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EddieSegoura Ban Appeal

Resolved

 – This ban appeal is unsuccessful; no community consensus to unblock. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

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

---

On April 26, 2006, EddieSegoura (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was banned by the Wikipedia Community. He has since contacted the Arbitration Committee to appeal this ban. Since the ban was instated by the community, the Committee has opted to defer this decision to the community as a whole.

For information about the events leading up to this ban, EddieSegoura's entry on WP:BANNED is provided below, including links to the discussions leading to the ban:

Editing career was spent almost entirely on using Wikipedia to promote the existence of a neologism. He engaged in massive disruption of the original AfD with votes from sockpuppets he created (confirmed, suspected), as well as attempts to change votes. His numerous attempts to recreate the article finally exhausted the community's patience (version 1, version 2). His disruption has been so severe that the unusual step was taken of salting his userpage (it has since been restored). Has also been suspected of causing similar disruption on Wikitionary. (from WP:BANNED#E)

EddieSegoura has posted some information on his userpage detailing his intentions if he should be unbanned and restrictions he is willing to be subject to should he be unbanned. The Committee would invite users of the Community to review this ban. To facilitate discussion, a portion of EddieSegoura's talk page will be transcluded below to permit him to respond to questions and comments without being unblocked.

For the Arbitration Committee, Hersfold ^(t/a/c), on the 22nd day of April 2009 (no timestamp to prevent premature archival)

When was his last activity using socks? I've counted about 30 confirmed, and about 8 suspected. Has there been a reasonable amount of time since then? Also, can someone more familiar with this post information regarding this user so we may have the pertinent information before voting? Synergy 01:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The last edit by a confirmed sock was by User:Grounded into a double play in February 2008. Mr.Z-man 01:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems like this discussion is premature. Why don't we wait for the user to post an unblock request on their talk page, which can then be discussed here? Jehochman ^Talk 02:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

A single admin would probably have to seek further input before granting an unblock, so skipping that step seems efficient. Here is the "unblock request to the community", if you will. I'm always one for second chance and it's been a long while, so I'd support unblocking with reasonable conditions as determined by those that remember the run-up. –xeno ^talk 02:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that he was already requesting unblock through e-mail. It was taken to arbcom for clarification, and kicked back here for community discussion. From Mr.Z-man's comment (thanks by the way), I believe his three year ban should be lifted given that his last known socking was over a year ago. So I support an unblock but I do request he be watched and if needed, be mentored. Synergy 02:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC) Never mind. Synergy 22:33, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I concur with xeno and synery's comments - no point in a further unblock request. Regarding the request I support lifting of the ban with a period of probation - say 3 months - which would see an immediate blocking and return to the ban in the case of similar transgression/s during that time. Striking my previous support - now having spent a good deal of time watching new posts and observing history ... I will make a new comment of below.--VS ^talk 03:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

(after several ecs)There's been an awful lot more than 30 socks. The reason you can only find 30 confirmed socks is that Eddie employs new socks to systematically detag his blocked sock accounts, like this for example. We're talking about a ton of socks, hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands...he was, after all, the so-called "exicornt vandal" and I don't believe he has ever stopped socking since he was banned. The community should also be aware that last year he was impersonating living people, including Power Rangers actors with accounts User:Jason Smith and User:Austin St. John. These were checkuser confirmed and self-confessed eventually by Eddie in private. At the time he pulled the Power Rangers stunt, he had been emailing me telling me he wanted to get the ES account unbanned and I had been talking to him off-site, trying to help him. He played games with me with the Power Ranger actors accounts and went so far as to contact me through OTRS pretending to be these actors wanting their accounts unblocked and asking me to call him on the phone so he could prove he was these people. He did eventually confess and apologise to me once I confronted him with my suspicion that he was behind the accounts but I was rather astounded he would waste my time with those sorts of games when I had extended him my good faith and gone out of my way to try to help him. I am very sorry to have to write about this and I know it will upset Eddie, but I feel strongly that the community should be given the full facts when being asking to extend a good faith chance to a banned user. I noticed in his userpage statement he mentions being mentored by me. I did not endorse that statement and have not agreed to mentor him. I'm simply not here enough to mentor anyone anyway and in Eddie's case, I have tried to help him many times in the past but have never been able to get him to take my advice about anything, not even my many, many attempts to get him to stop socking and attacking and harassing other users (Ryulong and BunchofGrapes are two users he has harassed in the past and blatantly refused to AGF of), and I fail to see why it would be any different this time, so I frankly see the idea of me mentoring him as a waste of both our time. That said, I'm not going to oppose or support the appeal because I'm not here enough to help deal with the consequences, but I think Eddie needs to finally be completely honest and transparent about his activities if he expects the community to give him another chance. And he needs to own up to all current socks he is operating as I don't believe for one second that he isn't currently operating accounts. It would be much better for his own case in trying to convince the community that he is now willing to abide by this project's policies and guidelines if such information was provided voluntarily by Eddie, rather than having to be revealed by other people. I feel the community is entitled to the truth and I call on Eddie to be entirely frank and honest about his activities here, particularly over the last 6-12 months. Sarah 03:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion/Voting

• Comment (after ec). In the past, we have often requested that users who have conducted extensive sock puppetry reveal all sock puppets for the sake of transparency (our version of truth and reconciliation, I suppose). Sometimes this has worked and sometimes it hasn't. In this case, since Eddie repeatedly denied the Voltron connection before finally admitting it, and also denied being the Exicornt vandal for a long time (bizarrely, even though he'd written the original article), I'd like to see it. Also, the User:Grounded into a double play and User:Voltron accounts were active simultaneously (rather, Eddie started Grounded, abandoned it in favor of Voltron, and then went back to Grounded when Voltron was blocked), which I find at least odd--if they were really honest attempts to start over in good faith, why make two of them? All that said, I do recall, as an admin who dealt with him back in the day, that my impression of Eddie was of someone good-natured but eccentric who, for reasons I never understood, got all into knots over the exicornt nonsense. Chick Bowen 02:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I do agree with your impression that he is good natured. I have generally found him a nice fellow to chat with, but he unfortunately gets a "bee in his bonnet" (for want of a better description) about things and people and simply refuses to let go of them and this appears to be what gets him in trouble the most - his fixation on particular users he feels have wronged him, on creating account after account, on the whole "exicornt" thing (which led to Wiktionary having to block AOL in order to stop Eddie. [1]).I guess the issue ultimately is whether he can control his eccentricities sufficiently to edit collaboratively without continuing to cause disruption. Sarah 03:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Chris, also see NewYorkDreams (talk · contribs) which was also being operated at the same time as Voltron and Grounded into a double play. Sarah 04:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I decided to spend about half an hour of searching, tagging/re-tagging - I managed to find some more pages, making the total # in the socks-category jump to 43. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose per RickK. Hesperian 03:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Err, what? RickK hasn't been active since mid-2005, well before this ban was placed. What exactly are you referring to? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 05:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• I too was confused when reading this; I assumed he typed the name wrong? Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• The last think RickK said before he left was "Vandals, trolls and malactors are given respect, whereas those who are here to actually create an encyclopedia, and to do meaningful work, are slapped in the face and not given the support needed to do the work they need to do." Four years later, nothing's changed. We're still more interested in rehabilitating trolls than in creating an environment conducive to building an encyclopedia. Hesperian 06:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Ah ok; I understand what you mean now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• I find that to be a truly crappy rationale for leaving the project, and for opposing someone else's possible re-entry. We're a community of volunteers - anyone who comes here looking for a pat on the back is in for a rude awakening. However, not a day goes by when we don't work towards improving the encyclopedia-building environment, and rehabilitating trolls (where possible) is part of that. No one is forcing any admin to put an ounce of their time into rehabilitating Eddie. As a supporter of lifting this ban, I'll vouch my time to check each of his edits. If you want conditions imposed like a weekly (or random) CU, I'm sure there is someone empowered to do that who doesn't consider it a burden at all. The possible downside is that Eddie relapses and does something stupid, in which case he gets reblocked for life and someone hits the rollback button on whatever he did, end of story. The possible upside is that Eddie (given his obvious interest in the project) becomes a solid contributor and makes needed additions and improvements to thousands, maybe tens of thousands of articles, for years to come. I'll roll the dice on that upside. bd2412 T 14:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • It isn't just RickK. Hundreds of good editors have left over this issue. We have too many bleeding hearts who can't bear to stand by and watch the pitiful suffering of the poor troll who went and got himself banned; but couldn't care less about the good faith editors who are sick of having their time and energe wasted by these people. The real downside here is this: if Eddie relapses, one of two things will happen: either (a) someone will wield the banhammer immediately, in which case the bleeding hearts will scream blue murder and overturn it; or (b) we'll all hold off wielding the banhammer for a while, in which case we all go through the same time-wasting crap all over again. Hesperian 14:46, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Hesperian is entitled to his view, as you are to yours, bd2412. I don't see any problem in commenting on a view regarding someone else's reasons for opposing someone's entry in this project. But, I don't believe that it's anyone's place to be negatively commenting on a productive user's reasons for leaving - you achieve zilch for the good of this project by calling someone's reasons for departing "crappy"; instead, you create more negative feelings, and invite potentially more negative responses, and criticisms. If a productive user has left, then that is a great loss for this project - we should think why he/she was leaving, and whether we could've reasonably done something to have prevented him/her from leaving. Perhaps rather than attacking someone's stated reasons for leaving this project, you could consider being more focused and pro-active: why have you not made a proposal to ArbCom or the community that you're ready to mentor him (or something to that effect to help allow him to re-enter)? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Well I did volunteer in my statement above to vouch my time to check each of his edits, and I stick by that. I don't know if you'd call that mentoring so much as policing, but if he vandalizes, I'll permablock him, and if he gets into, for example, a heated discussion, I'll counsel him to keep his cool. I don't think anyone will hesitate to block him if he relapses into real vandalism, and if we establish now that any relapse means the ban is restored, and forever, I think a substantial majority of the community will support that condition and that will be the rule. I'm as sick of vandalism as anyone here - I've made numerous proposals to throttle back vandalism [2], [3], [4], including even suing vandals, all of which have been shot down in the name of the principle of maintaining an open source encyclopedia. However, it is impossible for me to work on this project without seeing it for what it is - an eight year old child that is already the largest storehouse of readily accessible information ever assembled in human history, and one that is constantly absorbing more information and improving along many dimensions. So maybe I was overly harsh for saying RickK's reason for leaving was "crappy", but I think it was thin-skinned, in light of the real progress that we are making as time goes by. bd2412 T 18:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not therapy. Eccentrics don't help the project, so they should not be welcome here. Friday (talk) 04:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

  I was asked to refactor to avoid offending the eccentrics. And to be more accurate, I imagine there are any number of eccentrics who do useful things here. What I was thinking but failed to say is that eccentricity by itself is an unhelpful attribute for a contributor here. Eddie's past behavior certainly fell into the extremely unhelpful category. That said, it probably wouldn't be very harmful to give him another shot. The big challenge will be reigning in the cadre of self-appointed therapists. Don't let them interfere if he needs to be blocked again, and the risk is minimal. Let them interfere, and this has the potential to waste lots and lots of community time. Friday (talk) 13:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

  PS - do not waste time with mentoring- has this approach been known to be useful? I can't recall a case where it was. But, I've often seen it be harmful. It frequently leads to the mentor becoming too involved, and thus subverting attempts to deal with the their protege's disruption. We can't really do anything about it if someone appoints themselves a "mentor", but we can choose not to mention anything like that in the unblock agreement (if such a thing happens.) Leave Eddie alone to either sink or swim. It's not a good use of anyone's time to babysit. Friday (talk) 15:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose per Sarah's information. It is uncommon for editors to come back and be productive if they are unblocked after sockpuppetry on this scale. A good-natured editor who is a chronic and incurable sockpuppeteer is not an asset to the project and will just waste our time again. EdJohnston (talk) 04:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support unblocking - and I was one of the admins who had frequent run-ins with Eddie and his socks; nonetheless, it's been years and people do grow up. I say give him a chance, and keep a close eye on him. He must know that if he gets one more chance, that really means one more chance. bd2412 T 04:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per EdJohnston. In fairness, I will reconsider my vote pending his response though - what has he been doing in the last 6-12 months? Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC) I've read his response; confirming my view as it stands. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:56, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Had to do a lot of link-finding myself when coming to my view; but now some of them have been posted below - thank you Carcharoth. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - adding a comment here to add links to fill out some of the background here. Please read here for the comments by TML, JzG (Guy), and Ncmvocalist, and the arbitrator discussion. Guy's comment in particular has relevant links. For the initial request from 3rd February, see here. For the statement by Dylan620, see here. Finally, though he hasn't mentioned it yet, it is worth reading EddieSegoura's response to Guy here (if link breaks, permalink is here). I think that is everything I'm aware of. The comments and history detailed so far in this discussion should also be taken into account. I'd like to thanks Hersfold for leaving various notifications. If anyone else needs to be notified, please do so. Carcharoth (talk) 06:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support unblock - I've supported this from the very beginning, back in mid-February, on the grounds of WP:AGF. Compare this to User:Rms125a@hotmail.com. We let him back a couple months ago, and he had HUNDREDS, possible even THOUSANDS of socks. Up against that, Eddie had a lot less. I think that VirtualSteve's suggested probation is a good idea. I also stand by the unblock terms that I suggested back in February (Carcharoth links to them in his post just above). --Dylan620 _{Efforts · Toolbox} 12:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Huh? I think you're confused, Dylan, because that's exactly what Eddie did - he created hundreds and thousands of sockpuppets. Originally he did it to try to force us to contain material on a railway word he made up "Exicornt" and then he did it to attack and harass users he decided had wrong him, and then simply to avoid the ban and to play games (ie the impersonation of the Power Rangers actors last year). He's never actually honored the ban and not edited and he took his mass disruption to other WMF projects which were forced to shut down editing from AOL IPs simply because of Eddie. I'm not sure where you get the idea that this wasn't massive socking but it was. As I said in my post above, we're talking about hundreds, likely thousands of accounts. And I honestly don't believe it's stopped even now. Previously when Eddie has appealed, he's been concurrently socking and he is such a creature of habit that I don't believe this would be any different and his careful language below doesn't reassure me at all (ie he "addresses" his three years of socking by saying he wont need to sock in future if his account is unblocked). Last year a checkuser identified a "probable" sock tied to Eddie's sock User:New York Dreams. I never blocked the account and it's still editing today. I call on Eddie to be honest and own up to all socks he currently has. Frankly, if he doesn't start being honest about what he's been doing on this site in recent months I will be forced to strongly oppose this request myself and I really would rather not have to do so. Sarah 19:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Sarah, you say "Previously when Eddie has appealed, he's been concurrently socking" - I am aware of at least one past appeal where alleged socking was involved, see here (from September 2007), and another appeal here (November 2007). Are you aware of other appeals? You said earlier that you feel strongly that the community should be given the full facts. I agree, especially that Eddie should make a clear statement as to when he last engaged in socking, and should "give up" at least his recent and (if any) unblocked socks, pending confirmation they really are his socks (listing all his past socks might not be possible). A few more questions: you said "Last year a checkuser identified a "probable" sock" - could you give more details there? And, earlier, you mention OTRS stuff - could you give dates for some of this? It is difficult to sort out the timelines and details here. I agree that this does need doing, but a full account (in order to make a fully informed decision) will probably only be possible if you, Eddie and others take the time to provide that. I'd be happy to co-ordinate documenting such an account, but the question then becomes how much time to spend doing that before allowing an appeal such as this one (which is now in progress). One thing I would suggest, depending on when the last appeal was actually heard (and not just ignored) is that future appeals (if this one is not successful) be strictly limited, with the limit reset after each premature appeal. But equally, if this is to be the last appeal for some time (months if not years), it needs to be done properly. Carcharoth (talk) 03:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Carcharoth, sorry for the delay answering your questions...I was hoping Eddie would start being open and honest so I wouldn't need to say anything else but it seems that is not going to happen. To answer your questions in order - When I referred to Eddie's prior appeals, I was not referring to appeals to the community but rather his prior appeals to the Arbitration Committee and to individual Arbitrators. He blind carbon copied me on some emails sent to the arbitration committee and sent me some correspondence from then-arbitrators he had contacted. At the time he was appealing to the arbitration committee (such as the appeal he sent 25 Feb 2008 to the Arb Com mailing list, Newyorkbrad, Sam and Uninvited Company), pledging he would not continue socking because "there was no point", he was still socking.

I don't really want to give Eddie the exact details about the Checkuser, so I would prefer to answer your question about that via email. As I said below, the Checkuser who checked the NY Dreams account for me told me that it was unlikely it was Eddie and if it was he had learned to cover his tracks very well and so I don't really want to give him the specifics of the results of that Checkuser. I was hoping that Ed would voluntarily reveal information about his accounts himself but it seems apparent from his responses to me that he is intent on continuing to play games with the community.

Do you have access to OTRS? If so, you can check ticket:2008022010006563 in the info-en queue. If not, well basically, I username blocked User:Jason Smith and User:Austin St. John and instructed these users regarding how they could appeal the block and confirm their identities if they wanted to edit under their "real" names. "Jason Smith" then contacted me at OTRS wishing to confirm his identity and have the account unblocked. He asked me to call him on the phone so he could talk to me prove his identity. Not sure how Eddy intended convincing me that he, a New Yorker man, was actually a young Australian guy from my own home town but at any rate I declined the phone call offer for obvious reasons. There's only a couple of emails in the ticket as "Jason" subsequently emailed me through my WP account and the conversation continued there until I eventually confronted Ed with my suspicion that he was behind these accounts. User:Austin St. John also emailed me through my WP account and attempted to convince me that he was in fact Austin St. John. A Checkuser later connected both accounts to some of Eddie's other socks. This happened last February/March. As you can see from the edits these accounts made, they were disruptive accounts - Austin St John was trying to userfy the article on Austin St John and have the article deleted from the mainspace as "requested by subject" and User:Jason Smith was running around everywhere telling everyone he was Jason Smith, actor, so his "fans" could find him, listing himself at Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles and so forth . Not good faith accounts and he was doing this at the same time he was operating his 'good hand' account New York Dreams and another disruptive account, User:Grounded into a double play. Grounded into a double play was confirmed by a Checkuser (Alison) as an Eddie sockpuppet on 20 February 2008. Five days later he was appealing to the Arbitration Committee swearing he was a different person and was done with socking.

I really don't want to be one of the people trying to stand in the way of his return but there is no way I can support this appeal unless Eddie quits playing games and starts being honest with the community and I just don't see it in his responses below. Sarah 09:56, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• • • I never blocked the account and it's still editing today. — You're too modest. According to the block log you blocked NewYorkDreams on 2008-02-20, 1 year 2 months ago, and the account has (of course) not edited since. Uncle G (talk) 06:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
      • Of course I blocked New York Dreams. I never said I didn't block New York Dreams. Please don't confuse things more than they already are. If you read the sentence you're quoting in its actual context, you'll see that what I said was, there was another account which a checkuser identified as a "probable" sock of Eddie's sock New York Dreams. However, since I wrote that post I've reread the emails again and what the CU actually said was this other account was a probable sock of another of Eddie's socks, EddieSegoure (talk · contribs), not NY Dreams (sorry for confusing the two socks). EddieSegoure was a sock he used to post appeal notes to User:EddieSegoura and User:EddieSegoure and to detag his Voltron (talk · contribs) sock after it was blocked. I was told by the checkuser I was discussing User:New York Dreams with that this other account (NOT New York Dreams but another account entirely) was a "probable" sock of Eddie's other sock User:EddieSegoure. As I said above, this other account was not blocked and (having just checked its contribs again a minute ago) last edited a few hours before I posted that comment. Sarah 12:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
        • I'm not introducing any confusion. Your "the account" has two possible antecedents in the sentence preceding it, notice. Uncle G (talk) 15:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - we spent hours trying to help eddie make constructive contributions and even with that mentoring he fell through the cracks. Apparently he then made an army of socks to waste yet more volunteer time. Such time sinks are a huge negative to the goals of the project. It's this type of user that drives away otherwise productive people who just get frustrated with the baby sitting. David D. (Talk) 14:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Cautious support, if we can find a mentor; I was going to bring this here myself, in fact, but RL intervened. Here's why: Eddie wanted to promote a Great New Thing he invented, and reacted in an immature way when he was stopped. His expressions of regret sound sincere to me, and there is no chance whatsoever that he would escape an instant reblock if he even thought "exicornt" while logged in - the risk to the project seems to be fairly low, the contrition looks genuine, and he seems to have put his hands up to it all and thrown himself on the mercy of the court. Some banned users cry crocodile tears and you know damned well that if you let them back they will just cause hell. I don't think that is the case with Eddie, because of the polite and humble way he has asked for readmission. And I don;t for a minute believe that the recent exicornt nonsense was him, I am sure that was a joe job by one of our recurring trolls. So, if we can find a mentor, why not give him a second chance? Luke 15:7 "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." I honestly think this is a repentant former vandal not a troll. So that's my $0.02. Guy (Help!) 19:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comments. I can confirm at least that Eddie is basically telling the truth about his emails with me; he asked for forgiveness and I accepted. This was in early 2008. In truth, I never felt particularly harassed to begin with, though Eddie certainly did vandalize my user pages with sock after sock for a while there. I suppose since I forgave him I should support his unbanning as well, and I kind of sort of do, but I do want to mention that Eddie has more issues than just the tiresome "Exicornt" thing. If previous patterns hold, any user who agrees to monitor all his contributions will quickly find that perhaps one in 10 actually improve the encyclopedia in any way. Has he changed? I dunno. But the fact that he's still capitalizing most of his pronouns speaks volumes. If you want to see what a "good behavior" EddieSegoura sock is like, check out the history of User:Mostly Rainy. It's not all bad, but it's not a net gain to the encyclopedia either. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Is that the issue, though? I think the point is that he's willing to try to be a good contributor, not an assurance that he will succeed in making good edits (as opposed to "good faith" edits). bd2412 T 00:02, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• Question I'm happy to accept that, once unbanned, there will be no need for socking. So... what are your plans? What about Exicornt? Is it all in the past now? Apologies if this has been addressed somewere and I have missed that. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 23:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Question/Comment. From the discussion above, there seems to be some concern regarding the extent of his sockpuppetry. Can someone clarify when his most recent sockpuppet was active - more specifically, was it within the past 12 months? TML (talk) 02:29, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
  • You're talking temporal extent, rather than number of sockpuppet accounts, aren't you? There's no question that there is a large number of sockpuppet accounts. I was one of the several administrators who blocked them at Wiktionary. I'm also one of the administrators that range-blocked AOL there because of this vandalism. Uncle G (talk) 15:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I think that's right. My point is, if his most recent sockpuppetry was more than 12 months ago, then I would probably support unblocking; if it was within the last 12 months, then I would probably wait until at least 12 months have passed. TML (talk) 19:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support unblocking Perhaps I am sympathetic to the notion of second chances, but in my "day job" I provide counseling for individuals who have been released from prison and who are trying to navigate their way back into society. These people need a hand -- and not across the face. Eddie is not a felon, of course, so why should he be treated like one? He has acknowledged his error, so let us move beyond that troubled period into a better day. There will be many eyes watching him, so it is unlikely that any lapse will create chaos. If Eddie is asking to return to the community, he should be welcomed. Pastor Theo (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
• Additional comment - I'm away this weekend, so I'm posting an additional comment here to give some of the background to EddieSegoura's latest statement below (where he says he received an e-mail from me). The e-mail I sent to him was in response to one that he sent me, asking about Sarah's comments above. I replied with a combination of standard and specific advice, copying the reply to the arbitration committe mailing list and advising him to send future replies there, rather than direct to me. EddieSegoura's next e-mail was sent to the arbitration committee mailing list and is awaiting a reply (my view is that he should be talking here where the discussion is taking place, and not asking the arbs questions about what to do, and in fairness he is now doing that with his statement below). The main points of the advice I gave were as follows:

  "You need to be open and honest about what accounts you have had and still have. You need to edit from one account only and not create any more accounts [...] you have to help tidy up and draw a line under your past behaviour before you and everyone else can move on."

  There was more, but those are the key points I think underlie every unban request where sockpuppetry has been an issue. The other key point of an unban request is stating what the person asking to be unbanned intends to work on - though I believe he has answered that elsewhere. I hope this provides enough background to the references to e-mails. If anyone has questions about this before I get back, please ask one of the other arbs, as they can see the full e-mail thread. Carcharoth (talk) 00:06, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support unblocking and watching closely - He is capable of good editing. I gave User:Voltron a barnstar after reviewing their contributions. Silly me. Nothing stops this user from editing via sock accounts. The fact that they wish to edit through their main account where we can keep track of them is a positive development. We should give it a test. The worst that happens is we have to reblock them. Jehochman ^Talk 00:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I've been shown information that leads me to believe the editor has not come clean about all their socking activity. Jehochman ^Talk 22:31, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm currently strongly opposed to this request as it stands. I would like to see Ed given another a chance, but I think honesty is an important part of reconciliation and rehabilitation and I don't see Eddie being honest or open here. I'm not asking him to identify all his socks - there have been so many over the years that I'm sure even he doesn't know them all anymore - and I'm not asking for honesty so we can all stand around and berate him for his misdeeds on this project. However, I do expect him to come to the table with honesty and openness, to put his cards on the table and identify the unblocked socks he currently has access to. Also, I find it rather hard to believe that he is now ready and willing to follow our policies and guidelines if he is still violating policy by running socks. Unless Eddie answers my questions honestly and is open about his current activities on Wikipedia and identifies the current unblocked socks he has access to, I will remain strongly opposed to this request. Additionally, if he is to be unblocked, I think he needs to find an experienced mentor to assist him stay on the straight and narrow. Sarah 08:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hesperian. If Eddie wanted back to just be himself, he truly could have made a new account and evaded the ban. I would have been against that, of course. It is my opinion that 98% of the time that overturning a ban is a vindication to the banned editor, and such disruption will resume. This is evident in Eddie's socking, and in this unblock request. To be clear: this is my opinion. Keegan^talk 08:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: From personal experience, he is not a net benefit to the project and has rarely if ever contributed positively since his initial ban. As it has been mentioned, there have been multiple users who have left the project. I can even remember an administrator who gave up his administrative tools and retired due to the "onslaught" of Eddie's editing. Good edits on sockpuppet accounts while banned by the community don't really show much of anything except disregard for the community's wishes.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 09:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per the discussion below. Refusing to publicly come clean about socking, wikilawyering, blaming others for his problems - doesn't look like someone who's going to come back and be a good contributor. Mr.Z-man 18:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I initially supported on the basis of assuming good faith towards Eddie's request (see early in this thread) but having watched the conversation and Eddie's continuing failure to come clean publicly I find myself in the position where that failure weighs heavily against continued support. In particular I have watched and read the rational comments from Sarah and Hesperian, and I note Keegan's carefully worded comments also. In a nutshell Z-man encapsulates my opposition to allowing Eddie a return on his account.--VS ^talk 23:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - responding here to Eddie Segoura's request that the discussion not be closed early. Please do let the discussion run for at least a full five days (I think it has now, so it may indeed be time to close, unless 7 days is a better length for discussion), or give the editor requesting an unban a chance to withdraw the request (another day should do for that), or extend to allow more discussion if needed (e.g. more evidence has been presented). Please also leave the close of the discussion (or its extension) to an uninvolved administrator (i.e. not someone who participated in the discussion). ArbCom will then review the close (check there are no technical objections) and close the appeal at our end. The transcluded userpage section below should be substituted before manually archiving the appeal discussion to the AN archives. Any problems with that, please contact the filing clerk or another clerk if Hersfold is not around. Carcharoth (talk) 05:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Err...no, 7 days is not warranted here. The 3-4 day minimum has elapsed. Despite there being no substantive reason to extend past the minimum (excepting the expected request made by the banned user), another day has been granted to extend discussion and/or to withdraw the request. Unless there is something extraordinary we are missing or that is forthcoming, nothing's changed - and nothing is going to change. Finally, mere participation in a discussion concerning a sanction, ban or appeal by the community is not at all enough to prevent a user from closing or extending a discussion provided it is in line with the (lack of) consensus by the community. In other words, the community's view on involvement has not been so unduly narrow, and there are several notable examples to demonstrate this historical norm in play, including Obama probation prior to its enactment. The final outcome from the attempts to centralise sanction discussions would be similar to any attempts to interfere with involvement guidelines in closing this type of discussion. ArbCom are free to waste time on technical non-issues and actual technical issues, but they will have to impose their own decision to the contrary after re-hearing the case if it is on this point (note: we all know what will become of that - even if wikilawyering with regards to process wonkery has been welcomed in arbitration venues, here, it certainly will not be). The community has treated the banned user with a large amount of respect, and made its decision in fairness; unless this is thoughtfully closed before then by the body that brought it here, is withdrawn by the user who initiated it, or something changes, I am giving this just a few more hours to stay open. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Leaving the wider discussion points to another time, I received another e-mail from EddieSegoura. I did tell him he should post on his talk page, but the long and the short of it is that his objection below to closing has been withdrawn, so it should close as soon as someone gets round to closing it. Carcharoth (talk) 22:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• • Eddie? Eddie?? Oh, you're joking. Big-ass Oppose. How many promises has Eddie broken? How much time did User:Bunchofgrapes have to waste, way back when, in containing the Exicornt Man? Are we going to waste more time on extending AGF to Eddie Segoura? Bishonen | talk 08:51, 28 April 2009 (UTC).

• Oppose. The request for reinstatement refers to "being allowed to edit under my own name" - the implication is that he's been editing all along under other names, but he's not saying which. Come clean, or stay away. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments from EddieSegoura

This section is transcluded from EddieSegoura's talk page to permit him to comment in this discussion. Please make comments or questions directed to EddieSegoura in the section above. Thank you. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 01:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

First, I'd like to thank those who supported my appeal. I didn't expect many to support giving Me the clean slate I've been trying to attain. Of course, I understand Sarah's concerns. And yes, I see that I have some opposition to My return (users Friday and EdJohnston). The stuff back in 2006 I did was out of frustration. Being blocked indef in itself was hard enough, but I couldn't take the fact that it was the very same user who nominated [5] my article for deletion. Everything I did after that was out of frustration. But a couple of months after the block, I finally let it go. I felt that if the word has become so infamous and rejected their is no reason to further waist My time. That was then. I doubt that I would make any further attempts to repost anything related to the article that led to me being in this position.

That being said, I cannot go back in time and change history. All I can say is that I truly regret it. I want to come back a different person.

As for my run-ins with bunchofgrapes, I decided to email an apology to him and he accepted it (I don't know if I still have his response, but we haven't had any contacted ever since and He hasn't edited actively). So if I'm banned for harassment, then the issue itself is resolved in respect to that person.

Those issues aside, If I am allowed to come back, their would be no reason to edit with another account beside this one. That addresses the socking issue. I hope we can reach a conclusion that every agrees with. EddieSegoura 05:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

---

Just to let everyone know, I have received emails from Carcharoth (talk · contribs) and Hersfold (talk · contribs). I would like to suggest the following in regards to Sarah's comments above:

• The user that performed the check on EddieSegoure (talk · contribs) do a WHOIS on the IP the account edited on, it might beling to public computer (such as a library or internet cafe) Also I need a time frame as to whether or not the "other account" logged in immediately after EddieSegoure. If there is a substantial amount of time between the edits then I probably have nothing to do with the other editor and the only connection is the IP itself. Eddie, Friday April 24 2009 at 22:53 22:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we could do that, or you could simply quit playing games, put your cards on the table and be honest. I am sure that you are right and the IP of your socks resolves to a public computer - you told me you didn't want to use New York Dreams to edit from your home computer and the checkuser who originally checked the NYD account told me that if it was you, you'd learned to cover your tracks very well. So I'm quite sure you've been very carefully segregating your accounts. I don't want to oppose your return to Wikipedia and I would actually like to see you given another chance but I'm going to have to oppose this request unless you put your cards on the table and identify the accounts you've been using so they can be blocked (after all, you won't need them anymore, right?). You told me that you couldn't help yourself when it came to Wikipedia, that you were addicted to the site and couldn't stop editing, so I don't believe for a second that you haven't been editing over the last year and don't have any socks at present and I'm extremely disappointed that you are trying to side-step being honest with the community. Surely after being banned for all this time and finally having a realistic opportunity to be allowed to return legitimately, it is worth being honest and transparent? Please answer these questions: have you been editing over the last 6 months? What unblocked accounts do you have access to? Thanks. Sarah 07:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll be happy to (I'd rather do it offsite) but we need to draw a line between the one that actually belong to Me and the one You think belong to Me. Looking at the list of accounts that were tagged there are a couple that I know don't belong to Me. Some don't even have edits. Frankly, I kinda wonder how You managed to find out about My NYD account. I would prefer we discussed by Email, because I need to know who and why You're targeting some editor and why You suspect Me of being that person. Eddie, Saturday April 25 2009 at 10:48 10:48, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, but I can explain it. I can tell you that I did user the IP user:38.109.64.162 to post My appeal. A WHOIS clearly states is a Library IP. Now if some other editor happens to edit from that IP in the future, You'd natually assume all future activity would belong to Me, right? That's why I need to know EddieSegoure's last IP so I can determine if it's public or not. Eddie, Saturday April 25 2009 at 20:18 20:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see any benefit in you answering my questions off-site. These are reasonable questions which the community deserves honest answers to. It should be straightforward to answer those two questions - either you have been editing over the last six months or you haven't, either you have currently active socks or you don't. I think the community deserves an honest and straightforward answer here on this page or your request should be declined. I found the NYD account by recognising your writing style - simple as that. Sarah 10:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

---

To Keegan: I've tried many times to come back with a new account as a good standing user (Voltron, NewYorkDreams, etc.). Had I been left alone, then I wouldn't have had to make this appeal. It's clear most of the oppose users are people that have known Me in the past. It's clear to Me can't change their minds but I wish they'd stop looking at Me as a gangster that who likes to drive people crazy and start looking at Me like a human being. I'll be happy to discuss any recent activity but You can't assume everything You suspect is true. If You'd ask, "Eddie does Account X belong to You" and I say "No", You'd prolly insist I'm lying and that I really own it anyway. Therefore we need to draw a line between what I actually did and what You believe I did. This is especially important because if I am unblocked and during the probation period You suspect that another account is Mine, You'll assume it actually is and I'll be back here singing the blues. I'm happy that I finally have an opportunity to try and convince the community — as a whole — that I'm not the person I used to be. I can't let it slip up because of some suspicion that I can't clear up. I know I'll have a short leash for the first few months but I want to make it clear that I am trying to come back so I can drive people crazy. I'm trying to come back so I can have something productive to do with My time. Yes, I've had a shaky past, but it doesn't mean I can't change right now.Eddie, Saturday April 25 2009 at 11:13 AM

I appreciate you taking your time to read my comments and reply to them.

Your activities have not been destructive, but they have been disruptive. For years. Your alternate accounts have not been hunted down as you imply on this page (particularly your response to Sarah), but I am a firm believer that a tiger can't change its stripes. I am not making a personal judgment upon you; I am a very understanding person. It is from this understanding that I do not believe that you can uphold your part of the bargain. Your socks were found because of evident patterns in your editing.

Let me see how diplomatically I can put this:

A community ban, while insulting in nature of its title, is not reflection of you as a person. It means that you (personally, as oppossed to a block) don't belong here. We don't get along with you, you don't get along with us. You still don't now. I can't see why you'd want to return to the site considering the nature of comments like my own. If you want to build an encyclopedia, you can/could have through actually changing your behavior. If you had done so, your socks would not have been found. Persistence in trying to overturn a community ban after have continued disruptive behavior will never be favorable to an unban.

If you had chosen to just make a new account and leave this be, it is a violation of the ban policy but I wouldn't care on a personal level, and would turn the other cheek. Your two years of socking and this and that is way too much drama, and it is drama of your own making.

You can respond to this, of course, but I think I've laid it all on the line regarding my opinion and it's not going to change. I do wish the best, Keegan^talk 08:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You are entitled to Your own opinion. Still, knowning their haven't been any incidents since February 2008 I feel I should get that second chance. Eddie, Sunday April 26 2009 at 10:59 AM

The fact that their are people who support My return means that not everyone agree that I should never come back, there were few people I didn't get along with but most of the time there wasn't a problem. In fact, some are not around today. The few that do know Me have commented, and not all of them oppose. Eddie, Sunday April 26 2009 at 11:40 AM

"I've tried many times to come back with a new account as a good standing user...Had I been left alone, then I wouldn't have had to make this appeal." - So in other words, the problem isn't with you or your behaviour and actions but rather with the editors who identified and reported your sockpuppets and the administrators who blocked them? Sarah 10:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It's the way it was handled in the first place. I can not deny My past action was wrong and yes I understand spamming and harassment are serious. But Going back to the 2006 discussion, I feel I was blocked prematurely. I never had a chance to state My case. I was blocked only minutes after the discussion was started. What about Voltron? Were their any annoying incedents when I used that account? The blocking user (I don't want to even mention His name, because He Himself has history of questionable actions) had to admit in an ANI discussion that the account wasn't disruptive. After that I wrote to You and after You told Me You could not help Me further I created NYD. I don't know how who told You I had that name, but trying to convince You that I don't have hundreds unblocked unused accounts won't be easy.

Re, I am writing about the discussion back in 2006, the original discussion makes no initial proposal for banning, just a block. Since the policy clearely distinguishes the two, I felt the original block (and protecting of my talk page) was too extreme. The protection especially hurt because I had no way to resolve it without making more accounts. Like I said above, emails to the arbcom were not answered and I felt I was being ignored. I feel appalled that people like You could entertain thoughts of Me making plans to go back to My old self and (secretly) make hundreds of accounts. I still don't know who exactly You're trying to hang My face on and why You believe these belong to Me. I am going to contact ArbCom and have them decide whether or not it this should be handled on WP:RFAR or not. Eddie, Sunday April 26 2009 at 23:43 PM

PS I got Your emails and I will respond shortly. Eddie, Sunday April 26 2009 at 10:59 AM

The account didn't need to be disruptive, however. You were editing while under a community ban and thus under the block and ban policies the account could be blocked. Whether the blocking administrator has had problems in other areas is not really relevant and I don't think it serves your case to engage in ad hominem arguments. No one told me you were using the NYD account. I simply noticed the account on my watchlist, felt something was "not right" about it, looked at their contributions and recognised your writing style. Same goes with the Power Ranger accounts. Sarah 11:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) Also, you cite Voltron and NewYork Dreams as examples of attempts to return to Wikipedia as a user in good standing, however while using both these accounts you were concurrently socking with disruptive accounts (eg User:Grounded into a double play and the Power Ranger accounts). Can you please address this and explain why Voltron and NYD should be considered examples of good faith attempts to become a user in good standing when it appears you were simply segregating your edits and causing disruption with other accounts. Thanks. Sarah 11:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, You win for NYD editing simultaniously with other accounts (when GIDP was blocked it was involved in a dispute as to whether or not a certain article should be posted) but how do You explain Voltron (I know You're going to tell Me about the account that tried to appeal on My behalf but then again why wasn't user TML — who initiated the request on WP:RFAR — suspected as an account of mine while that other one was?) Eddie, Sunday April 26 2009 at 11:33 AM

I think I can answer part of this question for you: the other account that tried to appeal on your behalf had no other edits aside from the appeal. I, on the other hand, have a sizable amount of edits, and my edits do not resemble your editing style in a way that would closely link my account to yours. (BTW, I stated on the original inquiry that "I have no relation to this user" - and I reaffirm that statement, as I have nothing to hide regarding this issue.) TML (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Please don't attempt to close the discussion on WP:AN. Just because it ended up at the top of the page and the vote tally is about 50/50 (and I am including the ones before Sarahs comments) that doesn't mean it should be closed. I call on the ArbCom to make a decision as to whether I should have them deal with this by email or if this discussion should continue on WP:AN.

I also noticed that VirtualSteve is retracting his support and there are still people who are entertaining thoughts that I plans to create and use more account do what got Me into this to begin with. That being said, and given the fact that the ArbCom is privyy to checking IPs I am making a request to check the following:

• User:EddieSegoure's last IP (Sarah said it was checked so it should be in the log) for any recent activity. This IP belongs to a wifi hotspot.
• User:Malmindser's last IP if it was checked. This user was the first to appeal on My behalf and it was tagged as belonging to Me but I deny this given the language used.
• User:24.185.34.186's recent activity. The last IP of User:Grounded into a double play. This was blocked by Alison for 6 months and has expired in August 2008
• User:24.185.47.131's recent activity. The last IP of User:The Blue Lion. The talk page was protected but recently unprotected.
• User:38.109.64.162's recent activity. As I stated above this is a library IP (has three more anon edits after My posting).

The following accounts were recently created by Me:

• User:PrimaDoll- Unused.
• User:PuzzleSolver - Made a few edits, but after the block of NYD I felt it was much safer to edit anon since their is no point in making further accounts only to have them blocked. I obviously am going to have to check edit histories and articles but if You feel any edits from these IPs raise any red flags, feel free to ask any questions. Eddie, Sunday April 26 2009 at 23:43 PM

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

Ethics of sharing an account

I wonder if we have any policies - and if not, should we have them - on ethics of multiple users sharing one account? It was recently brought to my attention that such accounts - often with activity patterns showing near constant edits for 20 or even 24+ hours - exist. I was asked if they are "all right", and I couldn't easily answer. What do you think? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOSHARE. John Carter (talk) 18:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, they are decidedly not alright. Care to point them out? —Travis^talk 18:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus, can you point out those accounts? We have to ask the account owner whether the account is shared or not. WP policy doesn't allow multiple users to share one account. AdjustShift (talk) 19:34, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I've notified the user who asked me the question of this thread, I don't have any specific evidence myself. Hopefully the interested editor(s) will post here with more info. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Out of interest, is it an issue with the licensing that makes the rule that way, or just a core fundamental of Wikipedia (trust, accountability)? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a licensing issue, although at the moment I cannot put my finger on the exact part of the GFDL that deals with it. – ukexpat (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's both. The licensing issue is a big one, because the GFDL (section 4i) specifically requires a list of authors, not a list of contributing usernames; if we allow shared accounts, we might run afoul of this - or some litigious type might claim we had as a way of being litigious. At the same time, the most common excuse vandals give for why they replaced the contents of 53 pages with "WANKERS!" is "oh, that was my brother". The best way to deal with both problems is have a preexisting policy we can point to that prohibits account sharing. — Gavia immer (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It makes the GFDL a headache, but that aside we simply disallow role accounts or shared accounts. The relationship of accounts to physical humans driving them is supposed to be 1:1, not 2:1 or 20:1. rootology (C)(T) 21:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Russavia

One such user is Russavia (talk · contribs). We debated this thing some time ago with Tiptoety here, but it caused an angry reaction by the user. I am not quite sure how one can edit 24 hours non-stop and repeat this day after day [6]... Biophys (talk) 17:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Biophys, as you were told before (quoted below in its entirety), all of Russavia's edits are coming from a single machine. This does not preclude someone else using the same machine, and yes it's suspicious, but as one farfetched possibility (and this is not an attack on Russavia), it's possible that he uses drugs and thus is frequently awake for long periods of time. It's also possible that he (like me) suffers from serious bouts of insomnia, or has the freedom to edit for long periods of time and is slightly wiki-addicted and doesn't notice how long he's been at the computer. Or could be any number of other things.

Per your request, I have run a check. I see absolutely no evidence of multiple users. There are various features that convince me that all the editing is done from one computer. I can't absolutely rule out the idea that there are two people in the same building using the same machine, but it is a rather fanciful suggestion. I am convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that the accusations are thoroughly without merit. Sam Korn (smoddy) 8:06 pm, 13 November 2008, Thursday (5 months, 11 days ago) (UTC−5)

The above is a Checkuser's comment on the issue. Biophys, I suggest in the strongest possible terms that you drop these accusations against Russavia. //roux   18:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I have never seen anyone with such editing patterns, including you. Other users noticed the same. I am not quite sure if Sam was talking about one computer or one IP address. Any way, I have no further comments unless specifically asked by someone. Sorry if my comment was out of line.Biophys (talk) 19:11, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

You're not quite sure? That's a bit disingenuous. Quote from above: There are various features that convince me that all the editing is done from one computer.

//roux   19:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, would checkuser be able to detect multiple users using the one computer via a remote client? Martintg (talk) 04:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of a number of users who edit for periods that long. I have done it myself, both on Wikipedia and on Wikisource. Just yesterday I was wiki-ing for around 18 hours almost continually. If you dont believe me, I can find the logs to prove it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

But not 50 hours. If you look at a period between 16:09 April 8 and 22:09 April 10, there were only a few gaps around 1 hour: [7] if I am not mistaken. That is what I am talking about (I apparently own more explanations after message by Russavia below). Thanks.Biophys (talk) 15:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

SO *'ING WHAT. You have been told to stop. NOW STOP WITH THIS HARRASSMENT. --Russavia ^Dialogue 15:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• You're mistaken. Editing started at 02:39 on the 9th, after a 10+ hour break. It then continued sporadically until 22:32 on the 9th, before a 13 hour break. A long day, but it looks like dedicated editing to me, by someone who (like many of us) spends a lot of time on the computer. There's no problem here. - Bilby (talk) 15:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Let's be civil here. I see no harassment, other then some bad-faithed accusations directed at Biophys. He asked, in good faith, for an explanation of an usual editing pattern. Shooting the messenger is hardly nice. Speculation by various editors non-withstanding, I'd suggest you simply and politely explain yourself, and we can close this issue. PS. I looked over the provided evidence, but it is a bit confusing, can somebody clearly show (table, bullet point list...?) evidence that Russavia editing pattern is unusual? A few long edit stretches are indeed nothing serious, but if a "50h stretch" can be proved, this is indeed a bit above the usual dedication of us wiki-maniacs :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Russiavia has been false accused by Biophys. Regardless of warnings to him, Biophys can not drop it. Here are at least 4 editors who think Biophys' accusation as "harassment".--Caspian blue 20:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• At at least that many who disagree. Asking to review an edit pattern is not a harassment. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• We can ask the community's opinion since you strongly disagree. I'm aware of you opinion given your comment for Biophys's 3RR violation--Caspian blue 22:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the authorship issues remain the same whether the multiple people are editing via a single computer or each using their own computer. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 21:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I checked this to be fair. Yes, he often edits 22 hours non-stop, then break, then 20 hours again, as for example here, but I did not find anything longer.Biophys (talk) 20:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Speaking as an editor in the Top 50 of most active Wikipedians, I do find those lenght to be rather extreme, but I don't think that a single 22-hours of editing - 2-hours of break - 20-hours of editng string conclusively proves account sharing (alternate explanations have been presented, although preferably one should come from Russavia himself). Still, this is finally an understandable piece of evidence that can be constructively discussed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Biophys, I have done two days continuous editing with less breaks than Russavia has in that period you point out, and that was not assisted by artificial stimulants. I wont be able to spend time finding you proof of that, but I throw out the challenge for anyone to disprove me. :-) While not usual practise, many of my friends and colleagues in the computer science/I.T. industry do this when required, either due to looming deadlines or just the shear idiocy of it, fueled on by beer and pizza usually. Also while reviewing the edits of contributors, I often come across periods of editing like this, and there are obvious signs of there being a single sentient human attached to that computer. You will find similar patterns in many editors in the top 500 of WP:MOSTEDITS.

This is not a reasonable basis to believe he is sharing his account with anyone. You are looking at this from a sample size of "1", because you are only closely inspecting Russavia. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What am i missing here? Unless he is a vandal why on earth would anyone care when he edits? It's his life, stop pestering the guy. David D. (Talk) 20:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but if we have policies that require us to discuss editor's edits (WP:NOSHARE, WP:SOCK), either we are ok with discussing the, or we should change such policies. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

With the same reasoning we could argue that we need to do a check user on every person that edits wikipedia. We just need to be reasonable. If the editor is not being disruptive or vandalizing articles then why are we digging into these edit histories in the first place? David D. (Talk) 20:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wrong; a mistaken application of the slippery slope fallacy. Most importantly, not every editor displays significant anomalies such as this one. Wouldn't you want to figure out how a person can work for dozens on hours in a row with no decline in accuracy or efficiency? I certainly would. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 09:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

My limited experience with Russavia has indeed been positive, but that doesn't mean that I don't think editors have the right to review his behavior, provided it is not done on a regular basis, which could constitute harassment. I don't think that Russavia's editing pattern has been discussed here before, right? Hence the community has the right to review it, and if it concludes that this matter is closed in favor of Russavia, that's the end of the story, and the case should be reponed without further evidence. Only if it is reopened without substantive evidence can we speak of harassment and disruption. Bringing something for public attention and discussion for the first time is not harassment. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This is NOT the first time though Piotrus, and this is entirely the problem. In response to User_talk:Tiptoety/Archive_19#Inappropriate_use_of_account.3F, I had to demand that a checkuser be done on myself in order to stop the accusations, which was done at User_talk:Russavia/Archive_6#Want_to_run_a_checkuser_on_me.3F_Well_read_on....... After that was done, Biophys continued to question this at the Checkuser's talk page, and it even continued on my talk page which other editors advised him it is harrassment, and hence he should stop. But it hasn't stopped. It has been continued at User_talk:Biophys#User:Russavia. And if one does not believe me that this harrassment has continued for SIX MONTHS, I will go thru all of Biophys' contributions because he has thrown around these accusations at many venues since, and that is a fact. And because of this fact, I am no longer assuming good faith in relation to any of these accusations, and am treating them as a continued campaign of outright harrassment. It is that simple. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What I meant is that this is the first time this is discussed in a forum more public then user talk pages. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems somebody has already gone through Biophys' edits: [8]. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 19:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

In order to show that this is a continuation of an accusation, please refer to User_talk:Digwuren#AE, User_talk:Colchicum/Archive#Trollfest and User_talk:Colchicum/Archive#Civility. I can show more if needed but it would simply take time that I would rather spend on more enjoyable pursuits, such as creating content. --Russavia ^Dialogue 01:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Sick and tired of the accusations

I am getting sick and bloody tired of the continued paranoid accusations (harrassment) of User:Biophys in relation to myself. I have posted this on his talk page, warning him that if this harrassment continues, I will take it further. The complete text of what I wrote is as follows:

I am getting sick and tired of your repeated accusations that I am sharing my account, like you have continued at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Ethics_of_sharing_an_account. You have been told by numerous administrators that there is no truth to your accusations, and you continue and continue and continue with them. I have told you already that I owe you nor anyone else any explanation, and I am not going to give you one, and I frankly don't care what you or anyone else in the peanut gallery thinks. I demanded that a checkuser be done on myself in order to stop your paranoid accusations, and that has not made you stop...and by the way, checkuser requests on oneself are not granted very often when requested by an editor, so the fact that it was done in order to stop the harrassment speaks word. Consider yourself advised that I am taking this as continued harrassment by yourself, and if you so much as even insinuate that I am sharing my account in future, I will take it further. Consider yourself warned.

I have nothing more to say, but am posting this here so that it can be recorded that I am pissed off with this continual harrassment in relation to my account. Checkuser has been done (at my DEMAND!) and the paranoid accusations have been shown to be untrue. Enough is bloody enough!! --Russavia ^Dialogue 11:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I replied here. Please follow WP:DR.Biophys (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I will not follow dispute resolution when some paranoid editor can't get it thru his thick head that the continuation of unfounded allegations against myself is pissing me off and is a form of harrassment. Now go and complain about civility and other such crap, and you can even ask the peanut gallery to post here (Digwuren has already pointed Colchicum here), I don't care. So please, get it thru your skull, that if you or any other editor brings up my name for sharing my account, I will seek redress for this. --Russavia ^Dialogue 15:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I think RfC/U is better for you guys.--Caspian blue 15:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a bit beyond DR, Biophys. You persist in accusing Russavia of account sharing/socking after being told unequivocally that his edits were all coming from a single machine. And yet above you claimed that you couldn't tell what Sam Korn meant, despite the crystal-clear and unambiguous language. Is it possible that more than one person uses that single computer? Yes. Is it likely? Not really. Should you immediately cease and desist with these accusations, forever, and issue an apology to Russavia for the continued harassment? Absofuckinglutely. After e/c: RFC/U is unnecessary here, as the behaviour by Biophys is cut and dried and has been shot down in flames before.

Frankly, I strongly suggest that this whole portion of this thread be considered the absolute final warning to Biophys on the matter, and should he make any further unsubstantiated accusations along these lines he is to be blocked indefinitely. Note: given the previous checkuser results, everything he has said so far counts as 'unsubstantiated'. So no gaming. //roux   15:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that the user who needs to apologize to others is you, Roux, for bad faith flaming of Biophys. Biophys has been civil and respectful here; Russavia can be excused for loosing a bit of his cool, but your comments are simply not excusable. Please mind AGF, CIV and such before accusing others of their violations, and please, mind your language. PS. This thread was not started by Biophys, nor was Biophys the editor who contacted me with the question that led me to start this thread in the first place, so the entire "stalking by Biophys" accusation is pure libel/slander/harassment in itself. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

You must be joking. Do acquaint yourself with the history before commenting. Works better that way. //roux   02:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I suggested them to take the matter to ArbCom because I've seen their tit-for-tat 3RR reports more than 10 times, but doing it to DR is purely their job if they don't want to ruin their reputation further. So I recommended the less-time-consuming way. Others may think differently.--Caspian blue 15:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess you mean Offliner. I do not remember Russavia or me filing 3RR reports on each other more than ones. Any way, I have nothing against Russavia except him being a little bit disruptive and mobilizing other users (like Offliner) against me. Not a reason to start an arbitration case.Biophys (talk) 15:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Repeat the accusations, like you have done here, and I will file whatever the hell it takes to have you stop with the paranoid nuttery in relation to me and my account. I hope that I have made myself very, very clear. So much as an insinuation is all it is going to take, because I have had an absolute gutful of the bullshit. As for the other, like the rest of your accusations, none of it is grounded in a shred of fact. --The account sharing Russian government employed internet propaganda master ^Dialogue 17:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Russia, instead of getting angry, could you at least explain your editing pattern then? All you say is that "the paranoid accusations have been shown to be untrue". Then what is your story? I couldn't care less about your hate-on/hate-off relationship with users, I would just like a straight answer. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 18:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Straight answer about what? I had a look at the edit history and yes he edits for eight or ten hours stretches but so what? In the claimed 50 hrs period I can see at least one break of about 12 hours... --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

A straight answer? I am under no obligation to entertain paranoid nuttery, and that goes to Biophys (especially to Biophys) and anyone else. Even less so when the nuttery is bandied about with no evidence - the same type of nuttery that has me being employed from every Russian government department from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs up to the FSB, and in the opinion of some nutcases, the KGB. And honestly, who gives a dig when I edit? Are all of your lives so f'ing boring that my editing is a problem? And I am yet to see a single instance of how this editing is problem as far as WP policies are concerned; the only thing that there is a problem with is another editors paranoid delusions. Do I use drugs? Am I an insomniac? Am I in a position whereby I am able to edit? What difference does it make, and who's f'ing business is it anyway? I will not entertain such crap, and I owe not a single one of you a single answer. When these nutty accusations continue and continue and continue, excuse me, I have every fucking right to be angry. End of story, with nothing more to say to anyone on this issue. --Russavia ^Dialogue 20:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

While I'd advise Russavia that being more open and friendly may be beneficial, I'd also like to stress that I fully support his right to privacy, and I'd advise other editors to avoid speculation about his habits/motivations, which may be seen as violation of WP:NPA. The issue here is whether Russavia's account is shared by more then one person, and if so, is this something we should be concerned over (per WP:NOSHARE), not whether this account is owned by mind-controlling aliens or such :) Further, considering a lot of positive contributions from Russavia's account, I'd like to stress that he is an editor that deserves our respect for improving this project (just like Biophys...) and on the off chance his account is shared, I'd oppose any ban, although I'd advise the editors who share it to create separate accounts and continue aiding the project as they've done in the past. Finally, unless some clear evidence for the claimed strange editing pattern is presented within the next 24h or so, I'd suggest that this thread be closed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Piotrus - there is no need for any further answer except the "no" that Russavia has already give. That is a straight answer. If anyone is interested in editing patters, go build some analytical tools and use the top 500 editors on WP:MOSTEDITS: i.e. do some real research which requires a sample size of more than one. Investigating only one persons editing pattern is bad research, and poor ethics. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 23:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Open and friendly about what? The question as posed here is simply "Have you stop beating your wife?" - nobody has present a shread of proof or difference about anything just vague noises that he edited a lot in a certain period. He's been asked if he's sharing the account, he's said no. Unless someone is going to provide a compelling difference, I consider the continuing questioning of this editor harassment and I advise him to make no further replies to baseless accusations. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Who thinks of Biophys' accusation as harassment?

• Biophys (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

I do think so and share with the concerns on Biophys' unfounded accusation which has been already raised by above editors. Basically, Biophys should bring evidences to SPI or stop the persistent false accusation and insinuation against Russavia.--Caspian blue 22:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep, to raise an issue is one thing, to keep beat that dead horse once you _{meaning the person who raises a complaint not Caspian blue. Sorry if this was unclear.} who started this section fail to provide any solid details to work with. This section should be marked resolved and closed. --Cameron Scott (talk) 22:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it's reasonable to ask how someone can edit for 55 hours straight, and it's telling that the individual being asked would respond with imprecations, threats and bullying rather than a) provide some sort of explanation (no need to go in depth) or b) politely say "as confirmed before, I don't share an account and I'd rather not discuss this any further". But that would be asking too much, wouldn't it? Anyway, let's just close this chapter and agree to move on, without further targeting of Biophys, who seems to be a favourite piñata for some. - Biruitorul ^Talk 03:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the evidence saying that Russavia edited for over 50 hours, as provided above, was false, and was disproven by the contribs that were referred to. - Bilby (talk) 06:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. I would ask that "this chapter" not be closed off until an uninvolved admin can review evidence that I have provided above that these accusations have been ongoing for SIX MONTHS - they are not a one off in the last couple of days. Biophys and other editors have thrown around for the last six+ months that I was blocked for 2 weeks for harrassing Biophys by placing a WP:COI template on his talk page, and that this was done under Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Discretionary_sanctions. I have very clearly shown that these accusations have been thrown around willy-nilly, and it can be clearly seen that it has pissed me off to such an extent that I have flown off the handle (rightly or wrongly) and it is affected my editing (hell, I haven't touched my article underdevelopment for the last 24+ hours because of this bullshit). This is a clear-cut case of WP:HARRASS. As far as I am concerned, it is now time that Biophys has Template:Digwuren enforcement placed on his talk page as it makes it very clear that such behaviour is not on, and it is directly related to this area of editing. - i.e. he is placed on formal notice. Only then can I get back to editing without worry of these accusations being made every other day, and in the event that they are repeated (or even insinuated to), I can at least be safe in the knowledge that a warning has been made, and that I at least have some direct course of action, without having to get into this bullshit AGAIN as I have had to do here and elsewhere. I'm not asking for blockings or anything like that, I'm not a prick, but a firm warning is warranted in my opinion...then we can all hopefully just move on. --Russavia ^Dialogue 05:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, I respect your contributions, as I also many times stated. I did not start this ANI thread, and I did not ask anyone to start this thread. I only commented. You indeed edited by numerous 20-22 hour segments, which might be a reason for concern. That was the first time when this specific question was publicly debated at a noticeboard. It was debated in your favor. I will not rise this question again, unless this is needed for an arbitration started by someone else. Would that be enough?Biophys (talk) 13:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Based on Biophys comments here, I see no evidence that he seeks to harass Russsavia. I suggest this thread is closed, and Russavia's editing pattern should not be discussed without new, strong evidence. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:15, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You're indeed beating the dead horse. Consensus is against your side. Based on your defend for Biophys 3RR violation, and comments here, I suggest you to open your eyes. Moreover, Biophys' further attacks against Russavia on his talk page [9] (he knew the diff'd offend him, so removed it), and his reply to my comment suggest that he would not drop the accusation.[10]. His final comments may look fine to others, but diffs remain the same. The whole thread initiated by you is dead long ago.--Caspian blue 04:34, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Biophys, but you have made such promises in the past, and they have been broken time and time again, and I can produce numerous amounts of evidence showing this to be the case (parts of that evidence have already been presented above). As I said, I am not assuming good faith with you on this, due to the length and the egregious nature of the harrassment, which often has other things thrown in. User_talk:Biophys#User:Russavia is a prime example, and I wrote there very clearly I will note that you have been reminded about such things if the need should arise. The need has now arisen. Nothing less than a formal warning under WP:DIGWUREN as mentioned above will satisfy me; I got a two week block for the placing a COI notice on your talk page; you at least deserve a formal warning for six months of harrassment, don't you think? And I can tell you quite honestly, that yesterday I was looking at an article I have been working on in my userspace (and which I haven't touched in 48 hours because of this thread), and I was an inch away from requesting speedy deletion of that article and walking away from the project altogether. Why? Because what I am trying to bring to this project isn't worth the continued harrassment and my blood boiling when I stumble across crap like this. Piotrus is merely trying to cover your butt, but one need only look at the wording of what you write, one can see it is a continuation of accusations and the fact that I had to stumble across this as a result of searching for a thread in relation to another matter speaks words; for 2 days I was being accused and bitched about (yet again), and without the right of reply; there was no notification on my talk page as to the existence of this thread, which I only found whilst on Colchicum's talk page whilst trying to find something related to something else. You. Martintg. Digwuren. Colchicum (who hasn't posted here). You all knew of the existence of this thread, but not a single one of you had any inkling to even advise me of its existence? What was the WP:GAME plan? There's too much underhanded goings on and too much bullshit for my liking in this area of WP; we are supposed to be collegial and all that, working together for the good of what should be a great project. But this is impossible when one is forced to face continued accusations of sockpuppetry, sharing accounts, and being in the employ of Russian government (those accusations can have real life consequences), and when an editor is met with shit like I stronly suggest you not collaborate with Ruavia. (from [11] and granted it wasn't you who wrote that) it really makes one begin to think "f' the lot of you, if this is what this project is really about, I want nothing to do with it". But you know what Biophys, I still think the project has some potential, and I am not going to put up with continued harrassment as I have for the last 6 months, because I was deemed to have harrassed you once some 8 months ago, and be made feel like you and others are trying to chase me away from WP, by following the definition of wikihounding to a tee. This is why you need to be formally warned, then and only then can I even begin to look forward. --Russavia ^Dialogue 05:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, Biophys, I would rather you don't patronise me by saying that you respect my contributions. You regularly accuse myself (and others going back a long time before I was even around) of destroying your "work", and at User_talk:Digwuren#AE you stated: You should look here (I especially like Patrushev and Budanov in the list) or Koni (dog). Passion? This is hard to swallow. These do not sound like the words (written only a month ago) of an editor who respects another editors contributions. (For others info the Hero article in my userspace which I had speedied after I saw it being posted there as a reminder that I am watching, was my work in turning this into List of Heroes of the Russian Federation. That contribution of mine was hard for you to swallow? There's many things I could say to that, one of them quite humourous but which could be seen as being uncivil, but I will say that I find your comment above totally patronising, when what I hope will be one of my major contributions in the future, is hard for you to swallow. --Russavia ^Dialogue 05:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I have a lot to tell, but this is simply not an appropriate forum to consider arguments by sides. Yes, I debated various issues related to editing by Russavia, just as I did with regard to many other users. However, I am not conducting a harassment campaign of Rusavia right now, and I never did. The diffs provided by Caspian Blue only show that I am working towards a reconciliation, just as my comment above. If someone has problems with me, please use RfU or arbitration, although I personally only want to live in peace. It is really amazing that my simple comment above (however wrong it might be) caused such a thunderstorm. Who has accelerated a conflict here - that everyone can judge himself.Biophys (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

If Piotrus (who started this thread) wants it to be closed, that is something to consider.Biophys (talk) 12:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Question for Piotrus

Above the question was asked of you, who the editor was who was being talked about in relation to this thread. Which editor was this thread which you started in relation to? Given the circumstance, I feel this question deserved to be answered. --Russavia ^Dialogue 20:31, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Just as I respect your right to privacy, I respect the right to privacy of others. I'll ask that editor to post here, as that editor has not clearly indicated to me whether I am at liberty to discuss his message in any detail. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand privacy, and it would be great if they would post here. And if they were to post here, it would also be a good idea to advise the editor/s who that editor is discussing of the existence of this thread. So that they too have a right to reply, and not just stumble on it some time later. --Russavia ^Dialogue 21:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

GeoCities is shutting down

Yahoo! has announced it will be shutting its GeoCities website hosting service later this year [12]. I know a few of you will shed a tear for your first website you built back in the 90s (the one that was permanently "Under Construction"), but WP has a fair few references and links that will die (if they're not dead already) [13]. Is this something to be tackled as a project, or a bot, or should the links in articles be removed gradually over time? --Stephen 22:11, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

We reference geocities? Yuck. We links in articles should be removed generally; geocities is as much a WP:RS as the last bit of lint I picked out of my underwear. Ironholds (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

If a Geocities site reproduces a public domain reliable source, there's no reason not to use it as a convenience link. --NE2 22:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't someone working on a WebCite bot/plan for our references, for exactly these kinds of future problems ? I believe someone had been talking to them, can't remember who. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:32, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/WebCiteBOT –xeno ^talk 22:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe User:WebCiteBOT? -DePiep (talk) 22:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

No, its not useful as a convenience link. It appears a citation in that sense and is presumed to be reliable. We have no way of verifying whoever put that content on geocities didn't modify it. There shouldn't be a single fact cited to geocities unless the subject of the article runs the geocities site.--Crossmr (talk) 13:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm also almost positive I've seen a few railroad companies' official sites on Geocities or another free hosting service. [14] would certainly be a reliable source for North Dakota State Railroad Museum. --NE2 22:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you know the history of that "museum" which is "Just For Kids"? geocities is not a reliable source, period. --98.182.55.209 (talk) 17:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

There are currently 37,900 links to geocities on WP. MBisanz ^talk 23:01, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

WebCiteBOT is not yet approved for its first task (archiving new links). Once it is approved I will file a separate BRFA to archive all Geocities links used as references. (A BRFA is also planned for all Encarta pages, which are also dying later this year). --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Please feel free to use User_talk:WebCiteBOT to alert me of any future problems like this. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, CompuServe Ourworld will shut down on June 30, 2009. [15] Cardamon (talk) 17:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

There are also quite a few image files sourced to Geocities. Any plans how to handle this? Durova^Charge! 02:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Individually. GeoCities is not shutting down next week. We need to look at each link and evaluate it. If it is not reliable then delete it. If valid then find an alternative. I have already contacted one site: the user was not aware that GeoCities is shutting down, but is going to take steps to move. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:35, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Gadget, the specific question has to do with how to handle images which are sourced to GeoCities. A brief survey indicates a good number of these have fair use rationales, which would (theoretically) make them OK for most purposes--except that the source link itself will return a 404 error once Geocities does shut down. Seeking comments that specifically pertain to that issue. Durova^Charge! 03:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

If the copyright holder is independant of the link (say, album covers), then it doesn't matter if Geocities shuts down. --Carnildo (talk) 03:55, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I can try to have WebCiteBOT archive any Geocities page listed as a source for images as well. Thanks for the heads up about this additional need. --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Thaddeus, that'd be helpful. :) Durova^Charge! 04:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

• Websites shut down all the time but the Wayback Machine should have them all in its snapshots. Yesterday, I replaced a dead link with a link to the most recent version there for an article I wrote. Surely a bot could be written to do this for dead links automatically? Colonel Warden (talk) 19:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• It's awfully hard to do automatically. It can be done semi-automatically with Checklinks, but that requires a reasonable amount of supervision. Protonk (talk) 22:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Relying on the Wayback machine is a problem, because if the owner of the geocities.com domain (or any domain) changes their robots.txt to noindex everything, then Wayback machine purges their old copies of that domain. See Internet Archive#Healthcare Advocates, Inc. for background/confirmation. (does anyone know if Yahoo intends to release/sell the domain name? It might be worth trying to contact them to ascertain this.) -- Quiddity (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo will redirect geocities to their paid web hosting service. --Stephen 11:17, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

There are also ~800 links to geocities.jp. Please add those to any rescue efforts. (any other geocities domains?) -- Quiddity (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate medical information

I don't know if WP has a definite policy on providing information on the sizes of lethal overdoses of pharmaceuticals. However, if there isn't one, I think there should be - and it should be that such information should be deleted on sight, no matter where it appears. To be clear, I don't mean that data readily available in an MSDS should be prohibited - rat LD50's (for example) are easily found online - but information like X tablets of Y will kill is inappropriate and unnecessary. I raise this because I came looking for information on the opiod dextropropoxyphene napsylate. A friend of mine asked me about a medication he is taking that includes this substance as one of its ingredients. He's only very recently out of hospital following a near-successful suicide attempt. Consequently, I was stunned that he would be prescribed something containing dextropropoxyphene napsylate as it is addictive, easy to overdose on, and very vulnerable to abuse.

The comments that bring me here are on the talk page, starting with the section on enzymes where User:DrMorelos talks about lethal dosages of paracetamol (aka acetaminophen) in the third indented paragraph. "15 grams of acetaminophen within 16 hours (guaranteed liver poisoning)". DrMorelos is discussing a wildly foolish self-experiment, and does include warnings not to try this - but to a person intent on suicide, this information is valuable and the warnings would be ignored. DrMorelos has neither a user page nor a talk page, and the posts appear old, so I can't just ask him or her to remove the comments... and in any case, there is a more general question here. The following section states (in bold) "It only requires 10-15 500mg tablets to kill you", according to User:PainMan, who I will notify of this post.

So, in short - is there a policy on providing quantity information relating to lethal overdoses of pharmaceuticals? If not, should there be? And, is there some way to search for and remove other instances of inappropriate information like this - assuming you collectively agree it is inappropriate. EdChem (talk) 19:57, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The applicable policies are WP:V (unverifiable content may be removed), WP:HOWTO (we do not carry instruction manuals, including for suicide by overdose), but also WP:NOTCENSORED (content is not removed solely for being morally objectionable). In other words, information in an article in the vein of "the LD 50 for this medicament is 100 mg" should be retained if accompanied by a reference to a reliable source, but removed otherwise. It may also be removed from talk pages if it is not related to discussion of the article's contents.

Also, WP:VPP would probably be a better place for this discussion.  Sandstein  20:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually I would suggest Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Medicine if you want people with expertise to see it. Looie496 (talk) 02:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Add WP:BEANS to the list. As with anything suicide-related, the potential for time-wasting and deliberate trolling here is enormous. WP:V and WP:HOWTO should eliminate most information of this type, or at least require rewording into a more encyclopedic form. Durova^Charge! 03:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, a statement that X amount of a given medicine is fatal can be a useful warning to people concerned about prescribed dosages. While Sandstein is correct about the information being verifiable -- especially as individual biochemistries vary so much that it may take 2 or 3 times the normally fatal amount to kill one person, while another could die from half the usual amount -- still, some kind of yardstick is better than none at all, & more people have access to Wikipedia than have immediate access to the Physicians' Desk Reference.

(Just to make sure that my thoughts were relevant in this instance, I had a look at the section EdChem wrote about. The Wikipedian in question wrote to warn people about the toxic levels of this drug, not to encourage people to abuse it in order to kill themselves.)

And the sad fact is that people who want to kill themselves will find a way. Put a warning label on anything, & a potential suicide will see if can be abused in this manner. They'll drink drain cleaner, paint thinner, or fill their pockets with rocks take a one-way walk into a deep body of water. (I know a woman who tried to commit suicide with an OD of antihistamines -- which didn't kill her. It did make her sick as a dog for a few days, & she had a week at a nearby psych ward for observation.) Almost any information in Wikipedia can be abused. -- llywrch (talk) 05:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

My issue with that kind of content is more that many people are not that aware of our disclaimers, if there's an error or vandalism, that have regrettable consequences regardless of what their intent might be. -- lucasbfr ^talk 09:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Admin assistance needed for delisting request at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist

Resolved

 – Closed, site was removed from blacklist. hmwithτ 02:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#newenergytimes.com

This delisting request was posted 15:18, 11 April 2009; there has been extensive discussion, and discussion has stopped. I request a close from a neutral administrator. --Abd (talk) 03:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Closed as consensus supporting removal, blacklist entry removed. Viridae^Talk 03:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! --Abd (talk) 03:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's really possible to read "consensus" - there seemed to be a distinct lack of independent outside input in that thread. That said, it's probably time to let this die. I agree with the delisting; let's see how things go, and if the site is spammed abusively then it can be readdressed, hopefully by some fresh eyes. On to the next drama. MastCell ^Talk 03:44, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I agree with mastcell about the "consensus" here. It is a shame that we will now have to work harder to ensure that this site isn't abused again, as it was in the past. Verbal chat 08:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, MastCell and Verbal, though the debate over Cold fusion is a difficult one, with some entrenched positions, and isn't going to be resolved without work, yes, working "harder." The goal? Thorough coverage, NPOV, as shown in reliable sources, as determined by consensus. In other words, Wikipedia process. The decision wasn't made, I hope, on preponderance of votes, but on arguments, and the rough consensus simply showed that, and if Verbal or anyone else thinks it was warped in some way, there is WP:DR, which works. If there is anyone confused about how to proceed if they think a decision was improper or warped by some local participation bias, ask me, I do know how to proceed with minimal disruption. --Abd (talk) 13:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I propose a speedy reversion of this, at least until the arbcom case concerning Abd and JzG is over. Jtrainor (talk) 00:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I was also disappointed to discover this: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/C68-FM-SV#Viridae. This does not seem to be what I initially thought it was, and I'm disappointed (again). For this reason it should probably be reverted and reviewed. Verbal chat 07:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Not to toss any political fireballs, but is this site being spammed across multiple articles? If not, it should not be blacklisted. If so, it should be blacklisted if it's not appropriate and consensus agrees on that. The RFAR status should have no relevance. The AC as a body has zero authority over what goes in or out of the blacklist(s) and never will, as that is a pure content matter. rootology (C)(T) 01:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It was blacklisted correctly. Verbal chat 07:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Reagardless of wether it was blacklisted correctly at the time - I really don't care, it was removed according to consensus supported by policy. Viridae^Talk 08:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Rootology: I do believe that there is cause for concern, and that the site was abused (in several ways, to several articles, and by several editors, and for quite some time), and I still have concerns that this may not be over. However, there absolutely is also proper use of this site.

For the record, I agree with User:MastCell and User:Verbal that I find it difficult to read consensus (but I recuse from deciding again as I have stated my opinions earlier and declined there), but I urge, with User:Abd, for independent review of this (and I am afraid that User:Viridae here is not an independent reviewer (per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/C68-FM-SV#Viridae), though they might be right in their conclusions). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Just as I was able to, later, request delisting after Beetstra had confirmed the original listing, Beetstra or anyone can request relisting; however, as Beetstra understands, a listing request should be accompanied by current evidence of linkspam, which isn't merely a placement of a link according to ordinary editorial efforts to improve an article, even if the placement is controversial. Beetstra and I still, apparently, have many disagreements over how blacklisting is conducted, but I'm confident that we can, nondisruptively, work these out, for the overall benefit of the project, unless some sledgehammer descends from on high. I want to be on record as supporting his monumental efforts to control linkspam, and my disagreements have only to do with edges and details, and I want to be sure that, whatever is done to fix the problems on the edge, it doesn't damage those efforts. --Abd (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Hahaha. Just a side note, Abd, about 'current abuse': the link could not be used for the last 3-4 months, let alone be abused, so there is no current abuse. According to that reasoning, one could after 1 month delete the most awful spam from the blacklist as there is no abuse anymore, and re-listing is not necessery as there is no abuse until the abuse starts again, which is what we just wanted to prohibit in the first place (well, the first abuse we see would be enough to relist it, actually). In the meantime, one would have to again revert the abuse. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, don't get the joke. WP:DEADHORSE? Tabula rasa, no current listing. To establish a listing requires establishing fear of continued linkspam, and not merely debatable usage of links in the past or even in the present. Note that now there is a link being used, at New Energy Times with a teeny bit of effective acceptance at Talk:Cold fusion by a "skeptical" editor. The argument presented is circular in the other direction. Suppose there *was* linkspam at some time (which was never shown in this case). So it's blacklisted, but, later, for whatever reason, it's delisted. Relisting requires establishing a fear of current linkspamming, on a significant level, requiring the blunt instrument of the blacklist to deal with it. I'd think this would be easy to understand, but apparently not.

So, please, someone close this discussion, it's attracting useless argument, and I think we are done here. --Abd (talk) 18:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Image PD-ineligible tagging

I noticed that a mass number of images are receiving aggressive tagging.

For example {{PD-ineligible}} images tagged with {{PD}} are being tagged for deletion for lacking sourcing. This is primarily because of people tagging by using scripts making them act like unauthorized bots. This is unhelpful to the project. In addition several people are making a pointless effort to search and destroy all unused images. This is pointless because we do not really delete images. They just become visible to administrators.

This process is disruptive because peoples talk pages are constantly flooded with copyright notices. This not only deters from contributing to the site at all but also compels people not to check their talk pages as they often end up getting multiple notices a day.

It wastes valuable time for people who end up checking their talk page to see yet another automated/templated notice. Also an admin will have to delete the image in question rather than spending time on something else.

-- Cat ^chi? 06:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Would you be willing to provide some diffs to specific examples? I'm having a bit of trouble finding examples of what you described. Thanks, Icestorm815 • Talk 07:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing White Cat is referring to File:May_be_Disturbing.gif and File:USS ALAMO - lsd33 3.jpg although I see no evidence from either of these there is any sort of mass effort nor do either involved PD-ineligible. Nil Einne (talk) 16:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

He may be right about File:May_be_Disturbing.gif, but File:USS ALAMO - lsd33 3.jpg was quite correctly tagged as "no source": PD-USGov would be a reasonable guess, but without a source, it's impossible to be sure. --Carnildo (talk) 22:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding May be Disturbing.gif, I don't see anything wrong with opening a discussion for an unused image which the nominator genuinely believes isn't suitable for transwiking to the commons. PhilKnight (talk) 22:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I also don't see anything wrong with tagging the image as lacking source. Perhaps this is what he/she meant about PD-ineligible but I think the image potentially has sufficient creativity that it could be copyrightable. In any case, given it's something so easy for someone to completely independently come up with, it's just plain silly to quabile over whether it's PD-ineligible or not. If you know the source, as in this case it was PD-self then tag it. If not, then delete it. If someone ever actually wants something like that they're welcome to come up with their own Nil Einne (talk) 23:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This thread does not concern a specific image but images in general. If an image is ineligible of copyright then there is no point of seeking a source for it. Instead of nominating such images for deletion, retagging them with {{PD-ineligible}} would be the logical course of action. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. -- Cat ^chi? 05:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a neutral topic heading that accurately reflects the scope and nature of the problem you hope to address. Protonk (talk) 18:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I've changed it to something a little more appropriate. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Very well... I was hoping to catch peoples attention with it (in which I succeeded! :D) -- Cat ^chi? 05:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Wiki treasure hunt

The editor User:DoodleHammer, whose edits prior to me knowing him, have almost all been deleted as non-notable new articles. Then, he posted, in the article space, the rules of a Wiki treasure hunt he is organizing, allegedly with the help of three sponsors, who "conveniently" asked to remain anonymous. A note this user then left on my talk page and on that of the admin who performed the actual deletion of his rules convinced me that his edits should be systematically reverted as being part of the "contest," but I am wondering whether this user shouldn't be blocked altogether, given that the contest has not been called off yet. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 11:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've warned DoodleHammer not to do this. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Update: He carried on making pages about this and I've blocked the account. Gwen Gale (talk) 06:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

plenty of untagged images

Why I can found plenty of untagged images where are missing licence, I have marked some of those with subst ndl and when I have checked history, some bot have made same before me but uploader has returned original state back.

How we can get amount of untagged image smaller.--Musamies (talk) 19:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Bots are doing the job mostly though newer images might not be tagged (yet). Editors who repeatedly revert to a state where there is no licence information or who enter false license information should be first contacted on their talk page, warned if you cannot talk some sense into them, and eventually reported to admins if they won't stop. Copyrighted images where fair use cannot be claimed should be marked for deletion, see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Files. Equendil Talk 20:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've actually asked about this exact problem. Bots aren't going after image files generally (probably because the last bot operator who tried that got nothing but yelled at from the numerous users who don't really care). One issue is that most items at Special:UncategorizedFiles are files at Commons and it seems like there isn't anyone able to split them. Following this discussion, I've started work at User:Ricky81682/Empty files. Musamies, if you want to expand on this, talk with me about it but be aware that you're likely to get nothing but responses like this (where he took a magazine page and just listed it as public domain so that nobody could bother him about the image). Fun stuff. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Another one to try is Category:Images lacking a description intersect Category:Images lacking an author. I have a somewhat outdated dump of these at User:MER-C/Sandbox#Images with no source or description. MER-C 02:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm currently working on clearing up Special:UncategorizedFiles. Hopefully I can help quell the problem of many Commons images appearing there. Radiant chains (talk) 10:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

tools:~chris/uncatimages.php should list them without the commons images. --Chris 11:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:FurMe is a good tool to use to process images that are fair use. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Be careful with plenty of these: for some reason a bot went around and removed a type of PD-USGov templates from lots of images that were derived from the US Congressional website. I've already fixed two and restored another that was deleted for the same reason. Nyttend (talk) 11:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to do a run through of RockfangBot's contribs in the morning and restore some of the lost copyright tags --Chris 13:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Alternative Theory Critiques Need a more Neutral Stance to prevent violation of Wiki Policies

Resolved

 – Doesn't involve admin attention. User directed to proper venue. hmwithτ 02:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Note: Copied from Controlled Demo page: I wholeheartedly agree that this article should be retitled. The additon of the word "conspiracy" only serves to make the article anything but neutral. The title of this article is in clear violation of Wiki's policy of a neutral point of view. An adequate title to remedy the situation might be : "World Trade Center Controlled Demolition Theory" or something to that effect.(Peterbadgely (talk) 21:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)) peterbadgely

I have reviewed the messages below this, and since one of the editors referred to "controlled demolition proponents" rather than using the word conspiracy, I feel that "proponents" may be an adequate remedy to the above violation of neutrality rules. Note that the word proponent was promoted by a detractor of the banned editor. There must be a more adult manner to deal with these alternative theories. Note that Wikipedia will be read centuries from now, so much the better if we look upon all sound (or arguable) theories with a neutral and inquisitive mind in the present day (2009).(Peterbadgely (talk) 21:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)) peterbadgely —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterbadgely (talk • contribs)

This is almost impossible to understand, but clearly it doesn't belong on this noticeboard. If you have concerns about neutrality, the place to discuss them is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Looie496 (talk) 23:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Should User:Daymeeee be Blocked

Resolved

 – Nil Einne took it to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. hmwithτ 02:33, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have been watching over Resident Evil 5 and the main antagonist Wesker was shot in the game and thought to be killed. The community came to a decision that it should be said that the article should say shot instead of killed. But User:Daymeeee has constantly reverted edits that change the word to shot. Also he has been trolling around the page because for a while now thats the only thing he's edited. I have warned him multiple times but he is such a "do what I want spirit" that he just ignores me and does it over and over.--(NGG) 22:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like he/she is engaged in an edit war and from the look of it has been warned so I suggest Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. From the look of it, Daymeeee is the same person as User:137.99.151.100 who has a chequered history and has been previously blocked for edit warring Nil Einne (talk) 23:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

After seeing how bad it was, I've filed a report myself Nil Einne (talk) 23:50, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Mediation assistance needed

MedCab currently (23:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)) has fourteen unadopted requests. Volunteers would be greatly appreciated. There are no particulary requirement, but people looking to help should check out their suggestions for volunteers. Thanks! --Vassyana (talk) 23:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

An article on "Notability"?

Resolved

 – Article moved into mainspace per consensus here. Oren0 (talk) 02:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability in Wikipedia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I'm here to propose an article for creation. I track submissions at AfC and recently came across an intriguing suggestion. An author wanted to write something about the Wikipedia concept of "notability". My response was basically that Wikipedia is not a dictionary and that I didn't think there was enough material to create an article. I did offer to review any article the author might create, though. Well, lo and behold, the author came through. So why am I here for what is (basically) a content issue? Well, this particular article has been deleted 11 different times and has been SALTed to boot. Even with that history, I feel this is a well-written article which should be moved to the mainspace. I am curious to see what others think and get a feel for the general opinion. TNXMan 00:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

While the article is a little light on sources, I think it should be given a shot to pass an WP:AFD. Note that its previous AfD was speedy closed so we don't really have any idea where consensus might lie on this. Oren0 (talk) 00:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure; it can at least be given a go. There are articles like Inclusionism and deletionism in Wikipedia already; sources from there could probably be used. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 01:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment my impression was that previous AFDs (I haven't looked through them all) were deleting on the basis that it wasn't an encyclopedia article, being instead a dicdef or a redirect or something similar. I think there's an encyclopedia article to be written on the topic, especially if someone makes the effort to draw on some of the academic literature on WP. Rd232 ^talk 01:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability seems notable to me :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Most of the deletions are unrelated to the content. The one and only AFD was in 2006. We have come a long way since then, and there is a lot more critical analysis of Wikipedia. I think the article should be moved into the main namespace, and if someone wants to send it to AFD, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. As an aside, I think it would also be possible to write an article about "citation needed" [16][17][18][19][20][21] John Vandenberg ^(chat) 01:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Moving into the mainspace seems fine since it's not a G4 candidate. Needs some more copyediting though. –xeno ^talk 02:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't merging both this and Inclusionism and deletionism in Wikipedia into an article called Deletion in Wikipedia make some sense? There's overlap between them. Chick Bowen 02:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There is overlap, but I think they are distinct enough concepts to warrant separate articles. For example, a section comparing our standard of notability with others' standards (research journals, Britannica, etc.) wouldn't really have a place in Deletion in Wikipedia. TNXMan 02:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm probably missing something here, so please bear with me. I truly like the article, but two things keep screaming out in my mind here. 1.) Why doesn't this have the {{essay}} tag on it? 2.) Isn't this bumping right up against the WP:SELFREF stuff? Yes, I'm aware that the "selfref" is a tool to explain why we can't reference our own articles in the way of citations; but it just seems so ... I don't know, .. kind of like a "do as we say, not as we do" type of thing. I know I'm not expressing myself very well here, and to be honest, maybe after I've thought it through a little more, the light-bulb above my head will click on. Frankly, I wondered the very same things about the Inclusionism and deletionism in Wikipedia article when I first saw it. Maybe we should create one about "verifiability" too, but we'll have to dab that one. Oh well, just my thoughts - feel free to discard at your pleasure. And on a closing note, I certainly would not want to see the article deleted, I think it is good stuff. — Ched :  ?  04:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It's an article, so obviously no essay tag. As for SELFREF, self-references are allowed on articles that are about Wikipedia. For example, you agree that the article Wikipedia should exist, correct? Oren0 (talk) 07:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Quick side note I'd like to interject, shouldn't the article be moved to Notability in Wikipedia? It doesn't cover anything else then that. Icestorm815 • Talk 05:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it should definitely have a title that reflects its Wikipedia focus. "Notability" has a perfectly fine definition in use outside this wiki. — Gavia immer (talk) 05:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved the article to Notability in Wikipedia. Radiant chains (talk) 10:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, since we already have a few "leader" words so to speak, such as:

• Wikipedia:something, something
• Help:something, something
• Template:something, something

how about just creating a new one:

• Wikispeak:something, something.

Just a thought. — Ched :  ?  05:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletion in Wikipedia??? What the hell? What kind of attack by the inclusionists is that? Merge all of them to an article about 'article creation criteria on wikipedia' or something else with a less loaded title. srsly WTF? ThuranX (talk) 05:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Block request on sock/incivil user

Resolved

 – Account blocked. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There has been a long delay in dealing with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/LOTRrules for unknown reasons, seeing as it is quite a clear case. If an administrator could close it and block SonGoku786 (talk · contribs) so User:Collectonian doesn't have to deal with him any longer. A request was already made at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents but action has yet to be taken.--Otterathome (talk) 11:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have indef blocked the account, for socking, and noted same at the SPI page. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

What to do about this 'article'?

Joseph Son of Jacob Egyptian Historical correlation: Imhotep? - one editor has tagged it as not a real article, and I sympathise with that. But it's meant to be a real article, I presume. So, what to do about this piece of original research riddled with the editor's signature? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 12:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll check it out & do some cleaning up. hmwithτ 13:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up won't help. It's just a personal rant by someone with an extreme fringe view. No amount of cleaning up will make that a real article. If it gets improved to the point where it looks more like an article then we'll go for AFD instead of a straight delete, as by then it'd just be a POV fork soapboax article. DreamGuy (talk) 13:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Eh, I think there is some stuff worth mentioning. Given, it's very POV and has a lot of OR, but, with those removed, this could be a valid article. We don't have to say it's true, but, if it's being discussed and is a notable academic discussion, it deserves mentioning. hmwithτ 14:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

No, that's original research and synthesis. There is not one secondary source cited. If you have a reliable secondary source advancing this hypothesis you could note it in the appropriate articles but this article is pure original research. Remember Wikipedia articles must be based on secondary sources. No article can say "This is so." Articles must say, "According to so-and-so, this is so." Thatcher 16:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

A blocked editor just called my house

A few minutes ago, I received a call on my home telephone from an anonymous Wikipedia editor who wanted to know why I had blocked him from editing. While he was not especially rude (well, other than telling me that I need to "grow up"), this unexpected intersection of my Wikipedia and "real" lives was rather ... startling. Presuming this has happened to other admins, what did you do? Did you change or start doing things differently on Wikipedia or in your personal life? Thanks, — Kralizec! (talk) 13:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest trimming off all those personally identifying details from your userpage. –xeno ^talk 13:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

While I had initially considered that back when I became an admin in 2007, I figured it was a moot point doing a Google search on my user name will quickly turn up the real me (while multiple people around the globe like and enjoy using the word "kralizec," few have been using it online since 1993). Likewise, for legal reasons my birth name is on every one of the photos I have uploaded both here and at Commons (largely because publishers and other individuals are occasionally interested in acquiring the rights to some of my photographs). — Kralizec! (talk) 13:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There's still no need to make it easy for them. –xeno ^talk 14:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you should consider the answers to the following questions first; how did you let him know who you are, how did you let him get your number, and whether you would mind if it happened again in the future. If the answer to the latter of these questions is yes, then no need to change anything. Otherwise, isn't the answer somewhat obvious? xeno has already suggested one step. ;) Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

This happened to me once. Except the person calling was delivering death threats to my wife and I. I suggest you keep identifiable information off of Wikipedia. It is not like a room full of strangers in the real world you can introduce themselves to you with general safety. It is more like giving out your name in some lawless apocalyptic wasteland. Chillum 13:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Kralizec, I have just had a look at your user page and its links. Letting people know your real name is fine if that is what you want to do, but FGS, how can anyone be so stupid as to link photos of their children complete with their names and ages from a user page where people can identify you and more importantly, them - can you imagine this scenario: "Hi little X! Daddy asked me to pick you from school, here's some details about you so you know I am not a pervy kidnapper" - Any odd internet surfer can gain more information about your private life than he can about Barak Obama's. There's even "a copy of my schedule from my last semester at college" - 11 years ago! In short, there are some weird people out there, don't be surprised if some of them want to contact you - and possibly your family! Get real, if you don't value your own privacy and safety then at least respect theirs. Giano (talk) 14:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

For reasons I would rather not talk about (obviously the best security precautions are the ones that potential aggressors are not aware of), neither my wife nor I are unduly concerned about our children being kidnapped from their school. That said, I do however understand your point. — Kralizec! (talk) 15:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Good, I'm glad you are not unduly concerned! However, I am afraid I do not have your hapy and trusting nature. I truly hope you never have cause to think otherwise. Giano (talk) 16:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to file this under the "what did you think would happen" category, and echo Giano's points. Never assume good faith that internet crazies will respect your privacy. Hiberniantears (talk) 14:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

(What Giano and Hiberniantears said) Way, way TMI, in my opinion. —Travis^talk 14:28, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Most folks one runs into here are ok. However, it only takes one out of a thousand editors you've dealt with to track you down and try to upset you. My outlook on this is, think about what editors are saying in this thread and take that phone call as a "warning" call. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

For only a few buck a month you can rent a phone number for most cities that you can forward to anywhere. You can change the number at no cost so it makes for a good disposable phone number. I won't mention any companies, but they are not hard to find on Google. I pay $5 for a toll free 1-866 number and I can switch to a new one for $5 any time I want, it redirects to any phone without revealing that phone's number. 14:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Being a named person who has a business and therefore a phone number on the Internet, I occasionally get calls from blocked editors. If you are polite and inform them that Wikipedia is just a hobby and that you do all your "customer service" via the site or email, that is a generally polite way to end the call. Jehochman ^Talk 14:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

You can certainly try removing your listings from web sites like Whitepages (instructions are here)] Also, remove mention of your location from your user page and web site. I am sure there is many people by your name, and that blocked users are not that crazy to call everyone up. If they have your location info, they will call you first! --Falastine fee Qalby (talk) 16:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion

This process page was suggested by User:Ron Ritzman at Wikipedia talk:Deletion process#Proposed wikiproject, Requests for undeletion (permlink) and several of us agreed a central page to request uncontroversial restorations and userfications was a good idea. I've taken the liberty of drafting the page and submit the process to the community for input and further review. Please discuss at WT:Requests for undeletion, not here. –xeno ^talk 13:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Requesting a review of a past agreement...

In a WP:ANI thread here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive491#User:Sfan00_IMG

I agreed not to 'enforce' what was claimed at the time to be a 'fringe' version of the copyrights policy.

Since that thread there have been some developments: i) There was IIRC a ruling in the US which said that You Tube videos had to be shown not to be 'fair-use' to qualify as copyright violation (arguably some of the You Tube links from Wikipedia are 'fair-use'.)

ii) The ruling in the Pirate Bay case, (Consensus on how this affects Wikipedia isn't clear yet. EDIT: This doesn't apply in the US Anyway. So not an issue)

iii) The implementation on Commons of functionality which allows checks of images using an Image Search system called Tin Eye... (EDIT: This could at the very least resolve sourcing issues)

iv) A ruling in the US which changed what qualified as PD-US

In light of the fact that the current agreement expires in about a months time, I'd like to ask if it would be reasonable to
Continue:

• Adding more information to images where possible..
• Identifying images suitable for Commons and migrating such images

(inc. the use of {{AddinfoforCommonsMove}}

• Rationale additions for Fair-Use images.

Resume (under careful monitoring):

• Identification of unlicensed images
• Identification of unsourced images
• PUI refferal on 'suspect' images.

Possibly perform in addition:

• TinEye checks on 'suspect' images prior to PUI referal.

Consensus from the admins here would be much appreciated, prior to expiry of the current agreement at the End of May. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but I'll say what I said last time I saw you around here. First, legal issues are for Mike to deal with; most of us aren't lawyers. Second, and you don't seem to be able to get this; the Pirate Bay case matters not a jot. We are not subject to the Swedish legal system, we are subject to the American legal system. If you are aware of such cases in the US, send them to Mike. I think I need to create a WP:YOUARENOTALAWYER essay for such occasions; you were warned last time for misunderstanding the law, misunderstanding legal terms and copyright paranoia at its worse. It would be nice if, in future, you tried to avoid falling into exactly the same trap in the first paragraph of your "here's why that last discussion about me being copyright paranoid no longer applies" posting. Ironholds (talk) 04:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, Point taken.

However, I am not claiming that the arguments made by others in previous disscusion don't still apply, hence my trying to seek consensus here. I would agree with your comments on a WP:YOUARENOTAJUDGE type guideline.

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Admins: Please watchlist 2009 swine flu outbreak

Guys, please watchlist 2009 swine flu outbreak. The level of activity, editing, and news has been astonishing, and tomorrow as the week begins anew in the west will be even more insane. Given that we're at the top of the searches for Swine flu, which correctly links back to the outbreak article, which is on our main page, it's only a countdown now till our outbreak article is the #1 hit in general for searches. We need all hands on board for this one.

Please click here to watchlist it. rootology (C)(T) 18:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

That article has been renamed (with consensus) to 2009 swine flu outbreak, so watchers should now click here. Eubulides (talk) 05:29, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Reposting at the bottom. Our most-watched article at the moment by visitors for obvious reasons, we need as many admins patrolling it as possible. rootology (C)(T) 17:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for Admin review of recent move

An administrator recently changed the name of an article from "Nuclear program of North Korea," to "Nuclear power in North Korea." The move discussion is on the talk page. There have been additional discussions on that talk page, on my talk page, on the Admin's talk page, and, at the Admin's suggestion, on Wikipedia talk:Requested moves.

I feel that the move was made against consensus (at least as I understand the meaning of the word), that the new title does not comport with the contents of the article and that the discussion of splitting the article was a red herring. In my view, none of the responses to my complaint have addressed the core substance of my arguments, which has made me more and more frustrated. The whole episode makes me want to abandon Wikipedia for insisting on getting such an obvious thing wrong. I would like someone else to take a fresh look at this. NPguy (talk) 20:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

That's a rather POV title at best. There's no nuclear power program in North Korea, as all of their nuclear development has been focused on a weapons program-- something they themselves have admitted. I note the article is also move-protected now. Jtrainor (talk) 03:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• Closing admin I still I feel I made a reasonable close of the move discussion. However, I will bow to consensus here if other admins and editors consider my actions to be unreasonable. NPguy, in good faith, disagrees with the move to Nuclear power in North Korea and believes I evaluated the close incorrectly, and has been politely straightforward about saying so (politeness which I appreciate). Anyway, this is a summary of events:
  • 1) move request filed by 199.125.109.126 at Talk:Nuclear_program of_North_Korea, requesting a move to Nuclear power in North Korea, for reasons of consistency with other "Nuclear power in X" articles, and arguing that this article should be split into one article focusing on a nuclear weapons program and one on purely nuclear power.
  • 2) Discussion takes place, with two editors objecting to splitting the article.
  • 3) An editor points out that there is already an article about the nuclear weapons program: North Korea and weapons of mass destruction#Nuclear weapons, which renders the previous objections moot.
  • 4) I close the discussion, noting that the concerns of the editors opposing the move had largely been addressed.
  • 5) I move the article
  • 6) User:NPguy objects on my talk page, at User_talk:Aervanath#Nuclear_program_of_North_Korea
  • 7) User:NPguy reverts the move
  • 8) I revert the reversion, move-protect the page. and leave a note at User_talk:NPguy#Moves_against_consensus asking him not to unilaterally revert the result of a closed move discussion.
  • 9) Further discussion ensues at User_talk:Aervanath#Nuclear_program_of_North_Korea, Wikipedia_talk:RM#Dispute_over_recent_move and now this thread.
• All comments on my actions are welcome. Cheers,--Aervanath (talk) 04:51, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This chronology omits an important substantive question: whether the article logically can be and has been split. As to the latter, the answer is clearly no. Only the name has changed. As to the former, I have argued that there is no actual separation between North Korea's civil and military nuclear programs. Rather than using a misleading title that suggests such a separation, the article should use a neutral title that does not. Having said that, I acknowledge that the article in question is weak, and that the other article (North Korea and WMD) is stronger. I'm not sure what the right solution is, but simply giving one article a misleading title is not that solution. NPguy (talk) 05:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I also think that the other article is stronger, which leads to a possible compromise here: would you object to merging the content, and thus obviating the need for continuing the debate over the move? Right now, Nuclear program of North Korea is a redirect to Nuclear power in North Korea; why not simply redirect both of them to North Korea and weapons of mass destruction?--Aervanath (talk) 07:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Obsenity Incident

Resolved

I recently was brousing Wikipedia and requested "COUSCOUS". 5 lines down into the acticle I found the violation. Please fix it!

"Couscous or kuskus as it is known in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt (pronounced /ˈkuːskuːs/ in the United States, /ˈkʊskʊs/ in the United Kingdom; Berber Seksu - Arabic: كسكس‎, called maftoul in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories) is a Berber dish consisting of spherical granules made by rolling and shaping moistened semolina wheat and then coating them with finely ground wheat flour. The finished granules are about one millimetre in diameter before cooking. The [[Mother Fucker twice the diameter and... "

Plain old vanilla vandalism. It won't happen again, at least, not on my watch. Thanks for bringing it here, but in future, WP:AIV is the place to report this sort of thing, or you could just revert it yourself. Rodhullandemu 22:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

unsucessful move - now have two articles

it seems that the change in title and move has now resulted in two mirror articles. Recently discovered in as per talk page I'm not clever enought to know what to do!! Earlypsychosis (talk) 23:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done history merge complete. –xeno ^talk 23:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Admins who change names should create a redirect to their successful RFA

Is this something we should ask of admins who change their name for purely aesthetic reasons (i.e. not a change to avoid harassment, etc.)? It would make it more convenient for someone to review how long ago an admin was +sysop'd and on what grounds.

(Alternatively, does someone want to write an "RFA-finder" script? Perhaps roll it into that "$" button that shows user-rights.) –xeno ^talk 12:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)