong and reliable dissenting views, they must be heard. Anyway, this is a content dispute; nothing to do with this board, so if you want me to continue, please post a query on one of the talk pages. Talk:NPOV would probably be best. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:05, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I've only just noticed that Tim Vickers posted a note on the village pump about conducting a straw poll to force the scholarly edit into WP:V. This is not how policy is made, ever, and these forest fire posts are extremely inappropriate, and make it increasingly difficult to assume good faith. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

"...make it increasingly difficult to assume good faith." Yeah, I guess... if you're bad at it. I find it easy to believe that people make all sorts of mistakes in their approach without suspecting bad intentions.

Statements about how difficult it is to assume good faith are characteristic of tendentious editors and newbies. Most, if not all people, pursue the good, as they understand it, and they do what they believe to be necessary to get there. I've never seen an argument on Wikipedia (or elsewhere) advanced by somebody concluding that the other party is acting out of some other, sinister, motive.

It wouldn't be that hard for a one-year user to believe that straw polls and such are how we make policy. We're not exactly transparent about these things, after all. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Except that he's been told many times that it's inappropriate, and yet he continues. AGF doesn't involve being deaf, dumb, and blind. Either he knows what he's doing and is deliberately out to cause a problem; or he has so little idea about policy creation and maintenance that he really believes we can (and should) fundamentally undermine NPOV via a village pump straw poll. Neither possibility is an attractive one. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT#MYSPACE

User:Robert Chares Summers has two edits: one creating his userpage (which is chock-full of personal information) and one uploading an image to be used on said userpage. Should something be done? I'd like to report this on another more specific page, but I'm not sure where that might be—can someone point me in the right direction, in addition? Octane ^{[improve me]} 28.06.07 2253 (UTC)

IMO, Remove the personal information, but don't block - he may well just want to edit the encyclopedia at some point in the future. Will ^(talk) 22:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Account is too new. Wait at least a month before prodding. hbdragon88 01:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Charlotte Powers

Resolved

Charlotte Powers I dont know exactly what's going on there, but Wikipedia is not a testbed. That and it appears that it's somehow scripted or automated, so might be some WP:BOT abuse. Q ^{T C} 00:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the user needs a block. Accidentally wandering into one of those pages before it gets fixed would be enough to crash someone's browser, as well as the fact that they've yet to do a single constructive thing. Dan 00:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

That looks very odd, and suspicious to me. I also would agree with the "automated/bot" theory there. --Haemo 00:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocked pending an explanation of those edits. WjBscribe 01:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Backlog at WP:OP

Could people who can check for open proxies start hacking away at WP:OP? I would love to help, but I only know how to check for CGI web proxies. Jesse Viviano 01:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Does WP:CSD#G12 cover this image?

Resolved

Image:WhichShouldBeTheInspirationForTheGenocideLogo1to5.PNG is a derivative work of an image in this story. The original image is copyrighted to Associated Press. Sancho 03:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• In my opinion, yes. False copyright tags are equivalent to copyright infringement. --Haemo 03:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks, I agree, that makes sense. Sancho 03:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Backlog at AFD

We have a modest backlog at AFD; four days and about 120 articles. Any help would be appreciated. --Coredesat 04:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

See WP:AFDO for links to overdue discussions... WjBscribe 04:41, 29 June 2007 (UTC)