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User:Margana

In response to a notice left at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Jimmy Wales, I have been working on the Jimmy Wales article to bring it into compliance with WP:BLP. I have been met with edit warring by User:Margana. I have explained the sourcing problem in detail to the user, and invited them to rewrite a section I removed so that it complies with the sourcing requirements of WP:BLP. The user has chosen to deny that WP:BLP applies in this case, and has repeatedly reinserted the problematic section over the past two days, while avoiding a WP:3RR violation. Continuously reinserting poorly sourced negative information into the biography of a living person is a blockable offence. This user has a history of blocks for 3RR, disruption, and edit warring, and has been blocked in the past regarding edits to the Jimmy Wales article. I believe another month an indefinite block is in order. - Crockspot 03:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Also just noticed that the user has blanked their user talk page (see diff), removing warnings. - Crockspot 04:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Users Crockspot and Satori Son make a laughable BLP claim to keep the Controversy section out of the Jimmy Wales article, despite it being perfectly well sourced, and no rewrite whatsoever being needed. Majority opinion on the talk page (Dragons flight, Ken Arromdee, and me) is against their claims, but they're nevertheless edit warring to remove the section. This basically amounts to vandalism, and a warning block might be in order. Margana 04:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• I would point out that I am acting in the capacity of a volunteer to the Living People Patrol, and have no connection with or personal interest in the complaining subject of the article. On the other hand, Margana appears to have a personal axe to grind. WP:BLP is a policy that overrides "majority opinion". It is the responsibility of every editor to immediately remove poorly sourced negative information from biographies of living persons. It is the responsibility of the editor who wishes to include such information to be sure that it is solidly sourced. I have repeatedly explained the self-sourcing problems to Margana, yet this user refuses to even attempt to properly source the statements, opting for edit warring instead. - Crockspot 04:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying if you think something is a BLP case it doesn't matter how many people tell you it isn't? Obviously we can't let just anyone go around and delete entire sections of articles simply by saying "BLP", so this is as much a consensus decision as anything else. You are no more authorized than anyone else in deciding whether BLP applies anywhere, so you should very well defer to others' opinion and refrain from reverting unless there is broad agreement with your action. I am sure it is solidly sourced, and I have explained it to you. You are wilfully trying to misinterpret a policy contrary to the policy's explicitly stated purpose. Clearly you do have an axe to grind, and it's not hard to see which, given that you describe yourself on your user page as a "wingnut", and I suppose Objectivists are the ultimate "wingnuts"... Margana 04:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks will not help your case. My block log is clean, and yours is filled with blocks for the same types of violations that I am reporting here. I revise my previous call for a one month block to an indefinite block. - Crockspot 05:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It's now a personal attack to quote your own self-description from your user page? Okay... Well, my block log can't be filled with "the same types of violations that [you are] reporting here" because you haven't reported any violation here unless disagreeing with your minority opinion is a violation of anything. But I guess you can use my block log to find those rogue admins who might apply another abusive block for you, just don't try PMA, his blocks were reverted twice already. Margana 05:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

We've been here before; see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive106#Wikitruth quote insertion at Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive130#Margana. Hesperian 05:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, note how Hesperian (the user formerly known as Snottygobble) abused his adminship by both protecting an article he was edit-warring on and blocking his opponent in the edit war. Margana 05:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, you're up to attacking TWO editors and accusing both of bad faith. I'll leave you to dig your own grave further. I'm done arguing with you. - Crockspot 05:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Heh, you're speaking from the bottom of the grave. You have no arguments to begin with, you're trying to blatantly twist policy to whitewash an article subject, you complain about fictitious "personal attacks", and now you even call the mentioning of plain facts as "attacking" and "accusing of bad faith"... On the other hand, speaking of bad faith, you felt it necessary to point out my having cleaned out an 80K talk page, as if there was some requirement to keep indefinitely any months-old warning. I suppose that's not assuming bad faith... And if you're "done arguing with me" (i.e. you declare the bankruptcy of your case) I hope you're also done edit warring with me and stop removing that section again. Margana 05:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

In response to my provision of the two wikilinks above, Margana has sought AMA assistance to bring an RfC against me,[1] despite the fact that he sacked his last AMA representation for refusing to help him do so, and despite the fact that I have had no contact with him for over a month. Perhaps I should have taken Metamagician3000's advice when he said:

Yeah, Snottygobble, I think you'd be prudent to keep out of it now. From a brief review, this looks like a user who is confrontational and "difficult" but good at Wikilawyering.[2]

I really wish that an uninvolved admin would review this and take appropriate action. It's a horrible job to take on, but it has to be done, and whoever takes it on will be rewarded by copious accusations of cabalotry. If no-one does anything, we will be back here again next month, and the month after, and the month after that. Hesperian 06:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I consider Crockspot's concerns regarding sourcing to have been rather overblown in this case (he was removing Wired and Boston Globe sources, in addition to more questionable material); however, I have now rewritten the disputed section to increase the number and usage of mainstream sources. I consider the version as it exists now to meet the sourcing requirements of BLP. However, as mentioned at Talk:Jimmy Wales, I am somewhat concerned about the appropriateness of the "Controversy" section within the scope of Jimmy Wales. Even following my edits, which slightly reduced its rendered length, it is a quite substantial section decribing a minor dispute in the context of a relatively short biography (why can't we find more to say about Jimbo?). As such, I am open to the idea that it should be reduced further or perhaps moved to some other more suitable venue for the content. Dragons flight 07:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• I applaud your rewrite. That is how you source negative info in a living bio, and is all I was asking for. I removed the good sources in the past, because after removal of the poor sources and statements, the section made no sense. But this complaint is not about the content of Jimmy Wales, it is about the behavior of User:Margana. Crockspot 12:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • True. As such, I have blocked the user for three months, but I welcome admin review of the block. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 13:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Ummmm, 3 months? How did you arrive at that? I've never dealt with Margana before, so perhaps I am missing important history, but that strikes me as very excessive. Crockspot removed a section citing BLP. Margana restored it 6 times over the course of several days (never actually crossing 3RR). Such an edit war was not a productive way to resolve the dispute, but Margana's argument that the section already was cited (Wired, Boston Globe, Newsweek) was not without merit. I'm inclined to agree with Margana that Crockspot was being overly aggressive in his application of BLP in this case. In particular, I don't agree with his argument that removing the disputed sources couldn't be accomplished with far more precision (i.e. leaving the shape of the section intact based on the more reliable sources), or that attributing Larry Sanger's views to a Meta essay he wrote was inherently unacceptable since we should never cite Wikipedia. If it wasn't for the significance we attribute to BLP, this would have been little more than a run of the mill content dispute and edit war, with a little incivility thrown in. The disputed content was never inaccurate, and the only dispute was really with regards to sourcing. BLP gives substantially greater legitimacy to Crockspot's approach than to Margana, but either party could have improved the situation by improving the text rather than edit warring. (And Crockspot, just because you aren't required to do so, doesn't make edit warring into a good approach to solve the problem. BLP patrolers should redact when necessary but also strive to improve when possible.) Had this been a first offense, I probably would have stopped at little more than a warning for Margana. Even with the long history of previous blocks, it seems excessive to me to jump to three months under this pattern of facts. Margana's actions in this case were inappropriate, but they were not exactly a terrible scourge upon Wikipedia. Dragons flight 19:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
      • I think that even though there may be some mitigating factors in this particular blocking, the fact still exists that there seems to be no evidence that Margana will stop his disruptive activities, regardless of block length. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 20:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Margana's block log shows: 24 hours (3RR); 100 hours (disruption); 24 hours (3RR); 48 hours (3RR); 1 week (edit warring); 1 week (edit warring); 1 month (edit warring over unsourced info on Jimmy Wales).

It seems to me that a 3 month block is prefectly consistent with the usual process of gradually escalating blocks for recidivist users who simply won't get the message. Hesperian 23:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I promised above that anyone with the gumption to take this horrible job on would be "rewarded by copious accusations of cabalotry". RyanG, here is your reward (lifted from Margana's talk page):

Obviously there's nothing one can do to "get unblocked" here except to put the notice up and hope one of the 5% or so non-corrupted admins will see it first.... This level of rogue admin perfidy puts any fascist justice system to shame. But that's what unlimited terms combined with lack of accountability does. That creates the wrong incentive for adminship to begin with and attracts the very worst elements, and even the few honest ones who get through tend to get corrupted with power, and those who remain honest and who don't subscribe to the admin omertà of ignoring their fellow admins' misdeeds are almost the only ones who ever get desysopped (see Everyking). Leaving you to cope with your own conscience, Margana.

Hesperian 00:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Mmmmm... pretzels (that's what I was eating and thinking while I read that) but it makes me smile like this: :) . RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 02:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. First one person claims above that 80% of all Admins are corrupt, & now, only a few days later the figure is up to 95%. There's a definite trend here! -- llywrch 22:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to be transparent, Margana's AMA Request has also been denied because of his block. It wouldn't have gotten anywhere fast anyways, because we're completely backlogged. The next step would have been to ask to provide more information. I'll make a note on that page for anyone wondering about the case to refer to here. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk) 00:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Tylerbot

Tylerbot (talk · contribs · count), a new user, happens to have a username containing 'bot', in direct violation of WP:Username. I do not want to bite Tylerbot, as he seems to be a perfectly resonable new user. How, exactly, does one tactfully tell a new user that they must change their username? Ourai ^т _с 22:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems a reasonable sort of person. I'd just wonder over, say hi, and leave a message explaining the situation. He will probably be grateful you told him before he made too many edits with that account. As he self-identifies as a programmer, he might even write and run a bot one day! :-) Carcharoth 00:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Random query here, but if your surname was Abbot, then you wouldn't be able to use it as a username? I suggest changing the username guidelines for bots to include a preceding space, such as Tyler_bot. - Hahnchen 17:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I think "Abbot" is an exception (analogous to "Yamashita"); in general we should still disallow human accounts named *bot. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-10-20 09:01Z

The username should not be the criterion here: the criterion should be whether the user is actually an unregistered bot that is not going through the proper channels for approval. It's actions rather than username that count: I'd leave it it up to Tylerbot whether s/he keeps the username as s/he clearly isn't a bot. (I have advised Tylerbot, in the spirit of welcome and as a bot owner myself, that if s/he keeps that name s/he may need to be extra careful what s/he does.) I would, however, summarily block any Wikipedia account, whatever its name, which clearly actually was an unauthorised bot up to no good. I think simple bot-related-account naming guidlines such as that suggested by Hahnch and insisted on by Quarl is a solution to a non-existent problem. :-) --RobertG ♬ talk 10:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Most English speakers would parse Abbot as a single name, and Tylerbot as a compound of Tyler and bot. Having said that, I agree with what RobertG has said, though this depends on whether people tend to distinguish bots based on the flag (used to filter RC and similar edit histories), or whether people want to be able to visually distinguish bots when looking at user names. If the latter is wanted, then '-bot' names still need to be discouraged. Carcharoth 10:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of class pages

I have deleted several user subpages under User:Fuzheado/jmsc0101 that are apparantly part of a college class. I find this is a violation of WP:NOT. Presented here for review. Naconkantari 04:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the page for now. I politely ask that you discuss first and not unilaterally delete. That page has been online for nearly three years, and was never an issue for the community during this time. In fact, it was useful to have in order to keep track of students' work so that folks could identify otherwise random patterns of edits/newbies. It as the project that inspired the creation of Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects, so I would appreciate you leaving it intact. Thanks. -- Fuzheado | Talk 04:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

From the page you linked: "The focus of user pages should not be social networking, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration." Which seems to be met here. It's not a host of random information, but things related to editing and improving articles, which is a good thing. - Bobet 10:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• WP:MFD seems the best place to discuss this. >Radiant< 10:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I think some of the issues are relevant to this forum. The pages seem perfectly fine (there is nothing in WP:NOT saying that classroom collaboration pages are forbidden), and certainly the initial deletions don't seem justified in any way. Indeed, looking at this deletion log, not all the subpages or subpage talkpages have yet been undeleted. The deleting admin could have taken the time to investigate, and seen that time and effort had gone into this set of pages. Thus leaving a message on the user's page would have been far more preferable. This is not some drive-by vandalism or MySpace-type set of pages that were deleted. What I would like to see discussed is whether anyone can defend Naconkanturi carrying out these deletions (which is after all why Naconkanturi put the action up for review), and whether anyone is going to properly undo all the deletions? I apologise if I am going too far here, but everytime I see a set of deletions like this, I feel that someone should check the other deletions by that admin to make sure similar mistakes haven't been made. Carcharoth 21:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Mahawiki's defence

I would request User:Sarvagnya to stop his bad-mouthing against me which he is indulged in after his failure of POV pushing and removing marathi transliteration at belgaum page.I wont deny that I was incivil at times but sarvagnya has not been humble and sound in all his discussions either.I dont care his rants against me but it obviously irritates and enrages me when he insults Marathi language and Shivaji Maharaj.His anti-Hindi stance and pushing of POV is known to all at Vande_mataram or Jana_gana_mana.While User:Dineshkannambadi is taking wikipedia on a ride by using unreliable and fanatic linguistic materials.He's fabricating history and associating Kannada language with every great things!

I have not posted the links as Sarvagnya did as I dont take all his rants personally (and dont give any importance to it to take pains to find his goof-ups) but if anyone wants evidences of his rough and incivil behaviour I will be obliged to provide so.Morever I would request the administrators to watch belgaum_border_dispute...That article is prone to POV pushing and I am very much concerned about it along with other Maharashtra related articles.Thanks! Mahawiki 22:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also request to ask User:Amerique for why he so-called 'abruptly left the proceedings'.It was more because sarvagnya was not ready to accept my dozens o citations justifying Marathi transliteration at Belgaon page.I request all to take a look at the Belgaum_talk page.(archives)

Mahawiki 22:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry the situation has been so upsetting to you, and that you do not feel certain articles you care about are sufficiently neutral. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 22:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Please do provide diffs (and explanations of the context) as to his own incivility. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Explaination as demanded by admin

Dear Sir,I read ur message on Admin-notice board.here are the proofs of Sarvagnya's misbehaviour. --- Hello, First things first.When i joined wikipedia I was not aware of wiki policies and hence I was 'bold' and 'emotiona' when dealing with my edits.It is only after Aksi_great and Sunder adviced to me as being 'citation-savvy'.I agree that I was rude and incivil at times but frankly of admins would take care of NPOV and interfere into the feuds early i would not need to resort to incivil behaviour.I am pleading admins to watch belgaum_border_dispute but in vain.My biggest concern is kannada POV pushing there.[PLEASE SEE THIS BLATANT POV PUSHING of sarvagnya].If any admin promises to take care of this anti-Maharashtra stand I think I will not bother anyone.In fact if anyone wants I would delete my a/c here.I am concerned about misinterpretation of Maharashtra's stand on Belgaon issue which is very emotional issue for all Maharashtrians. I have also stopped taking all this things personally and would request sarvagnya the same.They are busy on Kill-Mahawiki mission.

Here are the proofs if inciviliy of sarvagnya-

• [PLEASE SEE THIS BLATANT POV PUSHING of sarvagnya].This is what bothers me most!I also posting a detailed context of above.I will have no problems at all if admins stop defamation of Maharashtra's standI strongly recommend u to see the difference and pushing of POV by sarvagnya.At first I was pushing for NPOV but as kannada editors continued pushing their POV I had to indulge in revert wars and include Maharashtra's POV to balance the article.

Belagavi district became a part of Karnataka. The Maharashtra Government contested this as it wanted Belagavi district to be merged with Maharashtra instead. Under tremondous pressure from the Maharashtra government,

but most importantly, rejected outright Maharashtra's claim on Belgaum city.

As soon as the commission came out with its report, Maharashtra made a U-turn and refused to honour the report.

Ever since then, the issue has been kept simmering by Maharashtra politicians while Karnataka has continued to press for the implementation of the report.

The Supreme Court hasnt pronounced anything yet and Belgaum district along with Belgaum city continues as a legal and constitutional part of Karnataka state.

• BOLD and LOUD comments of enraged Sarvagnya after Aksi_great,Nichalp and many others conclude the disputed 'board' is in Marathi language.I request u to go through this page ENTIRELY to know the premise of our differences.Despite of my dozens of citations this user is busy denying the fact that Hindi language doesnt use 'ळ'
• User:amerique gives decision in my favour after which sarvagnya does a disappering act
• his rants against me posted to dozens of admins.he is continuously badmouthing me to take revenge on his inability of pushing POV on belgaum page
• sarvagnya calls me 'wolf' 'bluff' and pleads baka to 'support' him against me
• Blnguyen adviced against so-called rectification of sarvagnya at Marathi_people article which were in Bad faith
• Calling my edits as 'shameless POV'

He dropped into Marathi_people article from nowhere and started his edits in bad-faith when admin Blnguyen were already trying to sort out the POV.

• Sarvagnya's provocation calling Shivaji as Sevooji in edit summary
• He called Shivaji Maharaj as 'chatripati' and said it sounds coool!

• Dinesh's rants against maharashtra and Marathi.A must read commentry where he is busy proving all 'kannada things' are great and best than all 'marathi things'
• Sarvagnya's request to 'drop a line' against me
• he had warned me against removing warnings but he himself is indulged in removing them and even non-obscene messages.

He also removed arya's warning about misuse of popups after which admin blocked him

• admin utcursh partly agreed that Kamath is a controversial writer
• A must read summary about how Dinesh's busy fabricating history and he's being opposed by Telugu and Marathi editors alike.
• He calls tamilnation.com as stupid and rubbish
• he calls Nilakanth shastry as Tamil centril and tamil glorifying
• This is a classic case of dinesh's 'kannadisation' See the last para where he writes- Yadavas of Devagiri who actually had many cowardly agreements with the invaders were the first to fall and later goes on with editing Seuna_Yadavas_of_Devagiri and associates the 'cowardly' Yadavas with Kannada language.
• Sarvagnya's not just anti-Marathi;he seems to be anti-Hindi also!He has been engaged in mindless speculation about Hindi's status on the pages of jana_gana_mana, vande_mataram and recent sare_jahan_se_achcha.His tone is rather rude and insulting.See this and this(...Whether hindi is the opeesial language of India or Timbuktu or Somalia is irrelevant ...Hindi has no business squatting on this article...)

Thanks! Mahawiki 07:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Sarvagnya's Misleads and Misdeeds

I just cannot believe how much a person can lie. Sarvagnya writes mahawiki was blocked for incivility in Belgaon. It is an outright LIE !!!! Mahawiki was blocked for dispute in the Rashtrakuta page which was Kannadized and POVed by Dinesh Kannambadi. While the Belgaon issue ended with the pulling up of Sarvagnya by admins. I dont want to get into a brawl with Sarvagnya simply because it is a wastage of time and resources. I have always advised mahawiki to keep away from these kind of troublemakers. As far as warnings are concerned, Sarvagnya gave two bogus warnings to me - this and this. Apart from that Sarvagnya has a penchant for pushing his POV in every other article. And when asked for citations, he and his pals provide the Kamat's book (which is total unabashed Kannada glory) as citation. Most other misdeeds of this particular user have been provided by Mahawiki. -AryaRajyaमहाराष्ट्र 12:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I had decided not to reply sarvagnya's badmouthing unless asked by a admin.But just to make a point clear,I was pointing out Dinesh's edits to signify -He uses Kamath's books which MANY editors including me and Arya think unreliable and biased and needs to be verified and how he trashes the sources which are not suitable to his POV.I request admins to take note of this and do the needful.In addition to that please ask Sarvagnya to stop his personal attacks at once!In fact he is using the word 'shameful' here itself!I dont know why he is so wary of me.He seems to vowed to bowl me out of wikipedia.

Mahawiki 13:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Yawn. Boring. Dispute resolution is over there ↔ User:Zoe|(talk) 23:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfair block

Note that I cannot put this on either of the admin's involved pages; Cowman is on Wikibreak, CSCWEM has his talk page protected.

I was recently conducting a test using a school ip. The point of this test was to discover whether or not people actually use diffs when looking in RC, or if they choose to revert simply because of edit summaries and the passing IP address. The edits from September 5th and up are mine (excluding Oct 9, 17, and 23 edits, all of which were made after this). Using edit summaries most would consider truly awful, I went around and actually edited constuctively. For the most part, response was good. I did not recieve a single revert or warning. Had I, I would have explained the situation and gladly stopped. I really like Wikipedia, I'm just far too curious for my own good.

I noticed someone had mistakenly left a comment intended for the talk page of an article in the article itself. So I took it out. Gurch promptly reverted me. This I can understand, as even with the diff it probably looked like blanking. That was my fault, really.

But I digress: Curiosity, being both my gift and curse, made me continue. I reverted his revert, this time with an even worse edit summary.

Cowman blocked me. This, to me, was far too harsh. Not only had the IP I was using not recieved any warning for over a year, but he himself did not warn me. No one did.

I requested an unblock. CSCWEM, whom was seemingly patrolling the users requesting unblock page, denied my request, one minute later! There is no way anyone on this planet could have reviwed the IPs recent contribs and given it thought in that ammount of time. And then, before I could say another word, he protected my talk page with the reason being for the time being. [3]

Now, I respect both Cowman and CSCWEM and admire their work, but I'd like to know: was their conduct correct, or, under the circumstances, was it alright for them to blanket block me and protect the talk page? --172.195.120.236 04:10, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't try to disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point. Edit summaries are not toys that you can "play around" with and see what happens. I'd fully support the block based on your violation of WP:POINT Naconkantari 04:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I know, I know, it was really really stupid and I fully understand the consequnces. I'm just wondering if policy says that it's alright to block someone without warnings and for using edit summaries. --172.195.120.236 04:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

And it was never really intended to be an experiment, it just kind of evolved into one. The first few were just because I felt like acting like a moron. Stupid, yes. --172.195.120.236 04:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Act like a "moron" and you'll be blocked. It shouldn't matter whether you received a warning or not. Naconkantari 04:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Policy does not contain an exhaustive list of the reasons that you can be blocked without warning. Reading it should give you a good idea of the kind of behaviour that can get you blocked in the future though. Behaving like a moron is definitely one of them. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Your edit summaries were obviously disruptive, and certainly merited a block. I really don't see why you insist on pressing the point. You obviously did something unacceptable. Alphachimp 05:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

You should count yourself lucky. Someone atleast condescended to answer you {{unblock me}} call. I sat with an "unblock me" plastered on my page for 12 hours and not one single admin even strolled by to say... "hey I'm denying your request". Makes me wonder what the "unblock me" drama is all about. And even now, as you can see above, I've brought my grouse here and for almost the last 10 hours not a single admin has even bothered to answer even if only for courtesy!! Sarvagnya 05:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I really amused as why I am blocked?I was resisting Sarvagnya's removal of warnings and non-obscene messages and of course misuse of pop-ups.I didnt even break 3RR rule.I hope wikipedia gives justice to me!!Mahawiki 08:08, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to post this same message on both of your talk pages, but let it be known here too:

Stop. Stop the bickering between you. Stop arguing on each other's talk pages. Stop arguing on other talk pages. Stop arguing in public. Just stop. The point-scoring and general nonsense that would shame two 11-year-old schoolboys is just tiresome. You can seek mediation or just avoid each other. But you're going to have to stop the bickering as someone, somewhere, is going to assume that the pair of you are trolling Wikipedia and thus will make you stop bickering in the most permanent way: without discrimination, someone will block both of you. So give it up. Now. Stop. We're done. Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:10, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like they are on a very steep learning curve. Here's hoping they will learn something from this, and be more productive next time round. Carcharoth 21:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi! I have responded only after admin demanded for explaination.Thanks. Mahawiki 06:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Speedy delete request

Could an admin please delete my user subpage User:ais523/WatchedCategories.js? I need it to be a redlink to test a script (I plan to recreate it soon after); I tried putting a {{db}} tag on but due to the special nature of .js pages it didn't end up in CAT:CSD, so I'm putting the speedy request here. --ais523 15:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. –Joke 15:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Is there absolutely no way to tag a js page for speedy deletion? There must be a better way than coming to WP:AN. enochlau (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Putting {{db-test}} on a js page worked for me. I suspect it's because you had // comments in front of the db tag? enochlau (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It didn't work without the // either; I added the slashes when the page started messing up my scripts. I've noticed that sometimes .js pages render plain-text (without cats or anything like that) and sometimes they render in wikimarkup; I'm not sure what causes it to work or not. (It didn't work for me just now).

By the way, the test worked and I'm about recreate the page (I'm mentioning this to make sure it doesn't get redeleted). --ais523 15:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

This will put it the speedy cat and this removes it. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 06:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ackoz

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

Based on his representations to the Arbitration Committee, Ackoz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is unblocked. Ackoz is placed on probation for one year. Should he edit in a provocative manner he may be blocked for an appropriate period of time, up to a month in the case of serious offenses. Should Ackoz edit while blocked all accounts may be blocked indefinitely. Should Ackoz revert to his previous pattern of sustained trolling a community ban may be imposed. All blocks and bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ackoz#Log_of_blocks_and_bans, with the reason given.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 23:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Danny Phantom (character)

I suggest an admin either close this because of the many Keep All comments or take control of this page so no furthur dialogue between myself and User:A Link to the Past occurs because quite frankly, I'm about pissed off and his recent personal attacks against me there aren't helping anything. — Moe 00:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Jesus. Large-scale AFDs like that never work: this is like the World of Warcraft characters AFD. Anyway, I hate so many individual as well, but I would have proposed a merge to a "List of Danny Phantom characters" article or something. AFD tends to bring out the deletionists and the keepists out in droves, especially for a large one like this that would surely set a strong precedent if passed. Hbdragon88 04:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Closed as keep, but I'll merge the minors together editorially in a day or two once the furor quiets down. Ral315 (talk) 08:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Another underage sock farm

Here we have it:

• PrestonH (talk · contribs)
• Gaara231 (talk · contribs)
• Zball (talk · contribs)
• Daniel.kim (talk · contribs)

Not much to say, they're using Wikipedia as Myspace at at least one user is confessed to be another. Just dropping a note for opinions on indef blocking. Teke ^(talk) 00:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The first three feature nearly identical user pages (exact same userbox syntax structure and complete with tons of copyvios of fair use images, which I just removed), but Daniel kim seems to be an anomoly. On the other hand, he claimed that his userpage was copyrighted, which is ridiculous: go to MySpace if you want to retain copyright. Hbdragon88 04:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone actually explained to these guys that Wikipedia is not MySpace? They're obviously not vandals or trolls; they're just 12 years olds with nothing to do, who probably don't know anything about Wikipedia community expectations.

If the problem is that they are only here for the free user pages, then surely in the worst case it can be solved by delete-protecting their user pages. I see no need to wield the ban-hammer. Hesperian 04:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing that's being wrestled with is the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, which makes parental/guardian consent for registered online accounts for minors under 13. Editing anonymously is a loophole, but these accounts will have to go if they are under 13, no matter what the explaination. I wasn't going to just slap a ban block with no explaination on them, this post if for community opinions before the action. Teke ^(talk) 05:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay. People need to understand that COPPA shouldn't be a giant worry. I fully support removing the logs, etc., but (IANAL) COPPA only applies to our collection of personal information. We do not collect personal information (username, password, e-mail address and IP address are not personal info) and any unsolicited personal information placed on our pages is treated the same way as an e-mail from a 12-year-old would be- we're a third-party content provider. Obviously we shouldn't keep personal information just because, but COPPA doesn't apply to us. Ral315 (talk) 08:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks Ral, that's a distinction I wasn't aware of. Teke ^(talk) 16:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You do retain copyright to your contributions (where they are copyrightable). You are only licensing your copyrighted work under the GFDL and any other license you declare them to be under. --pgk 06:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, he specifically claimed "This site is copywrited from any changes from content or copy violations." Hbdragon88

I have deleted User talk:Gaara231 as it presented a big collection of private information, and was nothing but a chat log anyway. I would support a ban on these due to the privacy (and potentially safety) risks, and as Teke has pointed out it is probably illegal to have under-13s here without guardian consent/supervision--Konst.able^Talk 07:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

If you are concerned about privacy stuff for that talk page, deleting it is not enough. Wikipedia:Oversight is what you need here. Deleted stuff can be undeleted and viewed by admins (who should be considered as much of a risk as anyone else), and viewing the page log summary lets people know that something private was deleted (and those page logs can be viewed by anyone). Carcharoth 10:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• I would definitely object to banning users simply because of their age. Legal issues are dealt with by the Board and Brad Patrick; since we aren't lawyers we shouldn't use our indoubtedly incomplete understanding of US law as grounds for blocking. As Ral315 says, COPPA doesn't apply to us. >Radiant< 08:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• There's multiple underaged people doing good work on here. COPPA shouldn't stop them from doing it. That rule should only apply to kids who share personal information. These kids need to be warned about the rules and blocked if they violate them despite the warning. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  • If the above editors are just using WP as a chat room, warn them a few times or just block them. As for the COPPA issue, if there is personal information that can easily identify a person under 13, just delete it. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 13:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Mgm about young people (self-identified or not) doing good work round here. It would be easy to be overzealous about this. Warnings have to come before blocks. Just remove personally identifying material for children when you see it and request oversight (though whether the amount of it would overwhelm those with oversight privileges is something to consider - and don't file requests in public, that leaves a paper trail for the wrong sort of people to follow back - use e-mail - in fact, this should all be explained somewhere that we can just link to, instead of having public discussions pointing the wrong sort of people where we don't want them to go). And explain things to the child (without being condescending). They (like any new user) will take time to learn how things work around here. If they don't show signs of changing their behaviour, or contributing, then block them. Don't be too slow if they are constantly chatting and revealing things about themselves, but equally don't be too hasty either. That would be my view. Carcharoth 10:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Mall sainthwar AfD

This old AfD seems to have been flooded with brand new accounts arguing to keep but providing no relevant sources to back it up. Since I'd rather not be flooded with complaints and vandalism (stemming from my nomination of several POV caste lists on AfD a few weeks ago) again, could another admin with more experience close this or at least take a look at it? --Coredesat 06:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've restarted the AfD. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Good call. I ahve sprotected the AfD, as we have done in similar circumstances before now. There is a note on the AfD to the effect that new or unregistered users who wish to make a substantive point should use Talk, I will endeavour to keep an eye on it and move anytihng of substance into the main debate. Guy 13:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, I was getting worried about what to do, considering I am rarely involved in AfDs.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Lame edit war

Not an admin thing, just me coming here to let off steam. Ménage à trois is the subject of a lame edit war. User:Atomaton insists that a line drawing of a threesome (the sex act) remain in the article on the relationship ménage à trois unless and until he is persuaded otherwise. It is apparent to me that threesome is to ménage à trois as fucking is to marriage; we do not have a picture of copulation in the marriage article and we should not have a picture of the sex act on ménage à trois, not least because there is no evidence that a ménage à trois necessarily involves threesome sex. Threesome has already been forked due to resistance to sexcruft in the ménage article (by me and others). But I digress. This is a plain reversal of the usual burden of evidence: content must be justified by the editor seeking to include it, especially where credible objections have been raised to its inclusion (in this case both the image quality and the subject are disputed). Anyway, I don't want ot get my first ever block for 3RR so I'm coming here to vent instead. AAAARGH!!!! Thank you for listening :-) Guy 12:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

... And if the image isn't deleted, Guy, what will you climb? :) Newyorkbrad 13:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Better for a neutral party to act. I'd be willing to do a 3RR block if this tips over the 24 hour mark. Leave a message on my user page this happens - and try to remember this isn't a matter of life and death. Regards, Durova 16:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ass or Arse?

Okay the headline was just to attract attention. I've reverted the entries for arse and ass to remove the image Image:Ykim6-1-.jpeg I'm far from being a prude, but I think this is just a little unnecessary. Part of me truly wants to believe he did it out of an altruistic sense of full "disclosure"... but part really believes it's a prelude to therapy. Thoughts? CMacMillan 17:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ass is a disambiguation page. It doesn't need a picture. That's not really the greatest picture of buttocks anyway, the ones on buttocks are just fine and plenty for illustration purposes in case someone comes along who can't find theirs. ;) pschemp | talk 20:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Replaceable Fair Use

I wanted to get a broader view of our now more limited Fair Use guidelines. Spearheaded by Jimbo, Wikipedia's fair use guidelines now allow the deletion of media content if a reasonable free alternative can be found. Now, whereas I support this for things such as public artwork, buildings and monuments which we could easily find, users have been tagging images which would be incredibly difficult to produce alternatives for. For example, see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use#Replaceable_fair_use regarding Image:Africanmourningdove631.jpg. There are also many images tagged at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 October 13/Images which I believe sufficiently satisfy both legal fair use requirements and Wikipedia requirements for fair use. Take a look at Image:Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C.jpg for example, how reasonable is it for Wikipedia to generate a free use alternative of the world's largest ship engine or an engine cutaway such as Image:PSA-Ford diesel V6.jpg.

The thing that I find most worrying is that such a move has largely been spearheaded by a small group of Wikipedian's who work with images. When Jimbo first mentioned his views on promotional photos being used on Wikipedia, he acknowledged that his views on fair use in general tended towards the extreme range of the spectrum, of course, he's now picked up more supporters. But does the general Wikipedian really believe that such a strong stand against fair use is of benefit to an encyclopedia? I'd like for more people to take part in some of the image discussions linked above. - Hahnchen 18:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

If I may: further discussion on point here and here. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 18:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Totally OTT in my opinion. Good luck fighting it, though, you'll probably be told to go start your own wiki (as I was). To hell with creating a good quality, illustrated enyclopedia right? Let's fight the institution of copyright instead! Not why I joined. --kingboyk 18:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused by this comment. Claiming "fair use" on other people's work instead of creating our own content would seem to be the much more activist anti-copyright position. Would you be as enthusiastic about what we're doing here if we were just cutting and pasting swaths of text from professionals because we believe we can't do as good a job ourselves, while claiming "fair use"? I certainly wouldn't. Jkelly 19:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

JKelly, your example doesn't apply here and you must know it. People are obviously still enthusiastic about the project knowing that we include splashings of fair use images. The reason we allow fair use images at all shows us this. I mean an image like Image:Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C.jpg, it was published as a promotional image for the subject by its manufacturer, it falls under legal fair use. How generating a free use example of this can be considered reasonable, I'm not too sure. I spoke to User:Quadell about this, and he believes that reasonable means impossible, something I disagree with. I personally put WP:ENC over the GFDL crusaders and I think that the tagging of some of these images is unreasonable, and their deletion a detriment to Wikipedia's usefulness and quality. - Hahnchen 01:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much it, thanks for being more eloquent than me :) I'm thinking of promotional shots released with the express intention of them being used in the media but not released under GFDL, the use of album sleeves in discographies, and so on. I think these things add to the quality of the encyclopedia and that the average user is more interested in quality than free content. --kingboyk 13:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

My block

Note: Since my issue with User:Mahawiki seems set for a long haul, I am uncoupling "My block" from the above "Mahawiki and my block".

I have some very basic questions about my block of a couple of days ago.

• Soon after I was blocked, I sent an email to the blocking admin User:Blnguyen contesting the fairness of the block. I received no reply from him for over two hours. I then put up an {{unblock me}} template on my user talk page.

• My understanding was that, if i put up that sign, it would be binding on an admin to stop by and either
  

(a) remove my block

(OR)

(b) deny my request with a reason.

• However, much to my dismay, none of this happened. I was forced to wait out my block until it expired. Why?? Why didnt any admin turn up? Is it NOT binding and mandatory for admins to turn up if someone puts up the {{unblock me}} sign, even if only to summarily deny the request. Please clarify this for me. I am asking this because, I want to know. This is the first time I have been blocked. Sarvagnya 19:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a bot that some admins use on IRC that sends a notification when an editor places the unblock template on their page. Unfortunately it has not been working properly in the past few days, so this may have contributed to not seeing your unblock request. Naconkantari 19:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Your understanding is wrong, putting the notice up is not binding on anyone. --pgk 20:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Is that an opinion or a policy on WP(if it is a policy, can you please point me to it). If it is indeed not binding on anybody, why doesnt the blocking message say so. All that blocking message tells us is, "....first try contacting the blocking admin(via email). if he doesnt respond, place this template on your talk page at the bottom. another admin will come by and take a look at it.....". It doesnt even give the blocked user a whiff of a hint that it is not necessary that an admin respond to the template. Sarvagnya 21:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

And where does it say "admins have a binding obligation to respond". This is a volunteer project, admins are volunteers, I think you need to be a little more realistic in your expectations. --pgk 21:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Use of popups in 'content disputes'

From this message of User:Blnguyen(the admin who blocked me), I have inferred that my 'use of popups in content disputes' had something to do with my block. My question is,

a) Is there any rule or policy on WP which prohibits the use of popups to perform reverts in content disputes. Especially when, the 'content dispute' has been discussed at great lengths on the article's talk page and also the adequate edit summaries have been provided in the first couple of reverts leading up to the revert war.

b) If there is indeed such a rule or policy on WP, can someone please point me to it. Sarvagnya 19:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Generally, it is not a good idea to use automated methods (popups,rollback,etc.) to make reversions in a content dispute. It's better to revert using a non-generic edit summary. Naconkantari 19:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Generally it is not a good idea - is that an opinion or is it WP policy? If it is only an opinion and not a policy, isnt the admin obviously wrong in blocking users based on opinions.

• Please see wikipedia is not a bureaucracy nor is it an experiment in rule making. Policy pages on wikipedia are descriptive not prescriptive, they document what happens and by nature will (a) sometimes lag reality and (b) have never been and never will be a comprehensive description of all situations. It has been long standing practice that admins do not use admin rollback facilities in such situations, popups should be treated no differently. Additionally basic civility has a part to play, rolling back in edit disputes using automated tools is pretty uncivil. There are also many other concepts which could play a part (I haven't looked into the situation so I'm not saying they do/do not in this case) such as disruption being caused etc. --pgk 21:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed, that WP is not an expt in rule making. I am not pushing to make any rules myself. Clearly here was a case where I was ignorant of an esoteric 'practice' on WP. So the admin should have atleast enlightened me first. Also, I was not reverting any article page. I was reverting my own user talk page to remove frivolous warnings given to me by people whose records are there for everyone to see(Read the "User:Mahawiki and his incivility" section above on this very page).
• First of all, it is not even clear to me yet, why I was blocked. The blocking message from the admin says, I was blocked for fighting with Mahawiki. And I was fighting(revert warring) with Mahawiki and Arya because of their frivolous warnings to me about my supposed abuse/misuse of popups. And this warring was on my own user talk page not on any article page.
• And Blnguyen's block on me closely followed Arya's filing of 3RR vio(on my own user page) on the 3RR vio noticeboard.
• I asked for clarifications for all this in my "unblock me" template, but got no answers.
• I am still waiting for answers. Sarvagnya 23:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Also please note: This(if this was what the admin was referring to), is a case where I had already for weeks extensively discussed and explained my stand on the talk page. So everyone there knew very well why I was reverting what I was reverting. More importantly, I had explained why I was reverting couple of times in elaborate edit summaries early on into the revert warring session.
• In the light of the above, my question still is, is there a policy on WP governing this(I have searched and I could not find any) or did the admin actually block me based on an opinion? Sarvagnya 19:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sarvagnya. this may be what you are looking for. And could I also ask you what made you infer that it was the use of popups that had something to do with your block? I think he made it clear that it was because of your fight with Mahawiki. - Aksi_great (talk) 20:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• I didnt infer that the use of popups alone was the reason for me getting blocked. Because Bl made a mention of popups also in his message, I thought that it may have had something to do with my blocking.
• More importantly, if you notice my talk page history just before I got blocked, you will see that there was a revert war going on between me and Arya/Mahawiki. Both of them were accusing me of removing 'official' warnings Arya had placed on my talk page. And that official warning pertained to my supposed abuse/misuse of popups. Note that, neither Arya/Mahawiki nor Bl make any mention of where(on which article or talk page) my supposed misuse/abuse of popups took place.
• And further, Arya went and filed a 3RR violation against me. Just as I was about to comment there that 3RR violation rule does not apply to your own talk page(correct me if I am wrong), I got blocked by Bl.
• So you tell me what I have to infer.
• First of all, Arya's filing of 3RR against me itself was against WP policy. Even if it was not, none of his warnings even pointed out where my supposed violations had taken place except that they kept insisting that I was abusing/misusing popups. On top of it, Bl blocked me based on a complaint that shouldnt even have been considered in the first place(due to above reasons). Correct me if I am wrong. Sarvagnya 20:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I will attempt to point you to where you went wrong (IMO). You have been fighting with Mahawiki for quite a lot of time now. You complained to 14-15 Indian admins to get Mahawiki blocked and that didn't result in anything. Now both of you get blocked and you still lay the blame on Mahawiki and others without for once accepting the fact that you too were in the wrong. You agree that you were into a "revert warring session" and you got blocked for that (along with mahawiki). Blnguyen mentioned popups also in his message to inform you about where popups should not be used. Blnguyen didn't block you based on any 3RR complaint. He blocked you because of edit warring. - Aksi_great (talk) 20:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Where have I ever denied that I was also in the wrong? If you see the message I had posted to 14-15 admins, I believe I have made a mention of my incivility too.
• The point is, while mine and Dineshkannambadi's incivility stopped soon after Bl intervened the first time, Mahawiki's has continued unabated till this day. No wonder if you see, his defence above, he still keeps harping about our incivility on the Belgaum talk page or Dinesh's run in with some X, Y or Z totally disconnected from our disputes.
• Belgaum talk page was something where everyone involved was uncivil. And all of us' got pulled up for that by Blnuyen. I am talking about incivility after that infact after Mahawiki was blocked the first time. After that point, I have always been civil except for maybe a couple of instances that happened in the heat of the moment. But in Mahawiki's case, incivility has become routine. And the most recent case is on the Sare Jahan Se Achcha talk page. It happened yesterday.
• Also please note that it is true that none of the 14-15 admins I had complained to took any action on Mahawiki. But the reason for that is not because they examined my complaint and found it lacking in substance, but because none of them even ventured to investigate my complaint. Most of them pleaded being busy or being on wikibreaks etc., while some didnt even respond. Sarvagnya 21:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that Savragnya reverted the page six times over a short period of time [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. I warned him against rollback in my edit summary, yet he accused a diverse group of users of being a mob [10] and of course some good home-baked incivility and baiting [11].Bakaman _Bakatalk 01:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Complaining against admins

Hi, I havent treaded this path before. So I have some doubts and didnt know where to go with it. Hopefully some admin here can clarify it for me. I also hope that no admin sees this as an affront to admins in general or any admin in particular.

a) Is there any rule or policy on WP which condones(in any situation) the use of a harsh tone which borders on incivility on ordinary users by admins?

b) Also can an ordinary user like me make use of the {{npa}} on an admin in such cases.

c) Where do I go to complain against an admin if I feel that the admin has been abusing his powers to browbeat me into submission. Especially when the admin in question seems least interested in solving or even lending an ear to any disputes or issues the 'ordinary' user may be having.

d) I have heard a lot about WP:DR. But, is there any place where 'informal' complaints can be lodged against admins. IMHO, every dispute on WP need not have to go through WP:DR. There should be some way for 'respectable' editors or admins to very quickly take a prima facie look at the issue and comment. And if prima facie the 'respectable' editor finds that the admin has indeed overstepped his brief, that editor or even the wronged editor should be given the liberty to politely warn the admin who has erred. Sarvagnya 19:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFC, but if you do go there, please be prepared to give evidence in the form of diff links. Naconkantari 19:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

An admin may (and in some cases should) respond sternly to some forms of abuses. There is a difference between taking a stern/harsh tone and resorting to personal attacks, like namecalling. To say whether a line was crossed will generally require looking at the details of the specific case. You are free to complain about personal attacks or unfair treatment. Using templates like {{npa}} are generally discouraged against any established user, in preference for a more specific and personalized message. Wikipedia:Dispute resolution gives advice and options for dealing with conflicts. If you feel you have a significant ongoing dispute with a particular user/admin that you have been unable to resolve by talking to that person, then one option is Wikipedia:Requests for comment, which provides a forum for explaining the dispute and getting third party input. Dragons flight 19:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• See, here was a case where I got blocked and unfairly in my opinion. Then, no admin even responded to my "unblock me" template. I was thus forced to 'serve time'. At this point, I certainly had good reason to be feeling dejected and cheated. To add salt to injury, an admin now enters the scene, after my block has expired and I have myself noticed it and started editing again and leaves me a message in the edit summary.
• The edit summary reads, "Block has expired, but for crying out loud, stop the d*mn bickering or you *will*be blocked again. The pair fo you." - I think I can safely consider an edit summary like that as uncivil and borders on a threat a headmaster would make to primary school children. More so, when it comes from an admin, who (a)didnt bother to respond to my "unblock me" template and was crying out loud(in his words) (b)who doesnt know head or tail of what exactly my dispute with User:Mahawiki is about, but doesnt think twice before calling it bickering and (c)who is even now unwilling to even give me a chance to explain myself but makes a veiled threat that he will get me permanently blocked if I even so much as dare talk to him. To tell the truth, I am indeed scared to approach that admin now or in future for anything.([12],[13], [14], [15]) Sarvagnya 20:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry it upset you so much. I would reccomend one of two courses of action. The first would be to contact the admin directly and explain how you found that statement to be offensive, as nicely as you can. (Instead of saying "That was uncivil" try "I was offended by that because....") For some reason coming right out and saying "that was uncivil" has a way of escalating conflict. If for some reason the first option is difficult, please consider requesting an advocate. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 01:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Virtually all editors are volunteers. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 00:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

Marudubshinki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is desysopped. Marudubshinki may not use a bot. Should Marudubshinki use a bot he may be blocked for an appropriate period of time. All blocks to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Marudubshinki#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 23:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a very sad situation. Not that I disagree with the decision, just with the events which led up to it. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Amen. Geogre 17:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Maru was very foolish. It's a shame. Guy 20:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. I also wish he had posted his /Evidence in the arbitration before he finally did so after the arbs had already started voting and I warned him he was in grave jeopardy (not that the evidence was particularly exculpatory). Maru is no longer participating in WP:EN; his page indicates he is working on some other Wiki projects, and I hope he is doing well there. Newyorkbrad 13:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet ring - needs sorting out

After seeing this comment, I ran checkuser on both user:GoOdCoNtEnT and User:Anecdotesarecool. The former hadn't edited in a while, so he had no IPs, but the latter was tied very strongly to user:Ineffable3000, as well as a number of vandal accounts: user:Johnnyp2000, user:Michael Woods, and user:Ffffffffffffffff333333. The IP does not appear to be a shared proxy (it looks like a residential cable modem). I had previously blocked Goodcontent for sockpuppet vandalism, so this would fit his known motus operandi.

I'd appreciate it if someone could sort all of this out. Raul654 01:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I unfortunately don't know any of the other vandals but User:GoOdCoNtEnT lobbied strongly to keep an article on AfD a month ago, which was deleted. In the process, he vandalized user pages of those who didn't support him. This led to a block which he responded to by taunting an admin before being given a final warning before an indef. Now User:Anecdotesarecool shows up out of nowhere, recreating the deleted article, and trolls my talk page regarding the same article. I'm convinced the two are the same person -- Samir धर्म 04:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Aha! I just went digging very, very deeply through the checkuser log to find the previous check I did on him (in mid-August). Goodcontent was definitely using the same IP as Ineffable3000, Anecdotesarecool, and all the rest. Raul654 04:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Great researching. I've taken the liberty of indefing Goodcontent -- Samir धर्म 06:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

PrivateEditor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)and Rootology (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are banned indefinitely from Wikipedia. No action is taken against MONGO for any excessive zeal he has displayed. Links to Encyclopædia Dramatica may be removed wherever found on Wikipedia as may material imported from it. Users who insert links to Encyclopædia Dramatica or who copy material from it here may be blocked for an appropriate period of time. Care should be taken to warn naive users before blocking. Strong penalties may be applied to those linking to or importing material which harasses other users.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 02:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The history of the Encyclopædia Dramatica article

Sorry, missed this before. Does this mean the history of the above should be nuked accordingly? Glen 04:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Done by User:MONGO. --Conti|✉ 21:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You are legally responsible for your edits

You are legally responsible for your edits. This says "I, for one, am not about to start reading entire articles to check for problems every time I encounter one of them being blanked by a new user with no explanation." Among the various issues important with regard to this, I wish to raise an issue and concern that is of very wide scope and importance. You are legally responsible for your edits. If you unblank a page you are as responsible as if you wrote it all yourself. If you revert a change that reintroduces libel or a copyright violation or a privacy violation, you are responsible. Don't make changes you are not willing to be legally responsible for. Because you are. In addition to legal responsibility there can be other consequences both warrented and outrageous; please act with due regard for consequences. Wikipedia is not a consequence free zone. WAS 4.250 04:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Ummm, we are not here. You were probably not born with the name "Was 4.250," although I was, of course, with The Geogre. The point is that when we try to come up with "legal consequences" to "you," as opposed to "ethical responsibility," we get into a netherworld that is not profitable. Can't we merely say that people need to investigate cases of blanking and unblanking and take appropriate action without jumping into the threat of periwigs and gavels? Geogre 16:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
  • • No. Some people have already publicly declared they are going to sue and are now gathering evidence and the Foundation lawyer says the Foundation is not legally liable, but that the editors are. Further, the courts can find out who anonymous editors are.
    • "Law.com: What is your liability for inaccurate information that's posted on the Web site?
    • Bradford A. Patrick: Our belief is that since every post is attributed to an individual, is time-stamped and is retained in the database, the foundation itself is not publishing that content. We view individual editors as responsible and have prominently displayed on every edit page that individuals are responsible for their own contributions. We take the position that we are a service provider and are protected under §230. We try to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. "[16]
    • The Foundation lawyer wishes to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. Please don't unemphasize it. WAS 4.250 17:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• You'd need to get guidance on whether reversion of blanking counts as insertion of content. The content in question in the WikiEN-L thread was actually added by an anonymous editor. I suspect the lawyers could make a lot of money out of that argument, and the answer is unlikely to be simple... Guy 20:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Editors need to understand that they are financially liable for the legal costs of defending themselves for their edits on wikipedia and we serve them poorly if we make it sound like we know that they have nothing to be concerned about if they restore text they have not read. WAS 4.250 22:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• But you'd need to get guidance on... oh, why bother. Guy 22:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, and then the question of expectation of privacy and conditions of publication would get involved. Please do not try to emphasize a fringe case of a clear violation to try to frighten everyone and prevent their working on the project. People need to investigate cases of blanking and unblanking, and there is neither a clear "do it" or clear "don't do it" or clear "you're on the hook, buddy" or "you are not on the hook, buddy" or "you are assumed to be past the age of majority" or "you are presumed to be in jurisdiction of a particular court." If Foundation lawyers made a blanket statement actually attributing responsibility rather than denying responsibility for the Foundation, then they are being remarkably jumpy. Geogre 02:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and lawyers may wish to emphasize that people, rather than they, are responsible for what people add, but mistakenly undoing a change that was destructive and outside of established procedures for the removal of libel is neither adding nor the absence of a policy for protecting against libel. That's a far, far cry from telling people not to restore blanked articles, as blanking is not the way bad content of any form is dealt with on Wikipedia. We have a process for eliminating malicious editng, two processes, in fact. Removing the entirety of an article to get rid of a portion of an article is destructive, is vandalism, and is not, in fact, the removal of libel: it is the attempted erasure of an entire work of art. Are the people blanking going to be financially and legally responsible for what they've done in blanking the good contributions that surrounded the alledgedly libellous sections? The standard you are proposing is impractical and unlikely to be law. This is in addition to the fact that no, courts cannot tell exactly who added a thing. A court can determine an IP which locates a machine, but not the fingers at the machine, as any of us who have dealt with vandals and sockpuppeteers knows. All of which is not to absolve editors, but the attempted chill in this case is, in my view, mistaken. Geogre 02:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• • Unexplained blanking of articles is unacceptable regardless of the cause. It's listed on WP:VANDAL as an archetypical form of vandalism and even if a human did not revert it a bot would probably catch the change. If this happens is the bot now legally responsible for libelling an individual?
    Perhaps a better solution would be to make a prompt come up (similar to that you can turn on to prompt for blank edit summaries) any time a user makes an edit which would leave a page blank. It could briefly explain that page blanking does not erase the page in question, is going to be considered vandalism, and suggesting that if they believe the page should not exist, they should use the Wikipedia:Deletion process or discuss with other editors on the talk page. Since the good-faith blanking of articles is almost certainly caused by the misconception that blanking will delete the page, this could probably halt all or nearly all instances of good-faith blanking, and would even make page blanking slightly more obnoxious for vandals. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 16:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That looks like a very smart suggestion, probably a good thing to send to the developers. Durova 17:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

How do I do that, exactly? I don't think WP:VP/T is the right place. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 17:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Your technical solution sounds like a great idea. That said, please don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone who is being impacted by a Wikipedia article has read all of our policies and procedures. If a brand new user blanks an article about a living person that contains unsourced libel, please don't automatically revert because Wikipedia:Vandalism says you can. Jkelly 17:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand that not everyone has read the policies, especially not new editors. (In fact, I doubt that even most experienced editors have read every policy.) However, I similarly do not believe we should be able to fault an editor who reverts unexplained page blanking simply because of that minor possibility. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 17:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing "minor" about this issue, and we do need to be very clear that we will "fault" someone who introduces libel into a Wikipedia article, whether by a revert or not. Jkelly 18:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

So does that mean we need to read the entire article and verify everything before reverting a page-blank, just to make sure it isn't libel? --Kbdank71 18:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if someone blanks Moon, I'd check the history to make sure that I'm not reverting back to vandalism, but I'm not going to read the whole article. If the article is a biography of a living person, however, then we do need to take some time. The important point here is that we need to make reasonable decisions based upon what we are looking at. Jkelly 18:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Might not any article, or even any user page or talk page, include material about a living person? Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. A legally actionable libel or copyright violation or privacy violation could be in the middle of any article. DO NOT RESTORE TEXT YOU HAVE NOT READ. Even on the Moon. WAS 4.250 22:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that is reasonable. I appreciate your good intentions, but I will take your interpretation of what is legally actionable with a grain of salt. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Does "someone" include bots? In another possibility, 425 instances of the word fuck are put in place of a long and generally well-sourced biography page, which incidently contains a short sentence of libel. I revert the page. Am I now legally responsible for "libelling" the biography subject because I did not wish to leave a page full of obscenities describing him for even one second longer than was absolutely necessary? (And where do I make a dev request at?) --tjstrf Now on editor review! 18:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Probably not. If the libel was introduced with the obscenities, then you'd have just reverted that also. If the libel was already there, then you weren't the one to introduce it. Where you'd get into trouble is if libel was already in the article and was removed via page-blank. If you revert, then you are introducing the libel back into the article. I can see many biographies being blanked and not fixed because of this. --Kbdank71 18:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

edit conflict See Wikipedia:Bugzilla for how to make feature requests. Let us know when you've done it, too, so that other editors can comment on the idea. Obviously, I can't give you real legal advice, and we each need to make decisions for ourselves -- but, yes, I would strongly encourage people to really read any article about a living person before publishing a new version of it. Jkelly 18:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Taken to its logical extreme, no editor or administrator should dare to revert anything on a BLP, for fear that somewhere on the page may be a libel. If reverts to unexplained blanking could result in legal liability then responsible editors be crazy to fix vandalised articles. -Will Beback 18:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't restore text you have not read. You can be sued. Even if you win, you pay the financial costs. WAS 4.250 22:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The way you describe it, I'd be in trouble if I reverted an article to which someone had added "Jones is a poopyhead" on the off chance that maybe it also contains a comment that Jones thinks is possibly libellous. If you give me the foundation lawyer's talk page, I can post the vandalized articles on his page. That way he can decide what to revert. -Will Beback 22:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The foundation lawyer's talk page is User talk:BradPatrick which says :"Note to those of you contacting me about legal issues affecting the Wikimedia Foundation: Please contact me by email - bpatrick at wikimedia.org rather than leaving stuff on this page. I prefer to keep this page related to my edits and repartee with Wikipedians about en:WP rather than current legal issues." WAS 4.250 00:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Fortunately, this is easily solved by locating editors who can read. We have several already, I'm quite sure. Jkelly 18:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Reading isn't the issue. Simply reading isn't going to be able to tell you if what you are reverting to is or isn't libel. As I said, to make sure it isn't, you need to verify every statement in the article. Good luck with that. --Kbdank71 18:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite sure we are all able to read. But having to read a whole article before reverting a page blanking can be a bit much, in some cases. There can always be some sneaky unsourced statement that has been there before the blanking. --Conti|✉ 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict, Re:Kbdank)It was technically "removed" by the replacement of the article with obscenities as well. It would similarly be "removed" by replacement with other libel, or a copyvio, or a personal attack against another editor, or a "Cool, I can edit this!", or the goatse image, or, as happened to the Alexander Hamilton page, by the copy-pasting of the Brock (Pokemon) article over the page's initial content.
This situation concerns me deeply as any vandalistic action, no matter how obvious, which had the effect of removing the libel (even if it replaced it with something far, far worse) would by the same token as blanking be unrevertable without review.
In effect, this forbids the swift removal of simple vandalism from BLP articles out of fear that complex vandalism may still be present. This argument may seem like reductio ad absurdum, but I have seen every above-mentioned instance of vandalism take place at some point, several of them to BLP pages. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 18:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. I understand how an editor who willingly reintroduces libel after it has been identified should be held liable, but I cannot fathom why an editor who is cleaning up simple vandalism is legally committing a crime. Perhaps what we need to do is to be less confrontational in the blanking warnings (or use {{test0}} more) to explain to those who see incorrect information how to tell us that it is indeed incorrect, and is not a random kid in school blanking articles wholesale. Otherwise, the effect is what Tjstrf indicates: the editing environment for good faith editors becomes poisoned by legal issues, and that's exactly why we have WP:NLT. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Tort. Not crime. Look it up. WAS 4.250 22:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a legal technicism, and doesn't actually address my argument. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was not a criminal case, but rather a tort suit after all; if you are really that concerned, but unsure, use {{test1a}}, which is quite polite and asks a blanker why he is blanking. That said, I do agree that someone reverting an edit that is clearly marked as removal of libel, or when an editor reverts a BLP noticeboard-based removal, that get closer to actual malice. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right that I did not address your argument. Sorry. "In general the elements for libel and slander are a false and defamatory statement concerning another, made in a negligent, reckless, or malicious manner, and which is communicated to at least one other person in such a fashion as to cause sufficient harm to WARRANT an award of COMPENSATORY DAMAGES."[17] The point is whether or not reverting without reading is "negligent" or "reckless" and whether one wishes to risk a lawsuit by negligently not simply reading what you are causing to be posted. A thirteen year old might decide why not. Someone with a family to feed might decide to only post by reverting what he has read. Some people are cautious and some like to take chances. I have no wish to suggest one choice fits all. WAS 4.250 08:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've left a note on Brad's talk page asking for some clarification. Snoutwood (talk) 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Libel laws internationally differ as to culpability vs intention, but I'd say you run a risk when unintentionally reverting a change back to libel on a BLP article. From a likelihood-of-trouble point of view, it's vanishingly small, but it is a risk.

However, from a Wikipedia point of view, there's a bigger point than just libel. We are clearly approaching some sort of critical mass. Journalists are using us as a primary source whilst disparaging us on feature pages. So we've clearly arrived in the firmament for the media in general.

That means that minor-famous people are now start "Wikipeding" for their articles, just as a year or so ago they started Googling for their own names. The truly famous don't, but the minor-famous do.

So, when reverting a BLP article, I think we do now need to be careful. We've reach a stage - one we've always aspired to - of being thought of as a journal of record. That's great, in so many ways, but it requires us to be more careful.

We might not have reached it yet, but the day is only months away where we get some serious trouble for our vandalism or our reverting. The first we can cope with, although it will be expensive to do so and will open the floodgates.

The second is harder to justify. The time is coming where we will switch from reverting vandalism on BLP articles to automatically stubbing them and letting them be reviewed at leisure. In the meantime, the days of blindly reverting vandalism are coming to an end, so anyone who visits the contribs of a vandal and just hits rollback for each contribution will soon have to think twice.

And we'll need to review our procedures and processes in light of all of this. Not now, per se, but soon enough. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you need to prove actual malice if you're going after a reverter. I don't think that systemically allowing the destruction of the work of perhaps hundreds of editors because of a couple idiots will ever be acceptable, though, so I don't think automatically stubbing articles will ever take hold. I don't mind vandals getting sued, though. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• I left a link to this discussion on the BLP Noticeboard. I have run into several situations lately where I have removed apparent libel that was reported on the noticeboard, only to have other editors revert, claiming WP:BLP did not apply. I think in that particular type of situation, the reverting editor does not have much to hide behind, since the "libel" was reported, removed by an editor working in a semi-official capacity, and added back in by another editor. - Crockspot 19:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

No clue if I did it properly, but the feature request/bug to prompt page blankers is posted here. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 19:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Good call. Guy 20:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(New subject within section)

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it (yet), but it's case law in the 9th (US) Circuit that reposting Internet libel elsewhere on the Internet is not, in itself, libel. See, for example, Barrett v. Rosenthal in Stephen Barrett#Libel suits filed by Barrett.) It may be dicta, as it wasn't required to reach the conclusion dismissing the case, but it is still case law. In the case in question, Rosenthenal reposted alleged libel on a Usenet newsgroup. If I interpret the court documents correctly, the trial court ruled that Rosenthal could not be found guilty of libel, because of the DMCA. The appeals court found that the material was not libelous (being an opinion), and explictly declined comment on the repost ruling. In this case, it would imply that only the editor who originally inserted the libelous material could be found liable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That would certainly be a relief, and far more sensible besides. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 20:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• An editor who blanks a portion of an entry due to liable must note it as such, or there will be no case. El_C 22:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• This entire argument is ridiculous. Can you imagine how the media would mock someone who sued, not the person who actually libelled them, nor the person who randomly threw feces at their article later on, but the volunteer who came along later and scraped the feces off? —Cryptic 22:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I am getting calls from armchairs missing their lawyers. -Splash - tk 22:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I plan on continuing my editing habits as they have been, which includes the occasional reversion of the complete blanking of a page. Yes, there's a risk that I might get sued, but that's just the sort of devil-may-care, caution-to-the-winds sort of fellow that I am. Bring on the lawyers, and have them do their worst. Ξxtreme Unction 23:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting purposely making any illegal edits (libel, copyvio, etc.), but considering the possibility of doing it accidentally, may I suggest using a proxy? Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 23:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

"Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies"--Konst.able^Talk 23:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Ironically, secure.wikimedia.org is a proxy. Also, Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall mentions softblocking. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 00:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've sent an email to Brad asking him to weigh in on this discussion. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The bits I'm still not clear about from this discussion is how WP:NLT applies to the increasing presence of external legal threats constraining the editing environment. I realise that WP:NLT applies to users making threats on-wiki, but the point made about editors feeling constrained by uncertain legal issues is a good one that needs to be resolved with a clear demarcation of responsibilities, plus legal advice (or, rather, advice on when to seek legal advice) for editors who want legal advice, and not only legal advice for the Foundation. Also, I see people focussing on Biography of Living People (BLP) stuff, but the point was made that libellous edits can be made to non-BLP articles (eg. adding something about a living person to Moon, which a new editor might be even more likely to blank, as that would be an obviously vandalised article). Thus the focus on BLP articles for the "should I revert page blanking" issue, is somewhat misleading - this issue applies to all articles. Finally, I often jump into an article to correct a spelling mistake or rewrite a single paragraph. I am aware that I should read the whole article, and copyedit the whole thing, rather than make one tiny change, but this is an example of the same sort of thing: small, incremental edits, eventually adding up to a reasonable article, but where editors often don't read the whole article. Maybe the "stable articles" feature is also relevant here. Marking a version as stable (implying you have read the whole thing), when it contains libel, is, to my mind, potentially exposing an editor far more to legal action than reverting a page blank of a non-stabilised article. Carcharoth 01:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

If an article contains something that leads to a lawsuit, either the Wikimedia Foundation is liable or it's not. For all of our sakes, it's far better that the answer is not - if the Foundation is liable, the entire project could shut down. Or, only slightly better, a lot of money that could go to servers or bandwidth could go to lawyers to defend the Foundation.

If some editors cease editing because they worry about personal liability, that's not good, but it's not the end of the world. And, arguably, there really should be few good people who leave - as someone noted above, From a likelihood-of-trouble point of view, it's vanishingly small that someone who lacked intent (and reverting a blank page, with no indication that the blanking was done for good reason, clearly is a case of no intent to commit libel) will successfully be sued. Folks like the EFF and the ACLU are presumbably around to help, if necessary. Which isn't to say that lawyers might not go after the editor who originally posted the libel - but that's not the concern above, of course. John Broughton | Talk 02:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I take heart in the fact that the Foundation has tons more money than I do, and is thus a much more attractive target. --Ξxtreme Unction 03:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

law.duke.edu says "Many corporate plaintiffs that sue for Internet libel seek to send a message to the public that they will pursue aggressively anyone who criticizes them online, and these plaintiffs seem to be using libel law to squelch not just defamatory falsehoods but legitimate criticism as well. [...] This new class of nonmedia defendants are unlikely to have enough money even to defend against a libel action, much less to satisfy a judgment. Thus, wealthy plaintiffs can successfully use the threat of a libel action to punish the defendant for her speech, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the libel action." [18] WAS 4.250 08:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I continue to remain unconcerned. People who have minimal experience with the legal system have a very overinflated notion of that system. I spent 10 years working with the U.S. legal system, on the federal, state, and local level, on both criminal and civil proceedings. If I didn't have at least 10 threats of dire legal consequences by noon, it was a wasted day.

None of those threats ever materialized.

This is a tempest in a teapot. --Ξxtreme Unction 14:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break, redux

Is there a minimum amount of time that records must be kept for under the section that Brad references to make his statement about Wikipedia being a service provider. In particular the records that may be illegally disposed of may be the IP records, which for Checkuser purposes I know are not kept for very long at all. Ansell 03:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Neither Wikipedia nor any other online provider is obligated by law to keep records of who connects to them. Wikipedia could delete every system log they currently have and refuse to log any further, and there would be no legal ramifications. --Ξxtreme Unction 03:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, if that is how it is under Florida law then thats great, I think. I was asking because I think it is different under Australian law, which is where I got the conception from. Ansell 03:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, a bit of Ameri-centrism crept in. I try to keep that at bay, but sometimes the cultural blinders operate full force. Mea culpa, and my apologies. --Ξxtreme Unction 04:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Would any of the following links be relevant to Wikipedia's service provider status? [19] [20] (library records, but then again, isn't wikipedia just one big library. if the patriot act relates to libraries why would they stop at wikipedia? )

On the other hand, this article clearly (i think) states the overall situation with a view to changes in the future apparently. The EU based sites should definitely think about the 6 months - 2 years provision at the bottom of that article.

"A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act requires ISPs to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity"--a practice known as "data preservation." " Ansell 04:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The Federal law in question simply requires that ISP not delete or destroy any pre-existing records they may have in their possession if requested by the Feds that they preserve it. If they don't have the pre-existing records in the first place, the Feds are out of luck. It is not uncommon for preservation requests from the Feds (and from state and local law enforcement, to say nothing of civil litigants) to ask for everything under the freakin' sun to be preserved, such as transcripts from AIM and IRC chat sessions, IP transaction logs, emails received, emails sent, files uploaded, files downloaded, and so on and so forth. If the ISP does not keep this data in the course of its normal business operations (and believe me, most don't), the ISP is not obligated in any way to suddenly start keeping them in order to comply with the preservation request. They can forthrightly tell the Feds "We don't keep those records," and the Feds will go about their merry way. --Ξxtreme Unction 04:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, Wikipedia does keep IP/Checkuser records in the regular course of its business. So even the regular deletion of those tables would be a violation under a request from that act. Anyway, its pretty clear that for the next little while at least that, if the english wikipedia is classed as a service provider, it is not liable given the extremely ambiguous and lax US laws on the issue. Ansell 04:38, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It is only a violation if Wikipedia gets a preservation request document from the Feds which outlines in specific the records the Feds desire Wikipedia to preserve. And the request has to be specific. It has to specify dates, and times, and specific IP addresses. It can't just say "preserve ALL your records for 90 days." It has to say something like "preserve your records for IP address 207.172.33.14, from 12:01am 9/29/06 to 11:59 10/4/06" or similar.

You may trust me on this, as someone who worked at an ISP processing subpoenas, search warrants, and other court orders for a living for the better part of 10 years. --Ξxtreme Unction 04:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds okay. I know alot more about the topic from that research though. Wondering whether it would ever be useful.... Would it be valid for them to ask for the IP's of everyone who edited a certain article, or the IP's of a specific user? Ansell 04:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't imagine a circumstance where they would care about the IP addresses of every editor who has edited an article. But a request for the IP addresses used by a specific user is an extremely common request (probably the most common one they make).

Of course, this whole subsection was started on the basis of dire warnings about civil legal proceedings, which has fuckall to do with the Feds in any case. Never let it be said that I don't enjoy blathering about stuff I know about just to hear my fingers bounce merrily across the keyboard. --Ξxtreme Unction 05:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else further convinced of the need for tort reform by this thread? --tjstrf Now on editor review! 09:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I think posting in this thread is more likely to haunt you in court than inadvertently reverting to a "Joe Doe is a douchebag" version of some obscure bio. Now, some admin, please block this IP. It's a www.ninjaproxy.com IP. 72.29.81.87 22:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User :Samir (The Scope) and process

An open informal complaint

This user has resorted to personal attacks against me several times on his talk page [21]. He passed disparaging comment on me at this RfA [22]. He has also removed a question from there because it referred to his actions. Never considering the other parties' arguments and shutting out the possibility of a discussion in advance ("I don't give any credence to anything you have to say") he repeats himself. He has expressed his willingness to renege on his own promise to the community on his RfA [23]. Cronyism is at show on this section of his talk page. Three of the Indian administrators argue for him with unconcern for his personal attack, ignorance of rules, and willingness to break them. When I reported his personal attack on WP:PAIN it was removed citing no warning (in edit summary) [[24]] and it was explained to me thus [25] When I put a warning template on his talk page one of his friends removed it because he thought it was ugly. I placed a message on Jimbo Wales' talk page merely inviting his attention but it was removed [26]. You can also see an instance of skewed opinion under my message there and see this apropos [27]. Kundan After Sundown 04:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have somewhat of a problem taking this fellow seriously. Personally, if I had a username which had an obscene meaning I wouldn't expect people to take me seriously either and would be surprised if they didn't block me. As for "I don't give any credence to anything you have to say", I don't see that as a personal attack at all...he simply doesn't agree with your comments Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 06:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Can't help replying to Blnguyen. This sort of comment would be called quibbling in common usage, sorry, I don't know WP jargon. Registration (user space) that met objection had been given up and a new registration done, which you undoubtedly know. So the first part of your comment is null. Personal attack occurs not in the expedidient quote in the comment above. Here is one of several seen here [28] : "Hey troll. Here's elitism for you: I don't give any credence to anything you have to say. Go away and troll elsewhere. I suggest LiveJournal." Kundan After Sundown 07:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this. I further propose that the community ignore this thread unless other evidence of realpolicy violations (other than the username bit) are alleged. As to the username, do we have a sysop who speaks malayalam and can determine whether this user should be made to pick a different username? - CrazyRussian talk/email 12:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

We do not have a sysop who speaks Malayalam; but as a native speaker, I guarentee that the word has a distasteful meaning. The user even had an obscene picture on his userpage. Further see these comments by two other native speakers: [29], [30]. And this deleted article created by the user shows that he was very much aware of the obscene meaning. User:Kundan After Sundown should be blocked per WP:U --thunderboltz^(Deepu) 13:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

It is really in someone's interest to divert from the issue and discuss username here, as if one username requires a WP:ANB thread. What surprises me is the lack of receptiveness and quibbling on the part of all the users who speak for this erring administrator. I have already made it clear that objected username has been abandoned and all the three who discussed merely that here are well aware of it. Either they want to divert focus or they want to make this TL;DR. User:thunderboltz's response is not composed for apparent reasons. Kundan Lal Saigal, and numerous google results for Kundan show the fallacy of his demand for block. Kundan After Sundown 17:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Kuntan literally means "a young boy kept for the purposes of sodomy". And I suppose, there is difference between Kundan and Kuntan; Kundan being a common North Indian name. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 17:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Literal or literary, see Kuntan on the Hindu pageand Kuntan on Hindustan Times page and Kuntan meaning and pronunciation in dictionary and stop the off-topic talk finally. The subject here is something else. Kundan After Sundown 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Er, this is not off-topic, sir. I am only trying to establish, that you created that particular account for the purpose of trolling. And if you do not have anything "productive" to give you wikipedia, you might as well leave the project, then waste our time. Thank you. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 19:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that the actual issue here is User:Kundan After Sundown's egregious trolling (including the creation of a known obscene user name, trolling on an RfA, mocking the contributions of an administrator on their RfA, mocking the English language skills of a contributor and breaking WP:BLP by mocking a biographical article on the talk page). This is independent of his continued trolling on my talk page. If anyone sees fit to block this troll, I would be in agreement. Otherwise, the LiveJournal offer stands -- Samir धर्म 04:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

And the reason for this tirade has been explained here [31] in a formulaic form by another user. I suggest changing dharma part of your signature by prefixing an "a". You suggested me a career in comedy on your talk page and I needn't suggest one for you as you are already engaged here in one fitting your propensities.Kundan After Sundown 05:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:DNFT -- Samir धर्म 22:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Let us see what has happened

1. 05:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC) - Kundan After Sundown posts an Oppose Vote in a RFA
2. 14:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC) - Samir धर्म in the same page says Wow, someone chooses an obscene username, balks when he's called out on it, then expects his sophomoric opinion to have credence on the caller's RfA. Guess what: it doesn't.
3. 18:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC) - Kundan After Sundown in Samir's talk page says Hey user, your out-of-place remark [32] is in poor taste and in bad faith. Do you know Malayalam and the meaning of the word to guess that it is obscene? Or did you rely on the opinion of two users who looked at once credit-worthy because they cried foul on somebody's user name? If that is the case, you are relying on somebody who in turn relies on ignorance ("I didn't know the other meanings for it"). I can let you know that the two users concerned have plainly refused to look up the word in a local language dictionary and never denied the fact that it is a proper name among the scheduled castes of Kerala. Ignorance, lack of receptiveness, élitism and disdain for the peripheral lives- you have been party to them. And one user who googled the word in question and found that it meant a very loose cunt in some Icelandic language epitomises the wisdom of your ilk.
4. 23:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC) Samir धर्म says Hey troll. Here's elitism for you: I don't give any credence to anything you have to say. Go away and troll elsewhere. I suggest LiveJournal

In my opinion this is Uncivil. Let us finish this and get to other usefull tasks. Doctor Bruno  15:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandal

I'm kind of confused about who or where to report this, but User:67.172.212.249 (contribs) put the words "poop on the face" at the bottom of a list of 20th century philosophers here. I wasn't sure if it was according to protocol to add a vandalism template to a user without a user page and whose entire contribution to Wikipedia consisted of this one edit. Can somebody just do something about that IP address? He's probably somebody who's been blocked before. --Hyphen5 05:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV for reports of vandalism, but one edit being one minor piece of childish vandalism, is generally not enough to get them blocked warn and report to WP:AIV if they persist. --pgk 06:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Emmalina

Emmalina was deleted and redirected as a result of its third AFD nomination. Currently, a blurb in the Notable YouTube memes article has all the information that the previous Emmalina article had. It is my understanding that such merges need the entire history intact at the redirect page for compliance with the GFDL. Therefore I request that a sysop restore the old Emmalina page and then redirect it to Notable YouTube memes. Hbdragon88 06:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with restoring this article is that its history appear to contain several revisions that should not be restored. Since Notable YouTube memes is also up for deletion, I suggest waiting for the conclusion of this other nomination. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Those were all hidden just before the admin deleted the article. I suppose that they're still visible to the sysops. I'll wait for five days (or however much longer the AFD has). Hbdragon88 23:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Abuse of Administror's right by User:Nlu

User:Nlu have abused his right of an administrator in the page of Goguryeo.
Because User:ABCBBCKBS had removed the entire section of Modern Politics, I reverted it to a previous version.
In addition, the previous version, which I reverted to, was similar as the version edited by [[User::Nlu]].
Even I reverted to the version that is similar as the version by Nlu, he said that the Modern politics violate the POV.
, and then he removed the entire section of Modern politics. Please compare the three version by me and Nlu.

 1. This is my reverting due to User:ABCBBCKBS [[33]]

 2. This is the previous version by Nlu[[34]]

 3. This is the version of Nlu by his abuse of administrator's right. [[35]]

The section of modern politics is entirely removed.
He warned me to block my id if I revert the article that has modern politics. I dont think that it is fair. I have dicsussed about this, but he dont want to discuss about it User_talk:Nlu. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hairwizard91 (talk • contribs) 06:36, October 20, 2006.

Stop venue shopping. Try dispute resolution. Shell ^babelfish 06:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes and it's alright to accuse an admin of misconduct if it's warranted but then please sign your posts. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

And just how is this an abuse of admin rights, when it is just simply an edit? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Admin help required for new project.

Hi, I've been canvassing some support recently, as some of you may have seen, for a program/project to harmonise all of the user page templates and warnings. I'm looking for an admin, not necessarily to carry out much work, but who will be able to point me in the right direction, on certain issues. I'm willing to do all the leg work, but could just do with someone sitting on my shoulder to achieve this goal. If you're interested, or would like to know more please see here .Have a glance through all the different types of warnings and if you have any ideas please list them. Regards Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 11:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Mig11

I'm edit-warring with Mig11 (talk · contribs), who insist in changing the name Kosovo for the Albanian Kosova, on the grounds that both are used in English, and that "Kosovo" is a Serbian name (thus POV). In the same way, he also changes Priština into the Albanian Prishtina [36] [37] [38].

Attempts to discuss seem to have failed [39], thus I'm stepping back and asking for a third party to intervene. - Thanks already, Evv 17:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

lol This is simple WP:V... I'm getting involved again, and removing all those unsourced, politically motivated "Kosova"s. - Evv 20:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

According to policy, if I'm not mistaken, articles' titles are generally supposed to be the ones that are the most commonly used. Both "Kosovo" and "Pristina" get many more Google hits than "Kosova" and "Prishtina", so you're probably right that Mig11 shouldn't be changing them to fit his POV.--Rouge Rosado Oui? 20:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Heads up...

We've been moving a lot of material out of Category:Copy to Wikibooks... see Wikipedia:Transwiki_log/Articles_moved_from_here/en.wikibooks. It would be helpful if these were deleted or fixed so we can see what's left in the category.

Also, please don't do copy-paste transwikis now that we have import (there are some procedures involved with transwikis, and we'd rather it be done in house). If something urgently needs to be moved, it can be posted at b:WB:RFI. Thanks! --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 00:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Why were copy-paste transwikis ever being done? Doesn't that lose attributions, thus contravening the GFDL under which the material was contributed to Wikipedia in the first place? Carcharoth 01:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Believe it or not, the import tool wasn't enabled until this week. Previous to that, the system was to either add a link to the diff that was copied, or the history was copy-pasted onto the talk page as plain text. I think the issue was with the potential for different users using the same name on 2 projects, but hopefully that will be put to rest soon with SUL. --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 03:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, would it be alright to just remove {{Copy to Wikibooks}} from these? I'm trying to keep track of what's already been imported (there's a backlog). --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 16:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

October 20, 2006 mass suicide

Obviously a vandal created page that should probably be speedily deleted. -- Sapphire 02:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

In the future, apply on of the WP:CSD templates to it. I've deleted it. Alphachimp 02:04, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Will do. -- Sapphire 02:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User:E.Shubee

Would another administrator review my action to make certain this was appropriate? I responded to a new request at WP:PAIN and discovered a legal threat posted by this user on 19 October.[40] Blocking is policy in this type of situation, but I'm not certain whether the indef block I issued is appropriate. Please review and shorten if my action was excessive. Thanks, Durova 02:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I would support the block, per WP:NLT. It is entirely counterproductive to have users running around making threats. Should the editor choose to retract his threat, I'd suggest rescinding the block. Alphachimp 02:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Also a single-issue editor: A sign of problems and not much loss. —Centrx→talk • 02:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the thumbs up. I've requested a checkuser on this account's suspected puppetmaster. Durova 03:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

New question, User:E.Shubee says that I misunderstood his earlier post. His reasons are complex so here's the diff:[41] Does anyone consider this a reason to shorten the indef block? He should probably still get a block for link spamming even if the threat is a total nonissue.

Personally I'm skeptical: he seems to claim that the mere existence of a Wikipedia article about a verifiable Christian denomination constitutes trademark infringement, and that his disputed edits protect us from legal action by a third party. Durova 04:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The trademarks disclaimer could be relevant here. Ansell 05:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Going through the history, this was/is obviously a troublesome user and some block was appropriate. However, when blocking for "legal threats," it seems to me that a link to the WP:LEGAL policy should be provided, along with advice that the user can request to be unblocked if he or she clearly withdraws the legal threats, which after all is the main thing we want to happen (I have seen this succeed more than once). Information on how to contact the WP:OFFICE can also be provided, to give the user a vehicle for raising any bona fide legal issue that he or she might think to exist, as opposed to just saying, in effect, "you have no rights, go away" which in the long term may just aggravate the discontent that resulted in the threats being made in the first place. In this case, the user may not be likely to ever become a productive editor anyway, but I think the blocking admin might still want to consider these ideas for the future. Newyorkbrad 13:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I hate to encourage any user to pursue legal means against Wikipedia or its editors. I think that if they wish to pursue anything like that, they should do it completely without our help, support, assistance, or backing (but that's just me). Alphachimp 17:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate these can be tough calls. Certainly urging the user to withdraw the threat is something we agree upon. It's more a case-by-case judgment whether, once the threat aspect is removed, there is a genuine issue to be addressed or not and how best to counsel the user to address it, or whether just to ignore it. In other words, whether tactically turning the person to the right instead of the wrong methods will help avoid long-term legal issues no one wants, bearing in mind that 99±% of legal etc. threats go nowhere. Newyorkbrad 17:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the user has been mildly misunderstood. I think they believe that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is going to sue wikipedia for trademark infringement because they sued Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church for trademark infringement. MyNameIsNotBob 23:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Either way, they've retracted the statement and I've unblocked the account. My checkuser request hasn't been fulfilled yet so I'm extending the benefit of the doubt - suggesting they join the mentorship program and edit at other topics. Durova 01:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kosovo

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

For edit warring, personal attacks, and other disruption, PerfectStorm/C-c-c-c is banned from editing Wikipedia for one year. For edit warring and incivility, Bormalagurski is banned from editing Wikipedia from one year. For edit warring and disruptive use of sockpuppets, Dardanv under any username or IP, is banned from editing Wikipedia for one month.

Hipi Zhdripi is limited to his one named account, Hipi Zhdripi. All edits by Hipi Zhdripi under another account or an IP address shall be treated as edits by a banned user.

Ilir pz, Hipi Zhdripi, Vezaso are banned for one year from editing articles related to Kosovo. Relation to Kosovo is to be interpreted broadly so as to prevent gaming. Either may be banned from any related non-article page for disruptive editing. All articles related to Kosovo are put on Article probation to allow more swift dealing with disruption. Editors of Kosovo and related articles who engage in edit warring, incivility, original research, or other disruptive editing, may be banned for an appropriate period of time, in extreme cases indefinitely.

ChrisO is warned not to engage in edit warring, and to engage in only calm discussion and dispute resolution when in conflict. He is instructed not to use the administrative rollback tool in content disputes and encouraged to develop the ability and practice of assisting users who are having trouble understanding and applying Wikipedia policies in doing so. .

Dardanv, Ferick, Laughing Man, Osli73, and Tonycdp are placed on Probation for one year. Each may be banned from any page or set of pages for disruptive edits, such as edit warring or incivility.

Ilir pz, Hipi Zhdripi, Vezaso, Dardanv, Ferick, Laughing Man, Osli73, and Tonycdp are placed on standard revert parole for one year. Each is limited to one revert per article per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, each is required to discuss any content reversions on the article's talk page.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 04:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Requesting "Hard block" on User:203.57.147.20

This address is my school's IP address. It has a long history of blocks due to various idiots vandalizing. I'd like to request a "hard block" (in opposition to a "soft block"?) to prevent users registering from that IP address. A couple of other students in my class thought it would be fun to vandalize the project; when they thought someone was "on to them" they registered new accounts. These users were User:Headmaster2008, User:ImaSpamThis and User:David2001. Altogether, "they" vandalized the Brisbane Boys' College page repeatedly, posting my personal info on there (I occasionally do RC patrol via the school PC's, thus they found it amusing to do so). Can someone please help with this? Also - if such a block were done, would it prevent me from logging in and doing RC patrol via that IP? Thanks. SMC 04:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes it would. A soft block means only anons are blocked, pre-existing registered users can still edit (I presume account creation is off also). If we hard blocked all activity from that IP is blocked, yourself included. Glen 04:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Kind of limits options really. Is there any way to turn off account creation for that IP? SMC 04:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, just reblocked. Anons only, no account creation (I assumed incorrectly, account creation was allowed previously). Expires in 6 days per the prior block, let's see if that helps. Glen 04:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, should help (I hope). Have a good one! SMC 04:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I just blocked User:ImaSpamThis - and I hope like hell you dont get caught by an autoblock. Place {{unblock}} on your talk page if you do... it sometimes happens Glen 04:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the warning. Thanks again SMC 05:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Diatribe

I'm an admin, but I'll admit I'm not sure of the rules on this: I know we are extremely lenient about leaving even vaguely on-topic remarks on talk pages, but it seems to me that this is trolling: Talk:Affirmative action in the United States#Racism. Can we delete this sort of thing? - Jmabel | Talk 05:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm NOT an admin, but IMO although it's nominally 'on topic', it's not a discussion about how to improve the article, and while I probably wouldn't delete it, I think there are grounds to do so, or perhaps to move the post to a sub-page with a note on the talk page asking the author to re-work it as a suggestion for improvement. Anchoress 05:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

For me, it would depend on context and the level of disruptiveness. If it was from a repeatedly problematic editor, a personal attack, on a widely trolled page (e.g. one where it threatened to begin a flame war), or filled with obscenities, I would remove it. In most other cases, especially a really new editor, I would leave the thread with a reply such as "This is not the place to elaborate your personal opinions.", and maybe give the user a civil note about posting rants on their talk page. This is because many people mistake honestly talk pages for forums, and simpy reverting their comments (especially without explanation) will often cause more disruption than leaving it. Of course, a similar rant on a BLP page would warrant a swift removal. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 07:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed a "repeatedly problematic editor"; see his talk page. And just yesterday he was disabused of any notion that the talk page on subject X is the place for a rant about X: see this. -- Hoary 08:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've removed it. It was just a rant, as was obvious from the multiple exclamation marks, the numerous reminders that the writer was laughing out loud, and most obviously the assertion that it wasn't a rant. It didn't offend me at all; it didn't even sadden me, as I was already very aware of the popularity of this stance. It might offend others, I don't know. But it was about the subject, not the article, so I zapped it. The writer may now feel additionally aggrieved and thus inspired (?) by this grievance to add stupid comments in the article itself. If others disagree here with my deletion of this rant, go ahead and revert me; I won't take it personally. -- Hoary 08:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC) ........ PS Here is my deletion edit. -- Hoary 08:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Given that context, your action is fine. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 08:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a venue for negotiating ultimate truth. The use of article talk pages to assert or denounce some Eternal Truth is utterly inappropriate. A little banter is ignorable. A jeremiad isn't. There are people who live to find articles on subjects they hate so that they can symbolically enact their frustration. Their problems are not ours. Zapping is appropriate. Geogre 14:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Need assistance on violated 3RR

Avraham had violated Three-revert rule on Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad article. I've reported it on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR page, but one of his friends, that is also an administrator, insists that he didn't violated 3RR, because his first edit was not a revert, although it was a combination of a revert and adding some information. Please take a look, or tell me how can I request for a review. Thanks --Hossein.ir 05:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I reviewed the information presented and Jayjg is correct. What you listed as the first revert is not really a revert. Nor is it an attempt to circumvent 3RR, which is the only circumstance here where I'd count it as a revert. This was the first edit, not the last. Btw, this is the place to put something like this for review. --Woohookitty^(meow) 09:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Mig11

In responce to a section above where another user complained about this user changing the names of "Kosovo" and "Pristina" to "Kosova" and "Prishtina" in their respective articles, I did a google search and found that the original names were the most commonly used, so I messaged Mig11 on his talk page and told him what my search had turned up and that it is policy that the most commonly-used names are supposed to be used in articles. In responce, Mig11 accused me of being a sockpuppet of the original complainer because of my shorter edit count.[42]. I think that an admin should intervene in this issue.--Rouge Rosado Oui? 14:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I was

Being reading the new article here on Wikipedia called Housewife Bangers. The article had 2 contributors so far and existed for a while before I believe it was speedily deleted last night. Speedily deleted out of process I say. What happened to the article? Harthacanute3 15:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD-A1 article; also unencyclopedic in tone, no assertion of notability for the subject matter, no sources provided, wouldn't have survived AfD. Ground not salted, please recreated (citing sources and asserting notability) if you think it has a place here. Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 15:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

HarthaCanute3 has already been blocked indef as another Courtney Akins/Cheerleader sock. Newyorkbrad 17:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Jamie Lee Curtis and Nikki Craft

(from my talk page)

You edited (removed a portion of) my comments on the Jamie Lee Curtis page. This is not acceptable. I'm happy to discuss any differences of opinion I may have with other editors, but I won't accept other people editing my comments because they disagree. Blanking sections of articles is considered to be vandalism. Atom 16:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons says "Unsourced or poorly sourced controversial (negative, positive, or just highly questionable) material about living persons should be removed immediately from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and user pages." I noticed you used Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons as a reason to delete sources in Nikki Craft. I too have a problem with Nikki citing stuff at her own website to source claims on her bio page, but deleting the only listed source and leaving the claim makes no good sense. I also notice almost all your recent edits are sex related. So you want to pick a fight with me over my correct use of WP:BLP while you use it to delete sources instead of claims and your edit subjects are troll bait (but I have not reviewed your edits on those sex pages). Altogether a troubling pattern. WAS 4.250 16:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Atomaton, please read WP:OWN. Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

This thread is also on ANI, FWIW. It's at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User_talk:Atomaton. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The comments above were not placed here by myself. They were copied by WAS 4.250. The way it is placed, it gives the appearance that I am complaining here, when it was a conversation between myself and WAS 4.250 on his talk page. The issue has been resolved as far as I know. Atom 23:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Requesting consensus to unblock Mustafa Akalp

Hi all. For those of you who don't know already, Mustafa Akalp (talk · contribs) was recently blocked for RfA vote spamming. The block was later extended to indefinite, as there was somewhat of a consensus at WP:AN/I. Although what he did was wrong, I think it was too harsh of a punishment for a first offense. Furthermore, I doubt he will do similar things in the future. Most importantly, I believe that Mustafa is a good editor. He has contributed positively to numerous articles, most notably Imbros and Republic of Gumuljina. Therefore, I am requesting that we get some sort of consensus on his unblocking. I strongly support that we give him another chance. —Khoikhoi 18:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Khoi, this guy tried to gun you down by the worst way possible. Don't shoot yourself in the foot, or at least give him some time off (at least a week, like) to think it over... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

A quick glance appears to show that Mustafa Akalp was severely and nastily distruptive... because he didn't know that isn't how we do things. Which raises an interesting question about how far WP:AGF goes. If we AGF, then he should be unblocked. But if we work from his record, we must assume that he will break each one of Wikipedia's rules and guidelines, in ignorance, one at a time. We don't, for some reason, tend to look at whether a person's Wikipedia behaviour would be acceptable in Real Life. In this case, I don't think it would be. But this isn't Real Life, it's Wikipedia, and thus we should AGF.

And then watch his every edit, obviously. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem/reason for the block is that he would persistently refuse that what he did was wrong. He sincerely believes that what he did was acceptable. I had requested someone (maybe Baristarim) to explain to him why it was wrong in his own language, as his level of English probably dosn't help him understand. If Mustafa understands that what he did was wrong, and apologizes, then I (and I am sure the rest of users who consented in perma-blocking him) will agree unblocking him. •NikoSilver• 19:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Support that idea. If we can talk to him in a way he will understand then there's an AGF hope. If we can't, or the result isn't good for his RL thoughts, then he must remain gone. And I know that's WP:ABF, but, well... ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Nearly everyone who screws up around here gets at least one second chance, even if he doesn't acknowledge that what he did was wrong. I would not want to see this user get the hammer because he does not have the right friends. On the other hand, I don't believe we should be overly generous with second chances. Thatcher131 04:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait a second. He doesn't understand guidelines and he doesn't understand english. What's he doing on the English Wikipedia? I'd say we give him a week to learn the language, another to learn the rules, and then unblock him on probation. yandman 07:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggested that myself first on WP:AN/I. Mustafa is IMO clearly not an (overly) radical Turkist. Heck, his first edit here was to move Chalki (Turkish island) to Chalki (Greek island) — (and he screwed badly, not realizing there are two Chalki islands, leaving double redirects all over the place). Yes, his votespamming was vitriolic; but the cure is simple—block him forever if he does that again. We don't block users forever for the first offense, and I think Khoikhoi's vote has more weight in this case. Duja 07:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Buy that man Duja a drink! Also, have someone explain to Mustafa why what he did was wrong in his own language! Heck, I hadn't realized it myself until recently, although what I had done was a lot more in-line (InShaneee may remember that). Please don't make me regret posting that WP:ANI incident in the first place! I never meant this guy should be permabanned. Keep in mind that you have made a Turkish user be defended by a Greek pov-pushing nationalist one! :-) •NikoSilver• 09:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Huaiwei

My edits to airline destinations are reverted by user:Huaiwei with no valid reason given. [43] He claimed there was " major changes " while there was none, and he even couldn't tell what he considered to be " major changes ". What should I do? — Instantnood 21:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Do you guys never get tired of this? /wangi 21:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Additionally that article really is one designed to be AFD'd - Airline destinations - a list of all airports in the world served by airlines. OMG! Thanks/wangi 21:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I made slight improvements to an article (please refer the diffs), and yet he keeps reverting without any valid reason. — Instantnood 21:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing the edit wars to my attention. As both have warned constantly about this sort of behavior I hope both of you enjoy your blocks. Joelito (talk) 21:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Images on MediaWiki pages

WP:BEANS ALERT, but I think it's needed. Recently images have been getting added to a lot of Mediwiki: pages. I'm not gonig to argue the matter as to the approriatness of them at all, but increasingly they have been commons: files. Unless I'm totally misunderstanding this is leaving the interface open to image vandalism. An example I came across was at MediaWiki:Blockedtext, including commons:image:Octagon-warning.svg. I reuploaded this locally with the same name and protected it at Image:Octagon-warning.svg, noted it as {{hprotected}}. More images are making their way in to the interface, as recently as the one in MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext. Should protecting such images be required? Thanks for your comments! — xaosflux ^Talk 01:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that images should not be overused in the MediaWiki space, but where they are used (13 times according to Special:Allmessages I would support protection, or perhaps reuploading the file as a duplicate and protecting the duplicate, so that the original, used on non-MediaWiki: pages, could still be edited. —Mets501 (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The images (Information icon.svg, Octagon-warning.svg, Padlock.svg, Red copyright.svg, Nuvola apps kwrite.png, Symbol comment vote 2.svg and Commons-logo.svg) are all now protected local copies. None of them seemed to be gratuitously used (take MediaWiki:Uploadtext for example), otherwise it would have been better to remove them. --bainer (talk) 14:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks bainer, guess I was in line with the normal view here then. I updated the note at MediaWiki:Editinginterface to reflect this process. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Protected Double Redirect

I can not remove this double redirect as Austin Osueke is protected - can an administrator sort this out.

  1. Austin Osueke (Edit) →‎ Eigomanga →‎ EigoMANGA

Thanks ----Lethaniol 13:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it was already being taken care of. --WinHunter ^(talk) 13:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Lol - I am just too slow - Cheers--Lethaniol 13:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Honda S2000

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

SpinyNorman is required to edit using only one account. SpinyNorman may be banned from any article he disrupts. SpinyNorman is placed on personal attack parole. He may be banned for an appropriate period of time if he makes personal attacks. SpinyNorman is placed on revert parole. He is limited to 1 revert per week on any article, excluding obvious vandalism. Should SpinyNorman continue to disrupt Wikipedia he may be banned for an appropriate period, up to a year. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Honda_S2000#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 14:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for unblocking

My username is user:lil_crazy_thing i wanted to leave a message here because i know otherwise it will not get looked at. and i know i'm not ment to do this but there no other choice. i have very unfairly been yet again blocked by Yamla. He his always singling me out and applying rules to me and not others on wrestling images. He is forever basically harassign me and stalking me on wikipedia and i'm getting very sick of it, i never had any priblems at all on wikipedia until yamla started on me and ever since then he will not leave me alone and will find fault with anything if he gets the chance to he will also block me. I'm always being unfairly treated by him and all i want is for him to just leave me alone for once which he will not do. I add an unblock request but he said no and i think that very bias to have the blocking admin review it cos everyone will know that a blocking admin will not undo his own block. Please can someone please review it and if they want me to i can prove proof for every statement i've made if need be.80.47.161.10 16:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This user knows that it is not stalking to continue warning a user for repeated violation of policies (see WP:STALK). Additionally, the claim that I am applying rules to images uploaded by this user but to no other wrestling images is a blatant lie and this user is well aware of that (even apart from the rather strange claim that only wrestling images are relevant). I have provided examples of other wrestling images which I have similarly marked as inappropriate under Wikipedia policies. I welcome other admins reviewing this particular block, but in the interests of maintaining civility, I am taking a 24 hour break from responding to this user's accusations on her talk page. --Yamla 16:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The above anon has been blocked for trying to get around a valid block. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD backlog, again

Up to 158 articles, at least one of which is 12 hours old. --Calton | Talk 16:05, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hossein.ir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I am not sure whether this belongs here or not, but in y'all collective opinion, do you think that User:Hossein.ir is pushing the bounds of WP:AGF here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Avraham reported by User:Hossein.ir (Result:No violation), here: Talk:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad#Removing journalism from the top of the article and here User talk:Avraham#Please stop personal attack, thanks? I have tried to be civil in those places, as well as User talk:Hossein.ir, but it seems to be for naught. Any suggestions, besides deep-breathing excecises and full-body contact yoga ? Thanks. -- Avi 17:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Would I be correct in stating that the origin of your dispute is some removed material that Hossein.ir considered to be libel, but you considered the removal of the material to be vandalism? (Which in turn seems to have lead Hossein.ir to be offended at being called a vandal, which lead Hossein.ir to say things that seem to have frustrated you.) Well, I'd suggest mediation. Good luck! Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 17:41, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It is indisputibly not libel. Hossein.ir seems to have an issue with a number of people who do not share his view on Iran, Palestine, Jews, MA, etc. His lack of civility and constant attacking is getting to be somewhat distracting, however. -- Avi 17:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hossein.ir seems to be disputing it, which would probably make it a content dispute rather than vandalism, albeit a rather escalated content dispute. Private mediation is generally good when disputes get hot. Alternatively, you could try refactoring, although that generally works better when a person refactors their own comments, or when a neutral third party refactors them, given the controversial nature of refactoring. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 18:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. One question, though, in all the wikipedia guidelines and policies, such as WP:BLP, WP:RS, etc., bringing something from The New York Times or CNN is always considered reliable enough to be placed in biographic articles. We have the man's own quotes from CNN, ABC, and Al Jazeera for that matter. I believe Hossein.ir is using this as a bad-faith effort to whitewash the sourced and cited material. However, as he brought (what appears to be a bad-faith) nomination of 3RR against me (which was shot down by two other admins, AND in which he was warned for incivility and baitinig) I do not want to be the one to levy sanctions as I feel sysops must hold themselves to very high standards. If anyone can show me why this would be considered libel according to wikipedia, I'd be grateful. Otherwise, I am afraid he is merely trolling. -- Avi 18:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this,[44] I'm not sure why Hossein.ir considers it libel, given that many varied references (both Western and Islamic). However, with less than 500 edits, Hossein.ir seems to be new, so it's quite possible he doesn't understand Wikipedia policy. Being biased (because I know you), I can't be a neutral mediator, but I'm willing to try to talk to Hossein.ir. In the meantime, you could ask an uninvolved administrator to protect the page, if edit warring is a problem. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 18:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Slore

Can you please protect that deleted page? As of right now, it has been deleted 9 times. Two of those deletions took place today, one of them took place on the 20th, and five of them took place in other parts of 2006. It was protected to prevent recreation on 1/26/06, but it was deleted on 9/19/06 for a reason unknown to me. Thanks. Alan^{T - C} 20:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Page salted. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 20:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Major backlogs at Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies

There are some backlogs at Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies. One of them is the proxy servers to check section. There are 41 proxies remaining to check. The other backlog is at the blocked proxies section. It needs to be moved to the Meta project's blacklist. Unfortunately, the blacklist on Meta requires a Meta administrator to edit it, as it is fully protected. I therefore cannot move those open proxies to the blacklist. Jesse Viviano 21:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This backlog is largely due to Burak18 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who is using a massive amount of open proxies and sockpuppet accounts to avoid his ban and continue his vandalism. He has created several sockpuppet accounts on October 8, which he used last week. He has now opened a can of accounts created on October 9. Is there a way to find all accounts created on that day, without having to flip through 60 pages of the new user log first? Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 22:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I would think that CheckUser might work, except that it does not help find sockpuppets of users who use open proxies because it matches socks and their masters based on IP address. Therefore, it can be used to find the open proxies used by known sockpuppets and other accounts, or it can be used to find the sockpuppets of a user that does not use open proxies. Jesse Viviano 23:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've found some other patterns in Burak's editing, so that I know what to look out for. I don't think it'd be wise if I said it here though, per WP:BEANS. Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 00:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Mess with the numbers in the URL. I'm sure this URL will be out of date soon enough, but try starting here. Also, I encourage you to softblock the proxies. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 00:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism Detector Bot

Daniel Brandt has done us a huge favor with his Plagiarism Detector Bot ( http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/psamples.html), which scours our database, looking for key phrases that exist other than in Wikimirrors. I urge everyone to use this wonderful tool.

However, I do urge caution, since the bot doesn't recognize when large samples of text are public domain and hence I erroneously removed 90% of Charles Wheatstone, before realizing that the site Brandt's bot thought was the original source... had taken it from a book on Project Gutenberg (I have since replaced the material). DS 01:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Cute. It is good to know I will be able to do something while waiting for Wherebot to report suspected copyright violations. Thanks  :-) -- ReyBrujo 01:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. :) Garion96 (talk) 02:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

First 19 lines are now clear.Geni 01:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's not a bot, I think he actually ran 30,000 google searches by hand. At least that's the impression people got on Wikipedia Review. Anyway, I encourage people not to delete the articles wholesale, just remove the copyvio stuff, these all seem to be valid article topics and almost every one I looked at had at least enough non-copyvio text for a stub. --W.marsh 02:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

use selective delete to remove copyvio struff from history. It is a bot. Sure it had a fair bit of human supervision but it was a bot. So the challange is to build a better one (I can think of a few improvements).Geni 02:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah now he's confirmed that it was a bot... initially he didn't say that. Anyway, it seems it's not as easy for him to run as he implied. Nevertheless it generates useful results for improving Wikipedia. --W.marsh 02:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't figure out what is going on with Milton Bradley.Geni 02:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

dito Matteo RicciGeni 02:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I've created a list at User:W.marsh/list so we can hopefully organize this ad hoc effort better. Shouldn't take much longer. --W.marsh 02:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• We actually DO have a bot that works on this task, User:Wherebot, focusing on newly created articles that are copyvio and listing them at Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of these seem to have been created years ago and are just not very frequently editted articles. We catch most stuff when Wherebot is up nowadays. --W.marsh 02:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget that a lot of websites steal Wikipedia's content without attribution, so what you may be deleting from here is actually the original and it's the other site that's a copyvio. --Cyde Weys 02:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Not run across one like that yet (except perhaps the problem ones I've mentioned above) a couple form PD sources on credited.Geni 02:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok it happened assumeing the dates are correct Francis Cunningham was coppied from us.Geni 03:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hasn't a german journalist been fired because of copying and not citing the German Wikipedia? -- ReyBrujo 03:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that is any of our concern. More importantly is figureing out where the text was coppied from (the intial version looks like a copyvio but I can't find it).Geni 03:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That was called a "trivia". I believe we could contact the journalist and ask from where the information was picked. If from Wikipedia, we can request to quote us. If from another source, we know from where our version has been copied). -- ReyBrujo 03:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Two things, shouldn't the copyvio versions be deleted, instead of just reverting to the last sane version? Also, note that Jimbo modified the CSD:G12 criteria, now a blatant copyvio article can be tagged with {{db-copyvio}} at any time, not only in its first 48 hours. We may tag them as speedy instead of sending them to CP. Unless you want to wait for Jimbo's reply. More on this here -- ReyBrujo 02:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I recently had a discussion about that. According to this old page and the instruction on WP:CP reverting is good enough. Perhaps it should be changed. That would mean lots of extra work though. Garion96 (talk) 03:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Incidentally, the edit summary I'm using is "removed material as per Daniel Brandt's anti-plagiarism bot (thank you, Mr Brandt!)", which I feel is polite and considerate. I suggest that we all use it in this circumstance. DS 03:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This should be handled through deletion rather than editing.Geni 03:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

We're down to just 4. But there's more work to do, people should create stubs for the articles that had to be deleted. --W.marsh 03:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Finnished except Francis Cunningham and Francis Cunningham where I'm not quite sure what coppied what.Geni 03:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed the text from Georges Bizet (it was just 1.5 paragraphs) but couldn't find where it crept in. That's the last one left on the list I started. --W.marsh 03:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Benitrimi

Benitrimi (talk · contribs) & 69.121.55.31 (talk · contribs) are/is reverting the article "Avni Abazi", thus removing an AfD template (added by User:Calton), removing wikilinks, and replacing "Kosovo" & "Priština" by the Albanian names "Kosova" & "Prishtina" (diff.). - Regards, Evv 03:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

He's been warned and it seems that he stopped. If continues, a block will be needed. I'll watch him. NCurse _work 07:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

"AOL proxy range maintenance"

With this innocuous edit summary, a bot is wiping all comments (mostly vandalism warnings) from AOL user talk pages. These aren't all old comments; they're recent. See this example.

If a non-bot did this, I'd revert the edit and post a complaint on the perp's own user talk page. But I'm not going to battle a bot single-handedly.

I realize that despite all the minatory white-hands-on-red, etc., WP gives more or less carte blanche to AOLusers to make as many stupid edits to as many pages as they wish. ("Blocking might prevent good edits by innocent users"!) However, for a bot to blank mere criticism of an AOLuser (and to do so with a bland and uninformative edit summary) seems several steps too far.

As for the warning (in red!) that warnings to AOL users go to the wrong place, this is untrue for certain AOL IPs. See this for example: an AOLuser with obsessed by dark thoughts about Elvis Presley. -- Hoary 03:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find any place where this has been discussed and approved (the talk page of the WikiProject on user warnings has several users complaining about this idea), so I've blocked the bot indefinitely until discussion here occurs. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Should we re-add the comments back? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 03:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just now reverted the particular blanking that I linked to. Unfortunately the "real world" has a pressing demand on my time and I can't look at the bot's list of recent "contributions" for now.

Incidentally, I'm no fan of melodramatic warnings on user talk pages. I think the warnings should be curt, clear, and uninteresting. But that's a different issue. -- Hoary 03:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm the operator of the bot in question. The bot is removing warnings posted to pages in the AOL proxy range, as distinguished from the AOL dynamic range. This is an important distinction which often leads to the opposition expressed above and on the User warning layout standardisation talk page (all of which have been answered there). A user in the proxy range changes very rapidly; it is said that the 'new messages' banner is permanent, and that clicking the link brings you to a talk page for an IP you've already moved from. Very conservatively, proxy users switch addresses within fifteen minutes, which makes all warnings older than fifteen minutes absolutely irrelevant. Leaving warnings after that point is the equivalent of warning Titoxd about hypothetical vandalism committed by Hoary, and arguing that they are relevant because someone has to be warned.

The AOL dynamic ranges are more traditional, randomly assigned on connection and generally stable the whole time the user is connected. Warnings on these pages don't need to be removed, since the user actually will see them. Those IP addresses should no longer be categorised by {{AOL}} rather than the generic {{sharedip}}, and updating those pages is part of the maintenance I was performing while reviewing each individual edit after the fact. —[admin] Pathoschild 04:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This does not appear to be one of the tasks this bot was approved to run at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals/Archive#Pathosbot, though our approvals process didn't require the detail it does now. I support the unblocking of this bot as long as it is now only running approved functions. Additional functions can always be requested. Due to this thread, if placing a new bot approvals request, please link that request to this thread if still active. From the bot approvals group, — xaosflux ^Talk 04:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

At the same time, the warnings on the proxy pages will still be visible, and blanking the warnings will just trigger the confusing orange bar again, and a user will get confused anyways if he clicks the diff link, so I don't see any benefit in blanking those pages. The case there is for not warning AOL users, not for removing the warnings already there. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The bot was approved for "tedious or slow tasks", which includes this one. The bot policy has changed since it was approved, which may require re-approval of such tasks, but it was originally given that scope.

As I said "does not appear", we have yet to go back through all the old bot requests (am working on validating several inconsistant pages) but "open-ended" bot tasks are no longer approriate. It would be just as easy to say that adding a new template to every page in the wiki would be tedious, but it is certainly wouldn't be acceptable to have a bot start doing this. User talk:Robchurch who approved your bot is not around to elaborate on the discussion though. It's simple to request bot task expansion, so I'd recomend you bring this there, and one of the first questions will likely be to link to a project page where this has been requested and consensus agrees it is in best interests. — xaosflux ^Talk 06:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Users are confused by the warnings themselves. Many emails we recieve on the Open ticket response system are from AOL users who believe they are personally being warned for something they did not do, despite the explanatory template at the top of the page. They do not email us complaining that someone dared removed such warnings from their talk page. Any likely confusion in this case was caused by the mass rollback that followed the block. —[admin] Pathoschild 04:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

See also the precedent set by AOL account when they did the same: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive52#AOL_Blocks. —[admin] Pathoschild 05:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The warnings have to be removed some time, and recency is not a factor for the proxy IPs. —Centrx→talk • 06:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Pathoschild. I hadn't noticed any differentiation by en:WP among AOL IP numbers, which I suppose is "my bad". Putting aside the question of whether your bot was authorized to do what it's doing, what it's doing does seem to be a good thing. So I eat most of my words. But not all: I still think "AOL proxy range maintenance" was an unnecessary, even misleadingly bland edit summary; it could have been "AOL proxy: Deleting all messages other than AOL template" or similar. -- Hoary 06:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Time ranges for these should be determined at bot requests and the bot should not remove recent messages, otherwise why waste the time donig anything on these pages, just blank (other then the template) and protect all of them. — xaosflux ^Talk 06:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Why waste the time leaving messages indeed. Time ranges should not be determined at bot requests, because the bot is incidental to the task— I could do the same task semi-automatically or manually (as AOL account once did). It should be determined at a relevant discussion page— the WikiProject on user warning layout standardisation, for example. —[admin] Pathoschild 07:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This might sound like a radical proposal, but I do not think we should be leaving warning messages on the talk pages of AOL proxy range IP addresses at all. Not once have they been picked up by the intended recipient, with exception to a vandal who is seeking out these warnings. All that they do is provoke vandals and confuse the casual and innocent visitor. Can someone show me a diff that would prove otherwise? Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Zaphnathpaaneah

This guy is completly out of control. User:Ryulong and myself caught this guy red-handed in a copyvio. So, he plays a race card, for crying out loud. I should have seen that little gem coming when I saw his user page. Take a look at User talk:Zaphnathpaaneah to see what I mean. He's been blocked for the next 24 hours on an civility violation. He's lucky it wasn't more. I'll run up an RfC if he comes back swinging. Thought you all should know. - Lucky 6.9 07:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm shocked it took this long for someone to block him. He totally destroyed the black people article, transforming it into an uncited POV personal essay and edit wars causing it to be protected. He even managed to destroy the black people talk page which is dominated by his ranting, raving, and race baiting. I got so tired of trying to deal with him that I put all my energy into the Definitions of black people article. If someone can redirect the protected and POV black people article to the well cited and neutral Definitions of black people article, that would be great. Timelist 09:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think that merging all of your work over at Definitions of black people back into Black people would be much better for the project, once it gets unprotected. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Or you could just rename the Definitions of black people article "black people" and get rid of the current black people article since it has very little encyclopedic content not already covered in the Definitions of black people article. Timelist 09:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No. That is not how things are done on Wikipedia. Black people will be unprotected, soon, and you will be able to merge your work at the separate article over there. Just give things time. If/when Zaphnathpaaneah comes back, and he starts up his bullshit again, then he'll be dealt with. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

However, someone should go through Talk:Black people/Archive 4, 5, 6, and 7 to see what damage this guy may have done, already. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)