User talk:JBW

This account was previously known as JamesBWatson, but was renamed to JBW on 19 September 2019.

Please post new sections at the bottom of the page. If you don't, there is a risk that your message may never be noticed, if other edits follow it before I get here.

Students are returning from Summer Vacation

And so are IP vandals who have been dormant during Summer Vacation. 24.121.225.34 & 70.166.240.253, for example. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Found another one. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Here's one with no edits between May & August and has a history of writing nonsense. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:04, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Definitely bored students here. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 16:15, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

More bored students. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:48, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: As far as the last one you mention goes, I've put a long term range block on 216.21.168.0/24, as nearly all editing from that range has been vandalism. It may be that a wider range than that should be blocked. The previous two I will consider blocking if there are more vandalism edits, but right now the amount of recent vandalism isn't enough to justify a block. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:21, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

No edits between May & August; tends to call things "gay". –Skywatcher68 (talk) 15:55, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Always nice when they announce themselves. Might want to do a schoolblock on the entire range. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:32, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

^That's SUNY Cortland, by the way. You should take a look at these edits from Cal State Stanislaus as well. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:15, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Yes, I saw that it was SUNY College at Cortland. As you may have seen, I have blocked the whole /16 range. I have also blocked 165.166.14.114, the IP address in your previous message. I didn't see any range that needed a block, certainly not any large range, though there may be some small range that I didn't notice. I'll look at the Cal State Stanislaus edits. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 09:22, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: OK, Cal State Stanislaus. From what I have seen there is some vandalism, but far more COI and promotional editing, no doubt by undisclosed paid editors. I have posted a message to the talk pages of all of the most recently used IP addresses in the range, and if that doesn't work I will be willing to consider article protection or IP blocking. In the message that I posted I said that the problem had been going on for 7 months, but since then I have noticed that there was a previous wave of the same kind of thing in 2015. I haven't checked further back than that. Please let me know if you see any more problematic editing of the same kind now that I have tried to warn the people involved. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 10:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Hey, in case you're not already aware, here's a good resource for associating IPs with schools in the US. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 05:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Evidently students using a proxy. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm unable to determine what school district this range belongs to but one address in there (50.226.240.129) is blocked until January. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Your deletion of articles by User:ThreatMatrix

Hi JamesBWatson. Would you mind explaining your G5 deletions of Operation Arrow (1999) and Yugoslavia and weapons of mass destruction in more detail? Both of these articles seemed to be about notable/encyclopedic topics. I realize that TryDeletingMe was topic banned from making edits related to the Balkans, so the articles would need to be reviewed carefully for original research, POV, and whatnot, but I would prefer to see the articles improved rather than deleted outright. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 19:05, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Both the issue of being "about notable/encyclopedic topics" and the issue of reviewing for "original research, POV, and whatnot" are missing the point, because the reason for the deletion was nothing to do with the content of the articles; it was about their having been created in violation of a block. A fact which I first discovered about ten years ago, and have since seen confirmed many times, is that persistent evaders of blocks and bans will continue to do the same indefinitely if they know that what they have done will remains in place after each account is blocked, and they can just pick up from where they left off with a new account each time, but if they find that whatever they do is just reverted or deleted then there is a chance that they may eventually realise that what they are doing is not going to get them anywhere, and give up. It is not guaranteed to work, but it often does, and nothing else does, in the case of persistent block-evaders. That does have the effect that sometimes we lose content that was somewhat worthwhile, but that is, unfortunately, a cost that has to be born. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:20, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense. Thanks for explaining. In cases like this, would there be an issue if an editor in good standing were to recreate the deleted article(s)? – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 16:37, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

@Lord Bolingbroke: There's nothing to stop another editor from creating a new article on the same topic, but it seems to me better if the new one is not close to identical to the old one, to make it clear to the disruptive editor that it is not his or her article that has survived. It might also be worth waiting for a while, so that that person has time to realise that their work has gone, but that's just a thought of mine, not an official guideline or anything of the kind. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:48, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep that in mind. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 17:50, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

• Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Miscellaneous

• A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.

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• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Deletion review for Bardhyl Selimi

User:Hyrdlak has asked for a deletion review of Bardhyl Selimi. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. —Cryptic 00:20, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you.

Hyrdlak (talk) 08:35, 15 September 2019 (UTC)Hyrdlak

Dear JBW, below I enclose the discussion that followed. I believe that its outcome justifies relisting of the article on Bardhyl Selimi. I look forward to hearing from you how to effect such a relisting. Sincerely,Hyrdlak (talk) 15:06, 8 October 2019 (UTC)Hyrdlak

Contesting the deletion of Bardhyl Selimi

This page should not be speedily deleted because: - In light of the 20 August 2019 comments by Slatersteven, I improved this article as requested by adding 50 links to websites and publications. - These prove the notability of Bardhyl Selimi as writer in his own right, and above all as translator of Albanian/Kosovan literature to Esperanto, and world literature (via Esperanto) to Albanian for the book markets of Albania and Kosovo. - As advised, the added references are independent of the subject.

Having said that, I notice a strong Anglo- and Westerno-centric bias in the entire discussion, which is invisible to the other editors.

- For instance, the article on Philip Gabriel, a translator of the Japanese author Haruki Murakami popular in the West, does not require the proofs of notability, which are requested of the article on Bardhyl Selimi. Actually, the article on Philip Gabriel hinges on a single (dead) link created by the subject. However, no one nominates this article for deletion.

- The unspoken principle seems to be: as long as a person is somehow related to an individual famous in the West, that is sufficient to be bo seen as notable, even though an Wikipedia article on such a person is unreferenced.

- Likewise, while in the case of Bardhyl Selimi, it is pointed out that books written by him are not known outside the sphere of Albanian- and Esperanto-language cultures, the same requirement is not applied to the article on Philip Gabriel. He is not an author in his own right at all. Furthermore, his English-language translations of Murakami's novels are unknown outside the Anglophone countries.

- Hence, all is POV (I learned this piece of the Wikipedia lingo, courtesy of the deletion discussion). However, the Anglophone/Western POV on Philip Gabriel is looked upon gladly, while the Albanian/Esperanto POV is branded as a 'bias.'

Last but not least, I also detect in the discussion a disregard for cultures and literatures connected to a language without a state (Esperanto) and to a non-Western language spoken by 5 million people 'only' (Albanian).

Another issue is the hostile environment of the discussion created by the editors involved. I asked them to give me time to improve the article in line with their suggestions. Afterward, due to my family vacation, I requested a delay in the deletion discussion until 7 September 2019. During my absence from the desk, the other editors completed the discussion without my participation, and deleted the aforesaid article on 4 September.

Hyrdlak (talk) 09:30, 22 September 2019 (UTC)Hyrdlak

Who told you no proof of notability is required for Philip Gabriel? Please read Straw man in addition to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and I request that you stop making up "unspoken principles" instead of believing the actual principles that have been presented to you and that can be found right there in Wikipedia's guidelines. Largoplazo (talk) 01:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Dear Largoplazo,

Your reply does not refer to the issue at hand. The lack of action in the case of the article on Philip Gabriel is evidence in case.

Hyrdlak (talk) 09:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)Hyrdlak

The lack of action is evidence that no one has acted, not that anyone is conspiring to keep action from being taken. You seem to think that there's a single, formal judging panel tasked with reviewing every article posted to Wikipedia and charged with applying uniform criteria to each and every one of them; and that, if they don't, it's through an intentional dereliction of responsibility. No, there are volunteers who, if they see an issue on some article, deal with it, but they don't magically, simultaneously know about thousands of other articles that may have the same issue. But some people prefer to assume that anything inconsistent is the result of persecution and prejudice despite the existence of obvious, non-nefarious explanations.

(Having been accused of anti-Semitism and homophobia by editors unaware of the fact that I'm Jewish and gay, I can attest to the phenomenon of people leaping to persecution and prejudice to explain actions I've taken in compliance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and reflecting no bias on my part.)

If you think Philip Gabriel isn't notable, then, instead of being indignant that some fictitious individual you imagine to be responsible for deleting it hasn't done so out of contempt for non-Westerners, why don't you be like other people who find articles that don't qualify for inclusion and nominate that article for deletion? Largoplazo (talk) 10:50, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Dear Largoplazo,

I ameliorated the article's deficiencies as initially pointed out by Slatesteven.

Sincerely, Hyrdlak (talk) 14:04, 23 September 2019 (UTC)Hyrdlak

INAS Global Games

Hi there – any chance you can unsalt the above article? I believe it is a valid topic for an article. Thanks. SFB 21:45, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

@SFB:  Done. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:00, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Any chance you can do the same for World Transplant Games? Thanks! SFB 19:43, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@SFB: OK, I'll do that. I was going to tell you to ask Anna Frodesiak, the administrator who imposed the protection, to do it instead, but I have found that she is unable to edit Wikipedia. I regard that as a disaster, as she was one of the best administrators we have. I do hope she will be able to return some time, though it doesn't look promising, as it has been four years already. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 20:52, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@SFB: I now see that the article title was actually protected by NawlinWiki, and Anna's name appears in the log because of a protect-conflict (like an edit conflict) between the two of them. However, NawlinWiki is sort of semi-retired and now edits only sporadically, so I have done it. Both of these were at one time very active contributors, and it's sad to see them go. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:00, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

That is sad about Anna's circumstance. I suppose for many people, like NawlinWiki, life moves on and the Wikipedia habit does too. Not many people work in the same place for over a decade, so in that respect their service has already exceeded expectation! SFB 21:19, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@SFB: Yes. In fact even those editors who for a while are among the most active, including those who become active administrators, most of them do the substantial majority of their work within a period of two years. Many of them disappear not long after that, others continue for a while but at a much diminished rate, and after a very few years have either gone completely or, like NawlinWiki, make only very occasional edits. A small minority, including you and me, keep going for a longer time. However, even I am gradually fading away: my editing rate so far this year is not much more than 10% of what it was in my most active year. Your rate of editing, by contrast has fluctuated up and down, but not shown any significant tendency to decline. So the conclusion of all that is yes, you are perfectly right in saying that Anna's and Nawlin's service has already exceeded expectation, and for a volunteer project what they have done is commendable. However, I still feel sad about it. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:41, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Approve my article

Its of our hindu festival Khetwadichaganraj (talk) 02:25, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

your username

I liked your previous username, and never thought it is your real name. But at least you can shorten your signature now :) —usernamekiran(talk) 14:30, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran: Oh well, I can't please everyone. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 14:43, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

your signature still hasn't shortened lolol —usernamekiran(talk) 14:48, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

No, in fact quite the opposite. However, it's slightly shorter than the one I used for several years. For nostalgia's sake, here it is again: The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:00, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh, no, you got a face change. This will take some getting used to. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:53, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I like both names tbh although it'll be weird not seeing "JamesBWatson" anywhere, Meh do whatever makes you happy - As long as you like it then that's all that matters! :), –Davey2010^Talk 09:37, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@kiran, Flyer, and Davey2010: and also Boing!, as you have made related comments on another page, and anyone else interested enough to read this. Since my change of user name has caused more interest than I expected, here are my thoughts about it, which you may or may not find interesting.

I confess that after 13 years of being JamesBWatson I have become remarkably attached to the name, and when I see it mentioned by another editor it feels as though it really is my name, in the same way as my real-life name does, rather than feeling like a pseudonym. I am, in fact, quite surprised at how strange and unnatural I find seeing myself listed as "JBW". Davey2010, you said "As long as you like it then that's all that matters". I don't think "like it" describes how I feel about it, it's more a matter of what I have decided to settle for as a least bad option. My first choice would be my real name, but there have been editors using their real name who have suffered real-life harassment, and I have also seen a discussion on another web site by editors with grudges against me who were trying to work out my real life identity, so that they could get revenge, so using my real name is out of the question. My second choice would be something like "Flyer22 Reborn" or "Boing! said Zebedee". Don't ask me why, I just like user names like that. A user name which looks like a real name but isn't (such as JamesBWatson) would be about my tenth choice, and for a long time I have regretted using a name like that. (When I set up my account I was just doing really trivial things like removing a mistaken apostrophe that I happened to notice when I was at Wikipedia as a reader, not as an editor. I didn't expect I would ever do anything more than that, so I didn't think what user name I chose was of any importance, and I just used the first thing that came into my head. I'm not sure what I would have said at that time to anyone who told me that I would go on to be a Wikipedia administrator with not far short of 150,000 edits and over 70,000 administrative actions.(And still counting.)) Anyway, when I eventually decided that I was no longer willing to go on with a user name which, as I said, looks like a real name but isn't, I decided that I was so well known as JamesBWatson that anything completely different from that would be too likely to cause confusion, and editors have sometimes abbreviated me to JBW, so I settled for that, even though in other circumstances such a cold, clinical, and meaningless acronym would be about my fifth choice.

So there you are. For what it's worth to you, you now know more than you thought you ever would about my thoughts on my user names. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 10:51, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm with ya, When I said "As long as you like it then that's all that matters!" I meant it as in sod what anyone else thinks - if they dislike it then that's up to them but yeah I see what you mean, If we could predict our futures I'm sure we'd all do things differently even with simple things like usernames,

I sure as pie would never have chosen "Davey" had I known I'd be where I am today - Hate the name tbh, I only expected to be editing for a year if that and here I am 6-7 years later!..... Where does the time go?,

Ah well happy editing JBW! :), –Davey2010^Talk 13:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Just saw your response on an SPI case and thought, "Who the hell is JBW?!" You'll still be (pseudonym) James to me. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:03, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I wrote above "my change of user name has caused more interest than I expected", but it is getting even more attention than I had seen when I wrote that. Not only on this page, but on other pages too it has attracted comments. Liz, it was precisely to avoid "Who the hell is JBW?" doubts that I put Formerly known as JamesBWatson onto the end of my signature, but evidently at least in your case that wasn't enough. Perhaps I should make it "JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson " instead . As for always being James to you, part of my reason for changing my user name (though not the main reason) was that it always makes me slightly uncomfortable when other editors call me "James", since it ain't right. There are, actually, dozens of editors who know my first name, in most cases because I've met them at Wikipedia meetups, where I always use my real name, in a few cases for other reasons, so I suppose I could use that name, even though, for reasons I mentioned above, I would not give my full name. But maybe that would be even more confusing than JBW, and we would get loads of editors asking "Who the hell is Brian?" or "Who the hell is Samantha?" or "Who the hell is Agamemnon?" or whatever it really is...

All this has prompted me to wonder about something which I had previously never given much thought to, namely how many other editors have user names which appear to be their real names but aren't? I have always assume that Liz is really named Liz (or, perhaps more likely, Elizabeth) but is she? is Davey2010 really Davey (or David, or whatever)? ...and so on and so on... For a long time I naively assumed that "Anna Frodesiak" was Anna Frodesiak's real name, until one day it suddenly dawned on me that of course it wasn't. (Though later she told me that her real first name was something like "Anna", but not quite.) There are others too, who turned out not to be who I thought they were.

Perhaps the biggest unexpected effect of my change of username is that comments about it would lead me to spend so much time writing crap like this, instead of doing something more useful, such as blocking a few vandals, or making a cup of coffee... Oh well... JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 19:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

IP hopper disrupting media-based articles, primarily newspapers

Hi, JB. This range has been making unsourced changes, one of which I've found to be demonstrably wrong. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:57, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: OK, I have found a couple of edits which are demonstrably wrong, one which was clearly vandalism, and many which were unexplained, unsourced, and dubious. There have also been very frequent unexplained removal of sources. I have also seen four warnings on IP talk pages for this range, all of which have been completely ignored. I have blocked the range for a month. However, here's a request. If you give me a report like this again, could you give me complete information about what you have found? That doesn't mean that I am asking you to do more checking than you did, but if, for example, you have found one edit which is demonstrably wrong, as you said you had, it can save me trouble if you tell me which edit that is, rather than leave me to find it for myself. Thanks for the report, and I am in no way trying to put you off doing the same again, but just mentioning how you could make such reports even more helpful, with virtually no extra effort from you, since you would just be giving me information which you already have. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 20:58, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try to keep that in mind. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:48, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I've reverted pretty much all of their newspaper edits, marking them as subtle vandalism. In doing so, I reverted at least two more that are demonstrably wrong. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:32, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: It isn't at all important, but for the sake of strict accuracy I made a mistake when I said I had seen four warnings on IP talk pages. I saw four warnings on one IP talk page, but also some more on another talk page, so the total was at least six. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls

Not sure why you want your talk page in Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. Frietjes (talk) 20:45, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know what was going on. However, the way you let me know was perhaps not the best you could have chosen. No, I don't want the page in that category, and frankly I don't think there is any reasonable way of interpreting what I wrote as meaning that I did. There is, on the other hand, a reasonable way of interpreting what I said as meaning that I didn't know that about that category. Also, I would have thought that it was clear to you from my comment that my main objection was not to the change you made but to the fact that you did not do me the courtesy of explaining why you did it, and the response you have given doesn't deal with that, in fact it could even be seen as adding more of the same. You may have intended it perfectly well, but that response comes across as rather condescending. How about these for a few alternative ways it could have been dealt with: "Hi, JBW. You may not know it, but although using the parameter 'label' multiple times in a ping rather than label1, label2, etc, makes no difference to the working of the ping, it has the unfortunate effect of putting the page where it is used in the category 'Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls'. Do you mind having your talk page removed from that category by having the parameters replaced?" ... "Hi, Frietjes, no I didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know. I have made the change you suggest." Or if, understandably, you think that the small amount of time it would take to write that could be better spent in other ways, just giving an edit summary such as "Replacing parameters to take page out of "Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls". Or if you chose not to do either of those when you made the edit, then after you saw my response perhaps you could have posted here saying "The page was in Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. Do you mind having your talk page removed from that category?" But instead, you posted the above message which pretends to think I "wanted" my talk page in that category, which you cannot possibly have really thought. I am genuinely grateful to you for letting me know about the category, so that I can not only correct it this time, but also avoid making the same mistake again. However, while it is, of course, up to you, but you may like to consider whether you let me know about it in the best possible way. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:25, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Clarification

Good day Sir! Please review my added contents in the SOGIE Bill article. It does not violate the standards set by Wikipedia. I added websites as citation in every line to become vivid as well as verifiable. I hope for your action with regards on this matter. Thank you and God bless! Jsnueva1022 (talk) 03:19, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I am very sorry for my actions Sir/Madam! I am new at editing but I will assure you and the Wiki community to add related contents only and not include the incidents to the said topic. Everyday, I read the policies and regulations of the Wiki pages in order to use it in my daily editing habit. I understand my mistakes. From now on, I will include also citations in every content I added. Thank you and God bless! Jsnueva1022 (talk) 12:22, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much for understanding Sir/Madam! Jsnueva1022 (talk) 15:31, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

All of these answered at User talk:Jsnueva1022. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 15:41, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Already rangeblocked but I thought you'd find this amusing

Vandalism (5.150.102.153) and reverts (5.150.99.73) coming from the same range. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 15:02, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Rangeblock request

Hi, JB. I found an IP hopper – a different IP each day for the past three days – disrupting movie credits. Far as I can tell, none of their edits are remotely accurate. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:25, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68:  Done I checked a sample of the edits, and every one that I checked contradicted sources, so I've blocked for 4 days. If you feel like watching and letting me know of the problem returns after that, please do. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

They're back and continuing the pattern of a different address each day. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 16:19, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi, got another range for you. I reported one address in that range to the Vandalism noticeboard as an obvious WP:DUCK for 75.189.225.76; the latter has been blocked again but the former is still active. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 15:01, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Yes, I see your report got the response "No edits since being warned. Re-report if this user continues vandalising or spamming after sufficient warnings." It amazes me how many administrators give responses like that in this situation: it apparently doesn't occur to them to take into account warnings to other IP addresses that have obviously been used by the same person. Also very often, as probably in this case, many administrators don't check the rest of the /64 range when one IPv6 address is reported but that is not so amazing, as not everybody knows how IPv6 addresses are allocated. Anyway, I've blocked the range for a year.

Have you considered becoming an administrator, so that you can block vandals yourself, rather than reporting them, waiting for some admin to get round to dealing with it, and hoping they do a sensible job of it when they eventually do? JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 16:56, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I was wondering when you'd ask that. How would I go about becoming an admin? –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:51, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The chore from Chorley

Hi, JB. I see you blocked 86.135.249.0/24 for a year; they've returned as 86.146.109.114 (blocked for 72 hours by Zzuuzz). They've also used 86.154.78.11 earlier this month (rangedblocked until 5 October by NinjaRobotPirate) and 86.179.158.242 & 81.152.162.119 back in July. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Out of time now, but I'll try to look at it tomorrow. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 19:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: I've had a fairly quick look, and blocked a couple more ranges covering the recent editing for a year. I can't see the point in blocking one IP address for 3 days in this situation, as it has absolutely no impact at all. The two IP addresses you mention from July turn out to be the tip of a large iceberg. There has been a persistent vandal/troll using IP addresses in the range 81.152.162.0/24 for over a year, and 86.179.158.0/24 for nearly 2 years (perhaps not the same person as you are referring to) and there's been no or virtually no constructive editing from those ranges in that time, so I've blocked both ranges for 2 years. 81.152.162.0/24 had already been blocked twice in the last 2 years, for 3 months each time. Most likely the vandal will be back on a new range, but blocking ranges they have have access to will at the least slow their vandalism down, and it's even just possible that if we can make it difficult enough for them to find IP addresses to use they may eventually give up. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 15:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, JBW! I've had my rich share of encounters with this pest, and any measure that'll make his virtual life more difficult is appreciated. Favonian (talk) 15:52, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I found another range they used as recently as last month due to one of the IPs in 86.146.109.0/24 blanking this user talk page. 86.185.108.0/24 (blocked by Ad Orientem until 14 November) might also be related –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:00, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: After you posted that message here, Favonian blocked 86.163.134.0/24 for 2 years. The history of various IP addresses in the relevant ranges includes a lot of one IP blanking another one's talk page, and it may be that by following those up we could track down a lot more IP addresses that the person has used, but there are so many of them that to do the job thoroughly would take a lot of time. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 20:51, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

One could say it would be a chore. ;-) –Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:59, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Grow Business Intelligence

Hi JBW. New to Wikipedia, where is the discussion about why you deleted the Grow article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjd13 (talk • contribs) 03:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I was a little surprised that you said "New to Wikipedia", since you have been editing for just under 10 years, but looking further I see your average rate of editing has been very low, so I suppose it makes sense. There is no discussion about why I deleted the article. As you know, there was a discussion which led to the deletion of the article after you previously created it. We don't have a new discussion every time someone re-creates essentially the same page as had previously been deleted as a result of consensus at a discussion. If we did so, most often the same reasons would be given as in the previous discussion, with the same outcome, so it would achieve nothing apart from taking up time of editors who could instead have used the time on more constructive work. It may also be worth mentioning that an editor called Willbb234 tagged the re-created article for speedy deletion as promotional, and although I have seen far worse, I did agree that it was more promotional than is acceptable for a Wikipedia article. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 14:59, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I have replied to a similar question regarding the same article on my talk page. Thanks, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 16:29, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for removal of protection of page creation

Hi there, I'm looking for a request to remove page creation protection on the page Justin Friesen. I am going to be creating a sandbox version of the page first, as the subject has linked up with some pages I've recently edited and I believe their notability has changed. Let me know if this is possible. CaffeinAddict (talk) 21:22, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@CaffeinAddict: I looked at the history of the deleted article, and found it is over 8 years since the first deletion discussion, and over 7 years since the second. Notability can easily change over that time period, so I was well disposed to think that removing protection would be reasonable. Before deciding, though, I looked at the draft you wrote. Nothing in the text of the draft suggested much notability, so I checked references. I saw nothing at all there which even remotely suggested that the subject satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Many, perhaps most, of the reference don't even mention Justin Friesen at all, others barely mention him, some of them are in sources which are unreliable or not independent. However, rather than assume that was the whole picture, I tried searching for sources myself. After some work in sorting out which pages were about him, not about other people named Justin Friesen, I found IMDb, Twitter, LinkedIn, a page in the "alumni" section of the university he attended, and so on. Absolutely nothing that even began to satisfy the requirements of Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Unprotecting and re-creating the article under present circumstances would almost certainly just lead to a third deletion discussion, which would yet again end in deletion, and that would be a waste of everyone's time, including yours. If you can find proof of notability in Wikipedia's terms then I suggest collecting the necessary references, and then ask again about unprotecting the article title; however, what I have been able to find persuades me that your likelihood of being able to do so is virtually nil, so I suggest you would be better off leaving it, and putting the time you might have spent on it into other editing, more likely to stick. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I leave it be until there's any sign of notability then. CaffeinAddict (talk) 03:06, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Snow King Mountain

If you haven't had the pleasure - speedy deletions burn. They take the entire collaboration and consensus model of Wikipedia and throw it in the dumpster, and then lock the lid. I presently have about 20 tabs open on my screen for this article and I've spent the last week reading through this seemingly endless history. These are some of the best historical sources I've come across for a subject Snow King Mountain, and enough that I've considered writing a book about it. I stumbled on the article and found a godawful promotional mess copy pasted straight from the resorts pages on "activities" etc. I went through claims line-by-line and deleted, while trying to keep something meaningful where I could. I saved the history section for last because this required the most amount of research to evaluate and rewrite. My work on the article, though significant, begins mere days ago. The problematic content on this article has sat on the page for around five years. The CSD tags which were applied to this article apply to specific edits, but instead of taking the time to consider that, the entire last five years of edits were deleted and and hidden (and the page was functionally blanked), punishing me in the process and throwing days of my life in the garbage. Like so many others, this may be the turning point for me where I decide that Wikipedia is captive to it's 1,000 admin and I'm delusional to believe that outsiders could ever meaningfully participate without devoting valuable time every day to political and structural games and alliances. (anecdotally: someone is nominated to admin right now who has a decade of history and over 10,000 edits and yet has only tried to navigate the perils of page creation a handful of times.) Like many others they arrive at their high tower of edits by using bots and gaming technical edits to accomplish as many as 400 edits a day while adding little to Wikipedia but IMDB copy-paste. Should I just delete my account? WP:DONTDEMOLISH WP:DONTBITE Luke Kindred (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• One alternative to the sack cloth and ashes, Luke Kindred, is to check out WP:REFUND. Tiderolls 16:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• Never mind, Luke Kindred, from your meandering post I thought you had a CSD problem. Now I've seen the real problem. Good luck Tiderolls 16:58, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm just hitting Step #1 on WP:REFUND (try to talk to the editor) before attempting to escalate the issue.Luke Kindred (talk) 17:22, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Luke Kindred: You may like to re-read what you have written, and consider whether the way you expressed yourself was likely to be the best way to get cooperation from a volunteer who is acting in good faith, and attempting to apply Wikipedia policy. As far as I can make out, apart from just expressing your anger, what you are asking me to do appears to be to restore a substantial amount of text which infringes copyright. That would means you are asking me not only to violate Wikipedia policy, but also knowingly and intentionally to infringe copyright. That would make me personally legally liable, and is out of the question. Experience suggests that you are also unlikely to succeed at deletion review to get copyright-infringing content restored. As for your disagreement with Wikipedia's speedy deletion policy, you are, of course, free to try to get the policy changed, but my task is to try to uphold policy as it is, whether you or I agree with it or not. (I am far from being personally in 100% agreement with that policy, but I try not to let my personal opinion get in the way of policy.) JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 19:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Luke Kindred: If you want me to I will email you a copy of the last version of the article, so that you can work on salvaging anything worthwhile there, leaving out the copyright infringing and promotional material. Let me know if yo would like me to do that. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 19:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes please

I wasted hours of my morning trying to figure out how to view the deleted material you are offering. The copyright problem is only in the history section, I assure you. Please help me create the quality article I am positive exists here. Luke Kindred (talk) 01:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Luckily I did not come back and respond to your latest message until after another administrator had discovered that you are an undisclosed paid editor, and that you lied and personally attacked that administrator when he asked you a perfectly civil and straightforward question about your paid editing. The offer to email you the information in question is withdrawn. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 15:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

• As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

• The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
• The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.

Miscellaneous

• The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:55, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Permission to create page

Hi. I want to work on a page Adamu Garba II which was created by another user but you had previously deleted. It says i should ask you before I commence. I got the page from the wikiNigeria articles requested for creation section, Im waiting on your response Amaekuma (talk) 11:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Becoming an administrator

Okay, I found WP:RFA but have no clue how to self-nominate. I would like to help keep a lid on vandalism when I have time. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:43, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

(by talk reader) @Skywatcher68: "have no clue how to self-nominate" You've just invalidated an attempt at RfA. Please feel free to join our countervandalism unit and perhaps teach new editors. Countervandalism doesn't require a mop, only effort. Adminship, however, requires clue which you lack. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:53, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: I'll wait for JBW to weigh in. He practically invited me. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 18:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Email

It looks like you probably want to review your inbox for anomalies. (CC Trijnstel) — regards, Revi 00:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Trijnstel: I have confirmed my list membership. At least I have tried to:( I hope it has worked.) I have no idea what caused the problem. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 10:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Good to hear. Thanks. Trijnstel_talk 20:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

See response

See my response to your comment on my talk page. --Svennik (talk) 08:40, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Why have you not responded? --Svennik (talk) 23:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Review a page?

Hola! I have a request of sorts - I know that third opinion is a bit dead so I wanted to bring in a third party on something. I'll make sure to note that I asked on the article's talk page. In any case, here's the situation:

There's a debate on the talk page for the article on shock sites about what version of the page to use. A student I oversee has created some requested sections about the history, legality, media, and ethics of shock sites. This was reverted by another editor over a few concerns. One was the removal of content (which they later retracted) and the other was that the prior version of the article looked better, which was essentially a section on examples of shock sites. There's been some back and forth over this, mainly between the instructor and the other editor. My thought is that a good, happy medium would be to merge the two versions together (which I've done) since I can see both sides - a section that lists the notable examples does have a lot of merit, as do more general sections about shock sites. I think that there is a lot of content that can't really be adequately summarized in either format alone (general sections or specific examples).

What do you think? Also, are you willing to weigh in? It's fine if you wouldn't want to - I'm definitely more than understanding on that! It's more of a gentlepersons' discussion to be honest - there's no actual drama to it. I think that a third party that's not me (since I am involved in obvious ways) would be good here. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:54, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• On a side note, are you going to WikiCon NA? I can't remember if you're in the States or not - I know that we've had this discussion before and honestly can't recall at this point in time. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 17:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
• Looks like it's resolved itself! So nevermind! But still curious about the WikiCon in Boston - a lot of us WikiEd-ers are going. (My work account.) Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

@ReaderofthePack: Good that it seems to have been resolved fairly amicably, even though it deprives me of an opportunity to "weigh in" . And no, I'm far away on the other side of the Atlantic. Nice to be thought of, though. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 20:32, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Petar Kichashki

Hi, JBW. You've declined the X2 on this article saying that "the translation has been substantially cleared up". However, this doesn't invalidate CSD X2. Fixing the English doesn't fix the problem with these translations -- it obfuscates it. For the detailed reasoning and community consensus on this, please see WP:AN/CXT. Would you reconsider declining the speedy, please?—S Marshall T/C 13:44, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@S Marshall: You are, of course, totally right, as I realised when I read your message and thought about it for a few seconds. Thanks for pointing my mistake out to me. I have now deleted the article. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 21:02, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you.—S Marshall T/C 22:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

User:A1Cafel

Just a heads up that I have reblocked the above user for violating one of their unblock conditions.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:57, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, though 20 months later I have no memory of the case. Looking back, though, it seems to me that I unblocked only with reservations, as evidenced by my comment at AN about when the editor could request a change to the conditions, so perhaps the current outcome isn't surprising. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 15:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Heh, I didn't remember it either. I spent a fair amount of time refreshing my memory. It doesn't help that the user changes their name frequently. They compound their deceit by denying editing logged out.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Hutch–Kinahan feud

Thank you for blocking 78.18.19.209 for disruptive editing. There were a few other IP addresses that edited that article (and others) in a disruptive manner - you may want to take a look at them too:

• 78.18.18.60 - this editor made a number of disruptive edits during August to the above article as well as RTÉ News and Current Affairs, List of Judges of the High Court (Ireland) and Murder of Elaine O'Hara - in the first article, some of the references have either been moved or replaced with incorrect markup - such as this or adding unsourced material like this or this. Particularly nasty were this edit which added the name of a convicted murderer in a particularly nasty murder cast as a legal advisor and this, which replaced the name of the same murderer with the name of Orla O'Donnell, a journalist. The familiarity with the murder case makes me suspect that the broken English of some edits may be feigned rather than genuine. Several of the disruptive edits to articles other than Hutch-Kinahan feud were reverted. This user hasn't edited since 18 August last but given the similarity in the IP address I wonder if it's the same person as you blocked using a different IP address.
• 213.202.136.217 - this editor edited Hutch-Kinahan feud, List of major crimes in Ireland and List of Judges of the High Court (Ireland). In the former this editor added unsourced edits such as this and this. In this edit the name Graham Dwyer is replaced with the name of journalist Orla O'Donnell, as with the vandal at 78.18.18.60.
• 78.18.238.156 - this editor added unsourced material such as this and this and this.

That covers some of them - not all of these IP addresses have been active lately, so I realise there may be no need to take any action. Thanks again for blocking the vandal. Autarch (talk) 22:05, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

@Autarch: Thanks. When I was looking into this with a view to blocking I noticed other IP edits too, though I don't remember whether they included the ones you have mentioned or not. Unfortunately the 78.18... and 78.19... edits are spread much too widely to range block them all, even if we ignore 213.202.136.217. I have placed a block on a fairly small range, on which more than 99% of the edits over the last 3 months appear to be from this person, and maybe when I have more time I will look into the question of whether there are other ranges to be blocked. On the basis of what I have seen it seems unlikely that it will be possible to cut off all of his/her potential IP addresses, but if we can block enough of a disruptive editor's IP addresses their editing can often be significantly slowed down, and sometimes in that situation an editor even eventually gives up altogether, so it's worth trying. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 16:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I just noticed that some more dubious edits were made as 78.19.236.26 (blocked) and 78.18.124.217 (not blocked). Maybe the next step should be WP:PAGEPROTECT. I'll take a look at other pages edits by those addresses over the next few days and see if they unconstructively edited also. Autarch (talk) 01:23, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

A.Wiki.The.Guy

Hi JBW,

I've found another so-called user, with no edits apart from setting up a user page, and using the project as a personal web space. Again found via Wikimedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:A.Wiki.The.Guy Acabashi (talk) 17:35, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

@Acabashi: OK. Since the accounts editing history to date has been limited to one day, eighteen months ago, the odds are that he has forgotten, or almost forgotten, about his Wikipedia vanity page, and will never come back, but I've deleted the page and posted him a warning, just in case. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 19:52, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Acabashi (talk) 09:32, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Batbash

Hi, I don't know how that works, but does it mean that that account was blocked because it looks more experienced than an average newbie is supposed to be? If yes, that is surprising, because I thought the only way to prove some account is a sockpuppet is to find a sockmaster.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:36, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: If you wish to know more information on why the block was originally placed you should ask Mkdw, who made the block. As for my reason for declining the block, there is another account with similarities to Batbash in so many different ways as to leave me in no doubt that it is the same person. Unfortunately I don't think it would be helpful to give further details, as several of the points of similarity are ones which could fairly easily be disguised if the editor knew what they are. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:41, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Already asked. Thank you.

Actually, I didn't know an accouns can be blocked as a sock even when a linkage with a concrete master has not been established. --Paul Siebert (talk) 22:23, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

• A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Check the edits

It’s clear that the edits are improper.Changes Emerson to Emersom Don’t be fooled by their nonsense. Jehochman ^Talk 13:58, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jehochman: That edit is an example of a sound change known as Sandhi. It is common in many languages for a final n to be pronounced as an m when followed by another word beginning with p or b. An example which I have seen cited in a number of linguistics text books is "London Bridge", which is very commonly pronounced "Londom Bridge" in English, although usually neither speaker nor listener is conscious of the fact, in part because it so common that one is programmed to overlook it. Another example given in the Wikipedia article on Sandhi is "tem books" for "ten books". Because this is a fine distinction normally operating below the threshold of conscious observation I believe it is unhelpful to make the change you mention, but making edits which you and I regard as unhelpful is not the same as making "improper" edits. Whether well-advised or ill-advised the edit is certainly not "nonsense", and was very probably made in good faith. However, all this is really off the point, because the block was for sockpuppetry, and even if one does view the edit you refer to as improper, that does nothing to address my reasons for being doubtful as to whether it is sockpuppetry. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 14:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

The behavioral evidence is that the account makes numerous unhelpful edits of this type. If they were correcting an error, I’d agree with you. That’s not the case. I oppose any unblock. This is a clear behavioral match. The user seeking to cause disruption by appealing is not a differentiating factor. Jehochman ^Talk 17:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

dafuq happened to sort-termism ???

poof, gone, just like that, because, wait for it, 3 sources were directly quoted, ten words each out of whole articles? and this is copyvio, seriously? Gem fr (talk) 15:52, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Gem fr: I accept that the amount of copying was small (though not 10 words from each article). However, the quoted text was not attributed as quotations. (I see that in two cases you used italics for quoted text, perhaps intending that to imply that the text was quoted, but you did not explicitly say so.) Wikipedia's copyright policy is quite strict, and more restrictive than copyright law, because the policy is to provide content which is completely freely reusable, subject to very weak conditions: essentially subject to attribution. I shall restore the article and remove the speedy deletion tag, but I very strongly suggest that you rewrite it without direct copies of text from elsewhere, to prevent it from being deleted again, which is likely to happen if the article is left in its present state.

fair enough, just do that, ping me when you do, and instead of quoting I will make original stuff ... (And please don't forget to restore links, if any, I saw one was deleted) Gem fr (talk) 20:25, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

You may also like to think about the way you phrased your message to me above, and consider whether other wording might have had a better chance of persuading another editor to your view on the matter. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 17:58, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Gem fr: One more thought. In its present form the article clearly espouses a point of view. To comply with Wikipedia policies it should be rewritten from a neutral point of view, and avoid promotion of an opinion. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 18:23, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@JBW: If you don't explain what point of view the article espouse, don't put the banner: nobody can do anything to fix an unspecified problem. So, please use the talk page, or delete the banner (no need to ping me on this, someone else surely is more qualified to fix a NPOV issue I at least contributed to) Gem fr (talk) 20:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

User talk:Gani Gash

You blocked this editor for self-promotion and, given their subsequent edits, you might want to revoke talk page access as well. Dorsetonian (talk) 20:36, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dorsetonian:  Done Thanks for telling me. However, it took me a few minutes to find the account, because its user name is Gani Gashi artist. I tried first Gani Gash and then GaniGash... It's worth being careful to get user names exactly right! JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 17:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks! And sorry about that bad link; I'm not sure how I managed to truncate it so badly like that (and not notice...) Dorsetonian (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dorsetonian: Things like that can easily happen, and I've done similar myself. My impression is that the commonest reason for something like that is a slight miscoordination between the moment of stopping moving the mouse and the moment of lifting the finger from the mouse button when selecting text. Obviously I don't know whether that was so this time, but it doesn't really matter. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Billy Coleman

Okay JamesBWatson, you have deleted Billy Coleman article that you should have moved to draft, but by deleting links in other articles to Billy Coleman, you have really outdone yourself. As an admin, you should be constructive, instead you are destructive, I am in serious doubt of your judgement. Wolfmartyn (talk) 20:07, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Wolfmartyn: I notice that you posted this message after you had had the copyright situation explained to you by two separate administrators, each with over 12 years of experience and over 144000 edits in their history. However, I will say a few things which I hope may help to clarify matters for you.

It is evident from a post you have made elsewhere that you have confused copyright with plagiarism. Plagiarism is using someone else's work without acknowledgement of the fact that you are doing so, and as long as you say where you got the work from it is not plagiarism. Copyright is a very different matter: it is using someone else's work without permission, and merely saying that you are doing so does not mean that you have permission. United States copyright law is very complex, with numerous ifs and buts, but the essential idea is that the creator of a work owns it, and has the right to determine who may use it and how. If Alice writes something, and owns the copyright to it, and Bob publishes a copy of it without her permission, with the statement "I am coping this from Alice's work", he is clearly not plagiarising the work, but he is still violating her copyright. Nor does putting the word "Draft" at the top of the page remove the need to have permission to publish a copy of it. If I were to post copyright infringing material to a draft, as you suggest I should, I would personally be legally liable for copyright violation, as well as being in violation of Wikipedia's policy.

As for deleting links, that is sufficiently standard practice when a page is deleted that administrative tools have built-in functionality to automatically remove backlinks when pages are deleted. If you think that should not be so then you should raise the matter with the people who maintain those tools, rather than complaining to individual administrators who are using those tools in the way in which they are designed to work.

As I said above, I hope those comments may help to clarify matters for you a little, but please feel welcome to let me know if there is anything else you think I may be able to help you with. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 10:10, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

UFC Ultimate Fight Night

Hi JBW!

I see you're a fellow Mathematician! I've been reading a bit more on group theory lately; it's been a while since my Modern Algebra class in college.

Anyway, I was going through the List of UFC Events page and I came across event '060' in the 'Past Events' list. I noticed the link was missing. Do you happen to know why the page was deleted, and if it can be restored?

Thanks for all your contributions!

- MvE — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxwell vs Euler (talk • contribs) 04:36, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

@MvE: Interesting what you say about group theory, because, several decades after I studied group theory at university, I have recently been doing some investigations in the subject, purely for my own interest.

The article you refer to was originally deleted as a result of discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UFC Ultimate Fight Night. The latest version, which I deleted, was essentially a straight copy of the version discussed at that discussion, with only minor changes, so it certainly qualified for speedy deletion as recreation of material deleted as a result of a deletion discussion.

As for whether the article can be restored, you are free if you wish to raise the matter with the editor who closed the deletion discussion. He or she is no longer an administrator, so they can't restore the article, but they can consider anything you say and give an assessment of whether there is a case for restoring it. If you do decide to do that, there is then the possibility of taking it to a deletion review.

Since my involvement was purely in relation to enforcing a decision taken as an outcome of a discussion, it was not my task to re-assess the debate, but in order to be able to give as much help as I can in answer to your question, I have looked at it. Apart from the reasoning given by the administrator who closed the discussion, most of the arguments for keeping were from single-purpose accounts, several of them certainly sockpuppets, some of whom used ad hominem attacks on the deletion nominator, and at least one of them had openly stated on another page that their intention was to use Wikipedia as a site to serve the wishes of "fans". The deletion was substantially influenced by arguments that the article conflicted with the policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, which seems to me to be entirely true, in the light of what various participants said. Although I have not studied them all in depth, it looks to me as though the same probably applies to other articles on the list you refer to, in which case raising the issue might produce something closer to reasons for deleting more of them, rather for restoring the deleted one you mention.

Well, that's how it looks to me. Obviously you can ask the original deleting administrator for an opinion, if you like, but considering that it was a long time ago, and he/she is no longer an administrator, and is in effect semi-retired, with a recent rate of editing that is a tiny fraction of what it was previously, they may not have a lot to say about the matter, I'm afraid. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 11:24, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Editing Dead link

Hi, When I browse, found this dead link. If you would like you may replace this dead link.

Dead link Page:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power

Dead link: Reference no 86. (The True Cost of Solar Power)

Live url for Reference no 86: The True Cost of Solar Power

Thanks Osuna — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlancaOsuna (talk • contribs) 14:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

(by talk reader) @BlancaOsuna: I've corrected the reference templates. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Hey, JB, evidently this editor would prefer an admin fix those links. Mind undoing that undo? –Skywatcher68 (talk) 18:28, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Actually, yes I do mind. After I read the original message above, I was thinking what to say in answer to the editor, when you posted your message in this section, and I thought "OK, Skywatcher68 has dealt with it, so I don't need to bother". However, when I saw your latest message I looked further into the editor's history. It is clear that their only purpose in editing is to post spam links to their wiki. What the message here was about was trying to get me to do that for them, to avoid being seen to do it, because they had been warned about doing it. You, quite rightly, cleaned up the link, but in a way which did not introduce the spam link they had asked for. That is why they reverted it, not because they wanted an admin to do it. I have blocked the account, and I don't wish to get involved in editing the article, but you are free to repeat your edit if you wish to. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:31, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Rangeblock request

2A02:C7D:8002:3D00:0:0:0:0/64 – the most recent disruptive editor has been blocked for 31 hours but more in that range have been active today. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:36, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Agreed. I've extended the block to the whole range. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:48, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

your reply on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/International Christian School of Budapest

Sorry, I had already copied that comment over to the main AFD page but forgot to remove it. May I copy your reply over also and then blank the entire talkapge? Meters (talk) 22:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

My mistake. I see you actually answered before I copied it. I obviously messed up. Up to you which copy you want to remove. I'll just remove my copy Meters (talk) 22:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

hi

i asked a q at the teahouse about editing. i need something easy to help out with. maybe a few tasks? Baozon90 (talk) 16:01, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Sneaky vandal

Hi, JB. I tried reporting 69.115.43.92 at the vandalism noticeboard but nothing happened; they're still engaging in subtle vandalism despite a final warning two weeks ago. They're also a repeat offender, having been blocked three times last year. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 07:49, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

All of their recent edits here, for example. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 08:02, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Protest of your unblock of BrownHairedGirl

Hello. I believe that Diannaa's block was preventative, and that your unblock without consulting the blocking administrator was inappropriate. The block was made 15 minutes after BHG reaffirmed that she saw her incivility to be justified by NA1k's conduct, saying, "I note yet again that you focus entirely on the forms of words used, and not on the substance of the problems which I have described." ([1], not my emphasis) This is not the case of Diannaa seeing an old comment and blocking 19 hours later, as you imply in your unblock note; the block was imposed directly after BHG's response to Diannaa's explanation of why her conduct was not acceptable. She was evidently blocked, not only for making that initial comment, but her inability to recognize why that comment is improper and why she is subject to WP:5P4 when responding to and talking about arguments (in this case, NA1k's) that she (and I) think are erroneous. The "forms of words", as BHG puts it, are extremely important. There are ways to refute an opponent's arguments without calling them hurtful names, questioning their intelligence, accusing them of trickery, evasion, manipulation, devious activities, and such. As BHG refused to acknowledge that, thus meaning they would not see any issue with repeating such conduct, I believe the block was justified as a preventative action against incivility, and that you should have consulted Diannaa prior to your unblock. Thank you, Vermont (talk)

+1 — Ched (talk) 23:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I applaud JBW's unblock, as no reasonable person could see BHG's comments as personal attacks (and I know ad hominem well). I think Diannaa needs to take a break from mopping of her own volition before ARBCOM gives her formal invite to close the janitor's closet for the long term. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:30, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Chris, you know full well that nothing of the sort will happen. JBW, I also object to the unblock which was issued without consultation of the blocking admin and in spite of your acknowledgement that BHG's unblock request was not compliant with policy. For whatever reason, BHG has been permitted to make repeated attacks regarding the intelligence of another editor and Diannaa's block was the first meaningful consequence for this long-term disruption. I doubt very much if such latitude would be extended to a non-admin who unapologetically resorted to personal attacks and bullying over an extending period of time. This type of special treatment is unhealthy and damages the morale of rank-and-file editors such as myself. Your unblock has continued this pattern of special treatment and leaves me doubtful that anything will be done to stop harmful behavior that has hindered effective discussion of portal-related issues and driven some editors away from the topic. Lepricavark (talk) 01:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

About nine minutes after you left this comment, BHG referred to NA1k as "the miscreant". ([2]) She also wrote that she roadtests her comments to ensure they are twistproof. I agree with her; they are twistproof. They're quite blatantly WP:NPA. Vermont (talk) 02:12, 18 November 2019 (UTC)