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Current issues

Did You Know?

Did you know... that Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, placed on its front page DYK section an article about Dave Teo, a Singaporean conscript whose court case has not yet even started, let alone furnished a conviction? "We will laugh at your calamity: we will mock you when your fear cometh" (Wikiproverbs 1:26) Guy (Help!) 20:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, please note, this is not a dig at anyone, updating DYK is dull handle-turning and nobody loves a dull job, I was just thinking that perhaps we should all have a look at some of the DYK noms from time to time and decline some of the more contentious ones. Including election candidates in current elections. Guy (Help!) 20:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
  • More screeners are always welcome at T:TDYK, a reasonable objection usually keeps a nom from reaching the main page. Anyone can make comments there, even IPs... screening is a pretty dull process though, as you say, but if no comments there in the 5-day period... it's hard for admins to catch everything, unopposed nominations are added by default unless there's a backlog. In this case, no one objected, although interestingly the original nom didn't mention the conscript's name. It's now off DYK altogether. --W.marsh 21:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Sadly, DYK has joined WSS as the hive of instruction creep here in the last year. Both processes, when I last used them in 2006, were simple "post a line here, work done by others there, output to be seen here" things. A year later, both require their blocks lined up in a neat row and fuck the rest of the 'pedia, both are effectively being run by a tiny community with nothing better to do, both have huge hurdles to climb to get anywhere, both slap down anyone who complains with the crappy and creepy "well, other people manage okay so there isn't a problem (except with you)" rubric, and both make egregious errors that it is impossible to challenge safely.

The result is a process so in love with the process itself that awful rubbish is given priority without review because someone active in the clique in question has given it the nod without really thinking about it.

Root and branch reform is needed in DYK and WSS, but the clear fallout deters many people, myself included.

And, random surfers, please note the lack of personal attacks here. I'm stating my opinion and naming no names (I don't even remember any names), so save yourselves the threatening emails. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 22:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I only became involved with DYK in the last three months or so and I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. As far as I can tell it's the least bureaucratic project on Wikipedia. I have no idea who the ruling community is. Maybe give DYK another chance? Whatever problems you have with it must have changed. --JayHenry 01:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And I don't mean to be dismissive of your concerns, I just don't know what DYK was like a year ago, so it's hard for a newcomer to see what the problem is. The whole reason I like DYK is (what I perceive to be) the complete lack of bureaucracy. There are no votes, although certain lengths of hooks and articles are suggested, anyone can do the updates and ignore the suggestions. I've frequently updated articles that are shorter than suggested, have too long of hooks, were written too long ago, or whatever, and nobody has ever given me any grief for it. --JayHenry 01:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: Dave Teo ... article was created by an administrator and there had been a comment/suggestion from a known DYK participant, so it was reasonable to assume it was up-to-snuff. As a side note, I don't do much DYK updating these days, but it had been 17 hours (!!!) since the last update and I'd had enough spare time to get that done. howcheng {chat} 22:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I might be considered part of the DYK Cabal. I would have more time for checking items like Dave Teo if I could get any interest in automating some simpler edits I do routinely, most of which aren't even in the instructions but draw complaints if they aren't done. My main contribution to instruction creep is User:Art LaPella/Long hook, but that's good instruction creep - it doesn't pop up unless it's needed, you usually don't have to read beyond the first couple sentences, and it's better than the previous un-system of constant complaining that selecting administrators should edit more for brevity. I'm puzzled by "egregious errors that it is impossible to challenge safely" - I've never worried about anything other than accuracy when challenging an error, so come on in, the water's fine. Art LaPella 01:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure. At the risk of more instruction creep, though, I think we should strongly discourage DYKs about people actively running for office, people with legal cases in process, anything where there is even a faint whiff of WP:BLP issues. My own view is also that allt hose cases where ten possible hooks are suggested by a single editor looking to get his own article on some wrestler or college baseball player on the front page should be speedily rejected, but that's just me :o) Guy (Help!) 12:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

whats wrong with having dave teo on dyk? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.19.150 (talk) 03:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I think WP:DYK does a pretty remarkable job at spotting some of the newer gems amongst the dross and keeping the Main Page interesting. The DYK section on the Main Page is completely rewritten at least once, and usually two or three times, every day. It brings 5 to 8 new articles to general attention each time - around 20 per day; most are improved even further by the increased eyeball; and very very few are subsequently deleted (just look for the redlinks in the archive). Compare WP:TFA and WP:POTD, which change once per day and can be set up several days in advance; WP:ITN, which turns over perhaps one, two or three bullet points per day; and WP:SA, which now has complete annual coverage.

I have no idea what the complaint from User:Redvers above is about. DYK is one of the lightest processes on Wikipedia I know: write a new article (or significantly expand an existing stub), add a hook to T:DYKT, and wait. -- !! ?? 11:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm back!

Hey everyone, I'm back from a wayyyyy long wikibreak (over a year!). I'm going to get back into the swing of things and hopefully be editing on a somewhat regular basis again as well as doing RfA promotions and name changes and the like.

Could someone be so kind as to inform me of any major changes that have occurred during the year that I was gone? Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 01:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back. There's always a need for active admin and crats... WjBscribe 01:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Um. Do you want to read 52 issues of the Wikipedia:Signpost? :-) I can't actually think of what the major things were that happened. As always, check the CSD wordings and policies, as subtle changes might have happened that could trip someone up. Oh, there was a Community Sanctions Noticeboard that opened and then closed. There was an Essjay controversy. Something called WikiScanner caught loads of people, including the US Congress, editing their bios to make themselves look good. I'm sure others will add some of the more important stuff I've forgotten. Oh, RfA is (still) "broken", but managing to function OK despite perennial calls for reform. There were a few controversial RfAs. Oh, and the first adminbot got approved a few weeks ago. There was a big kerfuffle about something called Wikipedia:Attribution. There were also ArbCom Elections nearly a year ago, and you are back just in time for this year's elections. Jimbo also pulled a few rabbits out of hats every now and again, to keep everyone on their toes. What else happened? Did Esperanza close this year, or was that last year? Ooh. Need to start keeping a diary! :-) Carcharoth 21:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC) Wikipedia Yearbook, anyone?

You guys forgot Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jimbo Wales. Welcome back! Neranei (talk) 21:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh look! Another adminbot RFA! Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TempDeletionBot. And anonymous page creation is about to be turned back on in a few days, so people are gearing up for a big flood that might never arrive. Carcharoth 21:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Welcome back indeed. Your reputation precedes you :) It's hard to know where to start on the news, though. WP:SIGNPOST and its archives? - Alison ^❤ 21:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, we need to start hiring historians. bibliomaniac15 A straw poll on straw polls 22:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

They are currently busy writing our encyclopedic content on history... Carcharoth 23:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Claps! Keegan^talk 22:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Dealing with persistent copyright abusers

Friends, I direct your attention to the upload log and talk page of someone I think we can all agree is a problem user. As you can see, he continued uploading copyrighted images long after his talk page was riddled with copyright notices, and long after the images started to be deleted en masse. Now that Shell Kinney, who pointed him out at PUI, and I (and you) have our eye on him, obviously he'll be monitored if he continues to upload images, and blocked if need be. But I think we need to have a conversation about how we deal with such users in general. Is there an easy way to track the people who Orphanbot and the others are hitting most frequently? Should they be blocked on sight? It's pretty obvious they're not paying much attention to their talk pages, so it becomes hard to reason with them. Thoughts? Chick Bowen 02:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I would say use one of the 'Uploading inappropriate images' templates, probably, for this excess, at level three, and then follow up on it the next upload. The copyright notices only work, as you know, when someone actually pays attention, so warn him, block him (or have him blocked) despite the fact he's ignoring the page , and then force him to have nowhere to talk except his page. None of his current (excessive) warnings mention being blocked, so he has no reason to pay the slightest attention to them. The tools are there, but they're not clear, and perhaps we need some more (severe) image warnings for users like this (the image warnings are sparse at WP:UTM) --Thespian 02:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

IMO, it would be more effective to talk to the editor without using templates... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.244.249 (talk) 02:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It usually is, and I prefer it, but if the editor has persistantly ignored posts to his talk page, and it is unsure that they are even *looking* at it, it does lend itself to becoming time to get his attention more forcibly. There are 53 warnings on his page, almost all of them about this issue, and almost all of them about images that were deleted because the user didn't respond to them (to save them or otherwise). If the user doesn't respond to talk pages (and in this case, they haven't ever posted to a talk page for any of the articles they write for, either), it does call for a stronger way of getting their attention. I am unsure, in this case, if the user will pay attention and work with the project (which would be nice, as they're obviously very enthusiastic, though they don't grasp/pay attention to copyright law) or simply create a new account. --Thespian 03:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

ETA: I wonder if it might be worth looking into adding 'blocked from uploading' to Help:Block_and_unblock#Blocking_options the blocking options, as this user doesn't seem to have any real problems with content, just images. I'm also going to post a note letting them know of this discussion, on the off chance they'll see it and respond. --Thespian 03:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And yet, the only way that we can effectively stop the uploads is by blocking the user from doing anything on Wikipedia. I knew it was mentioned before that we can block for this, but we just need to dig it out saying where it can be done. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

right. I know that we currently can't, I was just wondering if it could be made into an option. I didn't mean just adding it to the page, I meant to the blocking options as a whole; this is a tech musing, and it will certainly not happen in time to deal with this user! --Thespian 03:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I have thought about it several times; that would make things a lot easier if we could just turn off uploads for users without having to block them. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:37, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, perhaps, but in this case the problem is simpler than that: the user does not seem to be reading or heeding the messages. This is a good reason to block him, in my view - he will then have to engage in dialogue, at which point we can find out if he is one of those who rejects the whole idea of copyright, or whether he simply doesn't get why it's important. Guy (Help!) 09:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah; that's why I made the suggestion as above (and indeed, why I notified him, to see if he was just ignoring warnings or the whole page), so his attention could be grabbed. But I suspect him not having upload privs, since that seems to be most of his work, would do the same. --Thespian 09:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And what Guy said before worked in one case; I blocked a user over the images and I got an email from him months later. I agree a block should be done now. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I've indefinitely blocked the user. In cases like these, all of those messages serve as warnings. In a recent case, the user agreed not to work at all in the Image space as a condition of his unblocking.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 21:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And I have put Template:Indefblockeduser on his user page. Greg Jones II 00:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Request review of WP:U block on User:Sexybeast6989

Resolved

This username was reported at WP:UAA. I regarded it as borderline, but ultimately judged it to nominally violate #3, bullet 5 at Wp:u#Detailed_examples. User:I, who created the account as a legitimate sock and has since created User:Sbfw for the same purpose, asked that I have some other admins review the block. I don't have strong feelings about it, so if someone would like to unblock it, please go right ahead and let I know. Thanks! Dppowell 04:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not create the Sexybeast account, actually. I created the sbfw one, and was trying to figure something out with the html tags using this account's preferences, and forgot to restore this signature. Just to clear that up. i (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

My apologies; I was drawing an inference from your objections on my talk page and from your new account name, which appeared to be an abbreviation/variation on the blocked account. Dppowell 05:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't unblock it. The username is marginally in violation of the username policy but it's one deleted contribution was a nonsense article [1] so I don't hold out too much hope for useful edits.--Sandahl 05:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Concur with Sandahl. If it were just the "Sexybeast" I could probably see it as okay, but with that edit and "69" in the name, it's a violation in my view. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Also 89 is synonymous with titty fuck, (pardon the expression). Combined with 69 and sexybeast is an obvious reference to sexual slang. Jackaranga 12:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow! It's ... ummm ... amazing what you can learn on Wikipedia - Alison ^❤ 21:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. Dppowell 13:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It may be that 89 is the user's birth year? Lemon martini 14:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Indefinite block of User:Gene Nygaard

Resolved

I am extending the block of Gene Nygaard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to indefinite duration, given his long track record of WP:POINT violations and disruptive incivility. My feeling is that the project can survive perfectly well without his contributions, and that he has been sufficiently warned to have enabled him to change his manner should he have so desired. To clarify matters before any accusations of wheel-warring, my decision is revesible by any administrator. Physchim62 (talk) 14:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Fair enough. I considered that myself at the time. Nothing personal, I think Gene's personality is simply too combative to be conducive to consensus-based editing. Guy (Help!) 14:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I object to the indefinite block. I don't see evidence of consensus for a community ban. Gene is frequently uncivil and overly-stubborn, and I have been on the receiving end of his sarcasm, but he has (and is, up until his block) been doing some fine work on the encyclopedia. Firsfron of Ronchester 14:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to the block, but I believe that the admins involved need to look very closely at the various IP's and users (I specifically refer to User:Greg L) who have been baiting Gene. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• The man has 50k mainspace contributions, the great majority of which are just fine. Until this week he had a total of three unreversed blocks, the longest of which was 48 hours. I feel that going straight to an indefinite block at this point is not called for. The weeklong block, straight on the heels of a 72 hour block was already a very substantial action. Haukur 14:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Consensus for a community ban is not needed before an indef block. I have noted the above comments, I'm now going out for a coffee :) As I mentioned above, if an administrator feels that I have been too bold, especially following the discussion above and any further discussion here, then they should replace the original 7-day ban. Otherwise, I stand by my action, at the same time opening it for calm discussion. Physchim62 (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Can you prove a small selection of diffs to illustrate the WP:POINT behavior? There is nothing wrong with an indefinite block because it can be refactored if the user admits mistakes and expresses a sincere desire to improve. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

FOR BACKGROUND ON THIS: See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruption_of_Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts_by_Rlevse — Rlevse • Talk • 15:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• My contribution to the calm discussion is that there is no need for an indefinite block at this stage. Apart from the incivility, the contributions are good. And to be frank, some of the incivility is stuff that could be shrugged off if people looked past the incivilty and saw the point being raised. If someone says something relevant to me, while being incivil, I try to look past the incivility and learn from the advice that is being given. I try not to ignore the advice and, hackles raised, get all upset about the incivility. Also, the escalating lengths of the blocks has only been 24 hours, 48 hours, 74 hours, 1 week (not yet served) and then suddenly a move to indefinite. I would suggest reblocking at the one week level, and then escalating further to a month and so on, if the incivility continues. Carcharoth 15:11, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• How hard would it be for the user to apologize and promise not to repeat the same mistake? I think that's a very easy condition for an unblock or reduction. - Jehochman ^Talk 15:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Many users react to a long block with an outburst of outrage. So far, as far as I know, Gene has been silent. We can't really hold that against him. Not to mention that for all we know he went camping after his last edit yesterday and doesn't know about the block bidding-war since then. Haukur 15:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Noting that I'm the person who issued the 72-hr block, I think the block should be reduced back to the 1 week block, per Carcharoth. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• "How hard would it be for the user to apologize and promise not to repeat the same mistake?" - by that argument, all blocks should be indefinite until the person who is blocked apologises for whatever behaviour allegedly caused the block. That sort of system would soon collapse as it would actually promote wheel-warring ("because he hasn't apologised!") or would promote bad-faith apologies. It also presumes that all blocks are correct, and makes blocking a more humiliating experience than it is at the moment, and brings up the disturbing image of some admins dangling a carrot of "apologise before I unblock you". Apologising should be natural, not forced. Carcharoth 15:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect to Physchim, I feel an indefinite block at this point is counterproductive to building encyclopedic content, and have restored the seven-day block. It is very clear that Gene has been uncivil and has made personal attacks, per this. However, comments on the administrator's noticeboard indicate that several users feel that the method of prevention of disturbance to the encyclopedia in this case (an indefinite block) is excessive. As Phychim has indicated he does not object to undoing the indefinite block, I have done so. It is my hope that Gene can reform his habits and return to building the encyclopedia when his block expires. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Firsfron (talk • contribs) 15:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• When a pattern of behavior has been long term, I think it makes sense that the block should last until the user expresses a desire to change. The apology thing, Carcharoth, wouldn't be necessary on the first or maybe second incident. This user was given several short blocks, so he was clearly on notice that the behavior needed to change, yet he continued. We're sending a message, but he's not getting it. Thus, there is a logic in blocking him until we have evidence that the message is received and understood. It's no big deal that the block was refactor to 7 days, either, because P62 invited that. - Jehochman ^Talk 16:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
• Carcharoth, actually that would be a good idea. If we never unblocked anyone until we were sure that they appreciated what they'd done wrong and were determined not to do it again, life might be a lot quieter. Guy (Help!) 17:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• That depends on how you define "we" and "sure". I don't think it would be workable. The real trolls would always show enough contrition to get someone to unblock them, and there would be arguments over the detail of apologies that would be too lame for words. Carcharoth 18:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think making unblocks conditional on contrition is a good idea. We're encyclopedists here, not confessors. Their moral state of mind should be none of our business. It's not hard to issue escalating blocks over behavior without once considering motivations. That way lies... complications. It's a simple cause-and-effect thing: "Act this way, and you'll be blocked; if you wish not to be blocked, don't act that way." -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

As a long time editor Gene is serious, rational, competent and hard working. He has always shown the best intentions for this project. The problems with his manor are small compared to all that, in my opinion.

An indefinite ban of this type of editor is rare. I'd like to ask that any off-wiki conversations on this topic be noted here now. --Duk 16:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I am against an indefinite block but would support the case to be taken to arbitration. Some kind of parole could be an option. I have had clashes with him in the past over trivial issues that he stubbornly blew out of proportion. His campaign against anything with diacritics on has made him no friends in many occassions. Nonetheless, I agree that he is a hardworking contributor and it would be particularly cruel to impose a community ban. Regards, Asterion^talk 17:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Block reduction noted. In the light of the above comments, the restoration of the original block has my support. Physchim62 (talk) 18:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, I think this thread can be wrapped up. Any philosophical discussions can be continued elsewhere. - Jehochman ^Talk 20:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
  • See new section below: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Targeted sanctions for Gene Nygaard?. Carcharoth 11:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Targeted sanctions for Gene Nygaard?

Header added and new section split off by Carcharoth 11:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a long history of conflicts with Gene Nygaard, although none is currently active (phew). Most of Gene's contributions to the project have been positive, but when it comes to diacritics things get ugly. I think that a probation against incivility and diacritics-warring would be the best way to deal with Gene's bad temper. A permanent ban should be issued by the arbcom, which I find unlikely. Húsönd 01:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"A permanent ban should be issued by the arbcom"? I think you've got it backwards. The ArbCom issues one year bans and various probations and paroles, but rarely indefinite bans. The community is largely the other way around. Picaroon (t) 01:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't a community-imposed ban on page moves be the obvious solution? From what I can see (looking at his logs), he moves pages from spellings with diacritics to those without. He is right to ask people to find references to support the spellings with diacritics. What I can see is mainly a tendency to assume he is right and move things without sufficient (or any) discussion, and (to varying extents) to be incivil about it at the same time. He is quite right to insist on lack of diacritics in category and DEFAULTSORT keys, as diacritics (and lower case letters) do mess up the sorting. That is in the category sorting guidelines. So, again, a targeted community sanction based on page moves and incivility is probably what arbcom would come up with, so why don't we just do that now? He should still be part of the discussions on the topic, if he can be civil in those discussions. This is also complicated by the fact that he does lots of perfectly good page moves as well. It seems that the diacritics is really the bone of contention here. All this would only work, though, if he agreed to it, so maybe this discussion should reconvene when the block expires? If the community can't agree on a targeted solution like this, then take it to arbcom. Carcharoth 11:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to pile on but I've also had a couple run-ins with Gene Nygaard where civility has gone out the window from his first edit - and those run-ins go back years! Blocks of escalating lengths should have begun a long time ago IMHO. I can think of a few editors - Tecmobowl (talk · contribs) comes to mind - who were permabanned for similar levels of incivility over far smaller ranges of time (months instead of years). And Tecmobowl/Jmfangio was creating GA and FA-level articles during his tumultuous time here. —Wknight94 (talk) 13:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The Tecmobowl decision is here. It seems that was more for the sockpuppeting (not a consideration here, obviously). Before the sockpuppeting, it seems that a topic ban was being considered, though I haven't read the whole debate. Talking of escalating blocks, it would help if people clarified where the jump-off point to indefinite is. Tecmobowl seems to have been another case of various 24 and 48 hour blocks, followed by a one week block that turned into an indefinite one, in his case when he carried on his edits using sockpuppets during the CSN discussion (I think). Carcharoth 15:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Gene took a five month break. Since returning in September, he's made about 5,000 edits. Of those, 59 are page moves, and of those 26 involve diacritics or oriental characters - this includes talk pages - usually with good edit summaries. So in 5,000 edits, he's moved about 14 pages with diacritics (approximate counting). The dispute that spawned this section had nothing to do with diacritics (I think it was the kilogram page and Wikiquette). Husond comes here and asks for a community imposed diacritic-related sanction - and offers not a shred of evidence why it is needed. There is no need for any diacritic-related page move sanction. --Duk 00:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Gene Nygaard ALREADY HAS A MOVE BAN: Wikipedia:Community_sanction/Log#Gene_Nygaard_is_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice. For additional info, see: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Is_this_disruption.3F, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Implementation_of_Gene_Nygaard_article_move_ban, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive130#User:Gene_Nygaard_pages_moves, Wikipedia:Community_sanction/Log#Gene_Nygaard_is_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice, User_talk:Gene_Nygaard/2006Aug-2006Oct#You_are_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive210#User:Gene_Nygaard, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive227#Blocking_User:Gene_Nygaard. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Right, I see that now. All I was working from was his block log, which has no mention of being blocked per such a sanction. Is there a place to check for such community sanctions (I see there is a Log subpage - is that easy to search?), or did they all go out of the window when the noticeboard was closed down? I also see that the previous discussions didn't mention the CSN discussions. Did you only just find them? And why, oh why, did no one actual enforce those previous sanctions?? I still think that escalating enforcement is a good idea, but that jumping from one week to indefinite is too soon. Is there a scale somewhere that people use? Can you block for a month, two months, a year? I know Arbcom use (or have used) such lengths, so why does the community seem to jump from 48 hours to a week, and then straight to indefinite? Carcharoth 15:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

All one has to do is check "What links here" (what linked to Gene's userpage), and filtering to show only Wikipedia pages. Why no one has enforced this, I don't know. The community sanctions are still there and they are still in force. I only came across Gene recently. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Lar, who wrote up the CSN topic ban, can enlighten us? It is possible it was only a 6-month topic ban and has since expired, but the note doesn't mention that. Thanks for the tip about using what links here restricted to WP namespace - that will owrk well in some cases. We should still have a better record of these things - that is what block logs are meant to be used for! Carcharoth 18:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

What was the question? (this is in response to a request to turn up here) It was a while ago but I think I was trying to capture the consensus that I think had formed, see wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Is_this_disruption.3F particularly toward the bottom. The ban was "from non consensual article moves until further notice". That seems to suggest that it's indefinite, not any particular time (in particular there was not support for a 6 month period) but that if a new consensus forms, it could be changed. It also seems to suggest that it is limited in scope, if there are other issues (civility or edit warring or whatever) those are to be addressed separately The enforcement mechanism was short blocks, escalating if they didn't work. So what's the question? Is it "whether that move ban is still in force?" I'd say it is, until consensus forms that it shouldn't be. Is such a consensus forming? I see Duk making some good and valid points about how this is an important issue and how we need editors who can work these technical matters, but not a consensus yet. Anything else I can't really speak to. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 19:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe why it took us so long to find the previous topic ban? :-) Do people really use that log page of the defunct noticeboard? I saw a mention in that thread you linked to where you said

"There has to be an exit strategy... does this ban last forever? That's why I suggested clear consensus. If he is absolutely banned we will never know if he has changed his ways. That said I'm not driving here, just supporting what I see consensus forming to be and I am, as we all are, open to discussion, I would think. Community bans or article bans are an area we are still feeling our way about, so I'm not sure where this would be recorded even... seems impolite to hang it on his userpage forever, but it will get lost here quickly. No idea what to suggest (maybe there already is a page and i forgot)" - Lar 18:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That was followed immediately by a suggestion of a 6 month probation. I find it ironic that you emphasised not having an open-ended ban, and then that was what resulted (though as you said, you were not driving the discussion), but the bit about not being sure where to record it, and it "getting lost here quickly" is ironic. The page it is on is now marked "This Wikipedia page is currently inactive and is retained primarily for historical interest." It was found again, but it seems people did forget about it! Carcharoth 19:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

(partly outdent) I supported the CSN and in particular the log subpage, when it was first created, as a way to not lose things. AN/I runs so fast it is very easy to lose track of long term probations, community topic bans and the like. What CSN mutated into is a different topic but to have a ban get lost as it seems this one did, just seems a bad outcome, so I do not support the marking of that page as historic. It logs bans that are still in force, in some cases, and the tag ought to be removed. I'm not sure what else you're asking though, if anything. If the community wants to change the terms of this particular move/topic ban around, they should feel free to do so, and this seems the place to discuss it and reach a consensus. I haven't thought deeply enough about this recently to have a strong opinion about what the right thing to do is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lar (talk • contribs) 19:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, things seem to have slowed down again with this discussion. Did the CSN discussions have a set time to run, or did they just reach a natural conclusion? The old CSN Log page should probably be moved, or the current logs copied, to a Log subpage at AN, or wherever AN keeps its records... There definitely needs to be somewhere for community bans to be logged. You mentioned not putting them on user talk pages - well, there is some logic in putting a notice there, like for warning templates, but then you will get people saying that users have the right to remove them, just like they can for warning templates. An argument could be made that community sanctions are more serious, and so the notice should stay for the duration of the topic ban. It could be controversial though. What do others think? Carcharoth 21:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't recall how long things ran for before consensus was called on the CSN. But I think that irrelevant in this case, as this particular move restriction was arrived at, as I recall, at AN/I and only documented on the CSN. This is water over the dam at this point but I favoured the CSN for documenting things. Not necessarily for the later elaboration of being a place to arrive at things to document. There needs to be somewhere for bans to be logged that is independent of the user's own talk page, I think that is a better approach than saying "we have this rule about talk page removals which applies here and here but not there warnings are OK but ban notices aren't, except as applied under paragraph 3C but not in subsection 41g " :) ... ++Lar: t/c 01:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking into this a bit more deeply, and Gene does have a point. Not many people are aware that redirects are needed from non-diacritic titles, and that category sorting keys need to use non-diacritic characters (please be honest and say whether you knew the latter point about sort keys before reading these threads). Gene's method of using page moves to draw more attention to this sort of thing is not good, but rather than block him and brush this under the carpet, we need to consider how to make more people aware of the need for non-diacritic redirects and non-diacritic sort keys. I know a bit about this, because I recently suggested a bot to fix the use of non-diacritic sort keys (the bot would also need to make lower case letters at the start of words, into upper case letters, an eliminate punctuation like apostrophes). I also read Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive141#Is this disruption?, and one point Gene raised there was not addressed. Does anyone know whether search engines ignore diacritics or not? Gene's point was: "Redirects don't solve all the problems; articles can still be hidden from many search engine searches as a result of these moves accompanied by spelling changes within the article itself." Could someone try and address that, please? I did a test search for Ramūnas Šiškauskas, by searching for "Ramunas Siskauskas", and the Wikipedia article still appeared at the top of the search results (Google). I think that if we get a bot correcting the sort keys, and make an effort to encourage creation of redirects (a thankless task, but one that is needed), then we might be able to get somewhere. A similar case is for redirects involving middle initials, or forename initials. These too are desperately needed to turn redlinks blue, and this should be separated out from the disputes over where exactly among a plethora of alternatives the article should reside. Carcharoth 16:17, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, Husond, you are mixing the civility dispute with the diacritics dispute. Separate the two, and focus on Gene's recent edits to make your case. Otherwise your request for a targeted sanction isn't credible. more comments to come... --Duk 17:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Carcharoth, you're right that the diacritic indexing is little-known. But the correct way to educate people is not by calling them simplistic or calling them fools (that last talk page is a nice example of Gene Nygaard's diplomacy skills). —Wknight94 (talk) 17:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey I didn't start all this! :-) But be it, Gene's incivility comes from his views on diacritics so these issues can hardly be dissociated. I don't even think that there's much point in focusing much on recent events, as Gene's misbehavior has remained unchanged for years. Block after block, here we are. I think it's time for an effective remedy to be found. Húsönd 18:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It strikes me as odd that he mixes the two. How diacritics are sorted in a category hardly seems worth warring over and yet he has done so for years. I once suggested that he request a bot to take care of those but was met with yet another snippy response. If a bot could do something, it can't be worth getting uncivil for. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:12, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me, Husond, that your remedy is to silence an editor with views different than your own. You are using argument B (incivility) to win argument A (the content dispute). Have you no shame? --Duk 18:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me, Duk, that your comments will henceforth be largely ignored by me. Húsönd 18:47, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, can we concentrate on Gene, and not you two, please? :-) Carcharoth 18:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Some comments:

1. Gene's incivility - This is highly subjective. It has never bothered me in the least - even when directed at me. For others, it is highly upsetting, and I respect their feelings. Others probably don't really don't care. And still others play up the incivility because they didn't do well in a content debate with Gene, even if these people can't recognize or admit it. Since this is highly subjective, there needs to be many views heard. This is a case where it is not acceptable for off-wiki collusion among buddies to make these judgments. There seems to be a growing consensus here for simple blocks of varying duration every time Gene pisses off enough people.
3. Content disputes - In the past, I've seen people in content disputes with Gene who don't do to well debating him, so they switch to his incivility - trying to use argument B to win argument A. I hope we are all smart enough here not to accept this. Many of Gene's battles revolve around his familiar refrain "why the hell isn't the English Wikipedia written in English". Husond gets close to mixing these two in the first paragraph of this section. They need to be separate, and Gene has done well lately, I believe, in not revert warring over page name moves. Therefore, I don't agree with a diacritics-related ban. If Husond wants to make a case for this, he needs to separate the content dispute from the civility dispute, and to look at recent editing. It seems to me that Husond just wants to silence an editor who he has a content dispute with.
5. Making a place for technical editors - I've seen many editors that are detail orientated. They tend to work hard and specialize in a focused area, becoming highly skilled in that particular area. They shoot for project-wide consistency, which inevitably brings conflict. These editors are generally non-social. They don't hang out in irc or come to the project to make a lot of friends, which puts them at a natural disadvantage when disputes arise. These types of editors also tend to be stubborn as hell, but valuable to the project. They are immune to social pressure and only listen to logic. There is a lot to gain by finding ways to include these types of editors, but many people don't understand how to interact with them. In a few cases, I've seen editors like this become embroiled in ever growing conflicts over amazingly trivial stuff - and eventually leaving. The important thing to realize here that both sides of the dispute were being stubborn. The inability to get along wasn't one-sided.
7. All that being said - I support Guy's latest block of Gene and hope he comes back with better behavior. --Duk 18:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Duk's points here. I too see people (not specifically in this case, but it might apply), getting upset when they are shown that they have been doing something wrong. Wounded pride and that, but so unnecessary. It doesn't help if the person pointing out that you have done something wrong is being rude or uncivil, but words like "fool" and "simple" can be shrugged off if you take a philosophical view - though I can understand some people getting upset with that. The best response is to swallow your pride and thank the editor for pointing out the mistake. The next point is crucial (though it doesn't work well if no-one is watching): let someone else call the offending editor out on incivility (ironically, I think wikiquette alerts are meant to allow this, which is what started all this). As the person who has just been hurt, you won't be the best person to deal with the situation. If anyone then "uses argument B to win argument A", well, I agree with Duk, that is indefensible (note that I'm not saying anyone has specifically done this). Finally, Duk's point about technical editors is an excellent one. Good contributors are sometimes naturally cranky people, and not good at social interaction, preferring to call a spade a spade. If that spills over into incivility, it does need to be restrained, but, like Duk, I think technical editors are invaluable to the project. Strong warnings when they are incivil, rather than immediate blocks, might be best. A strong warning probably helps more than a block in some cases. Anyway, if anyone is interested in the bot proposal, it is linked from User talk:Gene Nygaard. Carcharoth 19:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I understand that some people are cranky by nature, but that doesn't mean that others have to put up with their crankiness. Strong warnings have proved useless with Gene, as he never apologizes or makes the slightest effort to change his behavior. On Wikipedia, all users have the right to communicate with Gene Nygaard (or any other user) without being spit on. Húsönd 01:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Husond, I partially agree with you here. I've never shortened or unblocked Gene, nor have I condoned his incivility. He doesn't get passes, unlike some of our more high profile admins. As for his being able to change: in his last 5,000 edits he's moved 14 pages with diacritics - all apparently straight forward, with proper edit summaries and no warring involved (as far as I could tell). That's a change, wouldn't you admit? Yet you come here asking for diacritic-related community sanctions. Things like this makes it very difficult to take anything you say seriously when it concerns Gene. Mayby Gene isn't the only one who needs to change a little.

Now, back to that high profile admin I mentioned - not going to mention his name because he's a great guy and I've no desire to run him down. There was an ANI discussion a while back about when to block for "persistent personal attacks". I noted that it was never a part of the blocking policy until recently. I went and found out who added it, then looked at his recent edits. In a period of three days I see him making the following comments:calling someone's opinion "ass clownery", "delete nominator", "Shut up and quit being a disgrace", "Ah, I see you're a different attention-seeking pissant entirely. My mistake." Suffice it to say that he is a well connected and popular member of the administrator community with a spotless block record. Again, I'm not trying to legitimize this behavior, but rather to put it into perspective.

I think we should drop these outdated diacritic-page-move charges, they are currently being used as a bludgeon with no facts to back them up. His category/page sorting is fine too. Hunsond should stay away from Gene and stop filing complaints. An impartial admin should hand Gene blocks with a minimum of fuss and drama when merited - call it a community sanctioned civility parol if you like, but I don't think the pomp is necessary. --Duk 03:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the incivility and the content/formatting issues should be separated as much as possible - there is enough of a problem with the former, and that's what we are dealing with here. I made this post to WP:AN/I with just a selection of Gene's interactions - just from the last month. I don't think you should underestimate quite how many editors have had problems with his incivility, and something really needs to change here.

• Incivility may be "subjective", but how many editors' "subjective" annoyance are we going to ignore?
• The problems may surface in content disputes, but there are always going to be such disputes - which is exactly why WP:CIVIL exists. He has every right to hold strong views, but he only has the privilege to edit and express them civilly.
• I don't see why "technical editors" should be awarded privilege over other content-producing editors. Here we have Gene telling a new (and now valuable) editor to stop contributing new articles in an area Wikipedia was weak on, just because he didn't know about sort keys. The motto of Wikipedia is certainly not "The free encyclopedia anyone who knows our MOS and formatting rules can edit". How many new editors stopped contributing because their first interaction was with Gene? Is it worth losing all their possible contributions because they haven't read about DEFAULTSORT, or format a unit incorrectly? Is it worth losing them because we can't tackle one user's incivility?
• If you want technical editors who tend to be "stubborn as hell" and who we "don't understand how to interact with them" to be better integrated, might it not be an idea as a first step to tell them not to pick numerous fights by placing rude comments on people's talk pages out of the blue? If they have already been asked not to, but still proceed to do so as in this case, how else are you going to persuade the rest of the community to get on with them?
• "just let other people call him on his incivility" - isn't that exactly what we're doing now, anyway?
• This guy has been here a very long time. Over this time he has had bans, blocks, warnings and complaints from more people than I have had any interaction with. And he hasn't changed a bit, he's still doing it. So, what is the plan? Mondegreen 13:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Mondegreen - some of your post is correct relevant and I agree with it. Other parts are just fantasy. Nowhere did anyone say "technical editors" should be awarded privilege over other content-producing editors. Not even close. Or this: you want technical editors who tend to be "stubborn as hell". Where did you get these ideas? I'm quite sure no one is suggesting anything of the sort. I see where you picked and chose some of the words, but you present them with a completely different meaning than they were offered. Mis-representing what people say might be valuable as propaganda, but it won't help to reach a rational consensus. Please, lets try to be accurate here.

So, what is the plan? several people have made suggestions, including myself (see the end of my previous post). What's yours? --Duk 14:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• The "stubborn as hell" is a pure misunderstanding due to my unclear wording - it would have been less ambiguous if I had written "you would like us to integrate better with even those technical editors, who are "stubborn as hell" and "who we don't understand..". Hopefully that makes it clearer, and easier to understand what I intended.
• As for the technical editors' "privilege" - I just couldn't see why in the section "making a place for technical editors" we were making a distinction, perceived or otherwise, between "technical editors" and the rest whoever they may be. I think it's an untrue generalisation that people who specialise in detail, formatting and technical issues are different to interact with than other users. If someone places a rude comment on a talk page, we shouldn't feel less aggrieved because their contributions indicate a knowledge of the intricacies of punctuation/diacritics/formatting/units/etc.
• I wish I had a foolproof plan - if I had one, I would present it. However, I don't feel what was presented will work for the reasons I gave above. Still, there is a lot of possibilities offered by the structure here - hopefully someone can find a creative solution somewhere between the unhappy extremes of "chastise, cross fingers and hope he'll learn" (tried, failed, the encyclopaedia risks losing contributors) and an indefinite block (the encyclopaedia loses Gene's skills). Mondegreen 15:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
• The problem is not about whether he likes or dislikes diacritics (being the first person to have mentioned them by name a few paragraphs up), but the fact that he can get incredibly uncivil, accussed other editors of bad faith and upset many good editors non the way. He may think he has a point but there are many ways to do things. Regards, Asterion^talk 21:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Janitorial tasks from multiple accounts

An editor recently requested my assistance when Resurgent insurgent (talk · contribs) reviewed and declined WP:CSD taggings. [2] [3] [4] When asked why he noted "Well, I'm an admin." [5]. The editor noticed Resurgent insurgent was categorised in Category:Wikipedia administrators, but not listed at Special:Listusers/sysop, leading to the editor suspecting Resurgent insurgent was impersonating an admin. Anyway, turns out Resurgent insurgent is one of a number of declared socks of Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) which does have the tools. Both accounts are currently active and appear to be used interchangeably. While I don't think this set up is used with any intent to mislead, it nevertheless appears to be contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia:Administrators: "Although multiple user accounts are allowed on Wikipedia in certain circumstances, only one account of a given person should have administrative tools." and Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Administrative sock puppets: "The community has strongly rejected users having more than one username with admin powers... only one account with access greater than that of a normal user account should be operated." I asked Resurgent insurgent if he would consider restricting the janitorial tasks we ask of admins (such as declining CSDs, protection requests etc) to the account with sysop status, if only to stop this type of confusion happening again. He doesn't appear particularly amenable to this, suggesting his account is "policy-compliant". I thought wider opinion may be of value. Rockpocket 21:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the main issue that causes confusion is not appropriately labeling or declaring these sock accounts. For example, I have a secondary account that I use on public computers, but this account is clearly labeled (and even has the same signature), so any confusion should be short-lived if I chose to do admin-like tasks with this account. As long as the user does some kind of step like this to reduce ambiguity, I don't think occasionally using a secondary account for janitorial tasks should cause too many problems. Eric (EWS23) 21:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, he does list all his sock accounts on his Resurgent insurgent user page, and all accounts redirect there. The problem is this account is not the one with sysop status. I don't really have a problem with declared socks doing the odd non-controversial janitorial task, but I would expect the principal account, the puppeteer, to be the one with the tools. That isn't the case in this instance. Rockpocket 21:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

any user can remove CSD taggings, not only administrators, per WP:CSD. Thus he was technically not using the tools on the other account. I agree, though, that it is a little confusing. 00:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think there is any administrator action needed. The person has the tools at his disposal even if the account does not. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

So, the tools are given to a person then, and not to an account? That surprises me. How do we find out enough about a person to decide about Adminship, then? It would mean that any admin could open up mutliple accounts and use them all as "pretend" admin accounts? That's going to be very confusing to the average editor, I think. RFAs seem to be very much focussed on a single account. Perhaps I am missing something basic here. Bielle 20:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the tools are given to the account that is owned by the person, that's why you can have multiple accounts, but not multiple accounts with sysop rights and why you can't have shared accounts. I have a sock account that I use for testing things that I need a second account or a non-admin account to do. Even if I made thousands of construtive edits on it, I could not get admin tools on it. You can't have pretend admin accounts because only the account with actual admin tools can do the admin actions, the rest can only do administrative tasks that any user, admin or not, can do. Mr.Z-man 20:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the simplest way to avoid this sort of confusion is to require admins with sockpuppets to have the account with the tools as their primary/default account and all socks directing towards that. This way anytime a sock claimed "I am an admin", when someone went to query it they would end up on the talkpage of an account that actually was an admin, rather than the page of someone who maintains an admin sock. Rockpocket 21:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Whenever anyone is operating a legitimate sock they realy should make it clear on each sock's page who it belongs to. This common-sense approach shouldn't be limited to admins. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

If any editor claims to be an admin (that is, as in Rockpocket's diffs #4, above, says on the editor's user page "I am an admin") when it is not, to this unsophisticated editor, that is an impersonation. The fact that the editor making the claim is a sock of an editor who is an admin, and claims that makes it all right, borders on wikilawyering. While there may well be degrees of culpability that mean this sort of claim is not as bad as impersonating an admin when neither the puppetmaster nor any of its socks is an admin, is still unnecessarlly confusing. Any solution that makes it clear to any editor who checks just which account is an admin and what that admin has done has to be better than confusion. Rockpocket's solution would achieve this; perhaps there are others that will do the same. Bielle 22:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No one has done anything wrong, and the goals of the encyclopedia are being met in a good user who happens to use multiple accounts in a way that may sometimes be slightly confusing. I do not recall any limitations in process set up for admins and admins only to fulfill. Though I do not remember where I saw it, or if it has been removed, but something that is inherent or, at least should be, in the spirit of Wikipedia is that any user may act in a way befitting an administrator. Certain tasks in process usually fall only to administrators because they are the only ones with the tools to perform the task - you cannot fully close an AfD as delete without the mop, but anyone is allowed to close a discussion as keep if the consensus is clear (unclear nominations will be squabbled over because the point doesn't appear to have been arbitrated). Any user can and, in an ideal world, should behave in a way befitting an administrator.

That being said, I do think that it is a good idea for administrators who maintain alternate accounts to have the administrator account remain primary - people tend to anthropomorphize accounts as the presence of the person at the keyboard, and using a secondary one as a front to the powers of the primary does seem somewhat questionable if not actually a bad thing. Nihiltres^(t.l) 22:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it may help if I explain how I came to end up using 2 accounts in the first place.

In August last year I asked to be renamed from "Kimchi.sg" to the more real name-ish "Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh". Very quickly I realised it is a mouthful and problematic for users passing messages. So I asked last November if I could swap the two accounts again, (I had created Kimchi.sg again, to prevent impersonation.) but the 'crats declined. So I've used an alternate account for much of the past year mainly to make my user name more readable. (I know people will just say "You could have signed as...", but how do you sign in the page history or move log?) I've never intended this to confuse other editors, thus I've asked again to usurp the Kimchi.sg account. Resurgent insurgent 08:10, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing speedy deletions isn't always an admin task in the first place. Personally, I'd say away from grey areas since I'm not an admin (let them take the heat :) ), but I've gone through speedy deletions before and either removed them or listed them for AfD instead when they didn't meet WP:CSD. -- Ned Scott 08:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

User block

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

---

• Necator (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) can post an {{unblock}} request on their talk page just like everybody else, rather than forum shopping in advance. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 22:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The Guy have blamed user Necator for MPOV pushing without adducing any proof. [6] And did not even let the user go through WP:DR Just banned him when he tried to rise request for mediation.

I'm requesting to unban user Necator. 91.122.11.224 22:00, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Which is you, right? The block was for POV-pushing, WP:OWN, forum shopping, blaming everyone else for the fact that everyone else reverts your edits, and generally not getting it. Guy (Help!) 22:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

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

AWB requests to check

I'm supposed to nicely point out that there are requests at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage that are over 24 hours old. Thank you :) TheHYPO 22:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 01:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

みんなはこの”神との対話”を読む。いや、読まなくても良い。

Could an admin who reads the above language take a look at the deleted edits on User:Akanemoto. This user has requested the deletion of his/her user page nearly 50 times. Curious, I submitted some of the text to a translator, and Akanemoto appears to be using the page as a way to communicate with somebody. Interesting stuff (phrases such as "everyone is healthy", "I want to be free"), but this page may need to be protected from recreation or the user blocked. Comments welcome. - auburnpilot talk 22:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

That "somebody" seems to be God (神). --BorgQueen 22:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Babelfish, always useless even between related European languages, suggests Everyone reads "the conversation with this God". Well, you do not read and also the [unknown character] is good. Which makes a certain gnomic sense. Personally, I'd undelete the entire page, then blank it, then protect the blank version. Most work, but least trouble and eliminates the problem in future. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 23:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec)Appears to be Japanese, as it usually makes more sense when spit through the Japanese translator than the Chinese option. Either way, I've protected the page. Akanemoto requested yet another deletion just minutes ago. - auburnpilot talk 23:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The sentence is somewhat non-sensical. It says, "Everyone is reading this sentence to God, or, you shouldn't read it." It is Japanese, using Kanji and Hiragana script. Cla68 00:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so put this down as someone who likes to talk to Kami-sama. — Rickyrab | Talk 04:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:SSP backlog

This is starting to back up again. Can we get more admins involved? Tks. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Fuck SSP, check out the backlog here. It would be greatly appreciated if any admins who are even remotely versed in image policy could help out. east.718 at 05:27, 11/4/2007

that's not very appropriate language, esp for an admin. Pointing out other backlogs is fine, but disparging another admin task is hardly appropriate. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't disparaging anything; sometimes you can use profanity to humorously make a strong comparison. east.718 at 19:05, 11/4/2007 19:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't appreciate the use of foul vulgarity. Please refrain from it in the future. I am disappointed it came from an admin. Bstone 01:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Burntsauce impending ban (and effects at AFD)

I am watching the Alkivar ArbCom case unfold and it appears that Burntsauce (talk · contribs) will soon be banned as a meatpuppet of JB196 (talk · contribs) (see ...#Burntsauce banned). I mention this because I see quite a few !votes by Burntsauce in open AFDs which I figure need to be disregarded as banned user edits. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:18, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Disregard away. Picaroon (t) 03:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

:Copied with attribution to the Bureaucrat's noticeboard. Keegan^talk 05:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

My mistake, I thought he'd participated in RfA recently but I am wrong. Whoopsie. Keegan^talk 05:25, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

New user closing AfD Discussion after 2 hours

I was just looking at the AfD list for today, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lee Jones (author) has been closed as a Speedy Keep, after less than 2 hours, by User:Icestorm815, a user who had only been editing actively for about 2 months. I have no opinion on outcome of the AfD itself, but this nomination was made by an admin in good faith. Even if another admin had closed it so quickly it would have been suspect. Two of the four keep !voters have edited the article, so not exactly unbiased consensus either way.

The point is, a relatively new user should not be closing good faith AfDs after less than 2 hours. Could an admin deal with this and possibly let User:Icestorm815 how things work there? If this continues we'll be getting users closing any AfD they disagree after a couple of hours just because someone said "speedy keep". Crazysuit 05:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

• It's a valid speedy keep, but as usual (frustratingly) the assertions of notability and the claim of many sources have not translated into edits to the article. This often happens with AfD, and means that it might all happen again. So if you'd like to encourage the keep advocates to improve the article, you'd be doing the project a service. Guy (Help!) 08:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Please also note comments being made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poker#Lee Jones.--Alf ^melmac 09:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no major problems with non-admins and even new users closing discussions as long as they follow policy. The main concern is the possibility of abuse, by closing discussions prematurely or closing with a COI. But we have Wikipedia:Deletion review for that, and users are warned or even blocked if they abuse the process. Apparently, this particular case warranted a Speedy Keep, so no harm was done. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 11:06, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but how exactly did this qualify as a speedy keep? It comes nowhere close, as far as I can see. There was nowhere near enough time for discussion whether the (admittedly many) web sources do indeed constitute non-trivial coverage in reliable sources. Most web hits seem to be from either booksellers, or private blogs or commercial sites. Do any of these qualify as reliable sources? I'll have no problem if it should in fact be determined that they do, but it's not something about which a SNOW-like consensus can simply be assumed. Recommend overturning this invalid non-admin closure and waiting out the discussion period. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:59, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it's one of those where if you know who the subject is, the nomination appears ridiculous, but if you don't... ELIMINATORJR 12:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

...then knowledgeable folks should add information to provide context to the article. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. ELIMINATORJR 14:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

That's why I said apparently. (:-) - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 14:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment on the main topic here: has anyone determined whether or not this new user is actually an old user wearing a new coat? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A litle AGF is needed here. The bottom line is to determine whether the speedy closure in question was valid, which I think it is. If anything, we should be pleased that there are experienced non-administrators who are willing to help out with the AfD backlog. PeaceNT 12:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I've overturned the closure. There's no harm in having this go through the full process. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I support your action. If the Speedy Close rationale is contested by good-faith users, it should be overturned and relisted, but not just because of the user who closed it. However, I imagine further discussion on this issue is needed, maybe at a later period. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 21:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I agree, it was closed prematurely and incorrectly. But I do believe that this is a case that WILL snowball. Right now the !vote is at 8-1, and the 1 is a "conditional delete" asking for reliable sources---not realizing that Cardplayer Magazine is the magazine authority in Poker. Before closing this AIV, I would ask other admins to revisit the AFD to see if should be snowballed afterall. I believe that while it was closed early, that this is still a candidate for snowball.Balloonman 23:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Complicated cut and paste move needs fixing

Resolved

Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (old history) has the old history of Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, which does not appear in the current article. Bronx Whitestone Bridge has the history of what's now in Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. The two histories overlap in time. Can somebody fix this, and let me know if I could have handled it better? Thank you. --NE2 10:08, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll also need Queens-Midtown Tunnel deleted (no real history here, fortunately) so Queens Midtown Tunnel can be moved. --NE2 10:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Dang! That was indeed complicated. It's been fixed, anyway. :) PeaceNT 10:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Needing some Help

I want to request permission from WikiMedia to allow the use of a history written by someone else. A gentleman at the Newtown History Center in Stephens City, Virginia, wrote a very detailed, very well written history about the town of Stephens City and I would like to use it. The permission I sent (by email from NHC's Adminstrative Assistant) was not valid according to the rules. Could someone tell me if this is what I need them to fill out? I don't want to have to ask them a 3rd time for permission if this try doesn't work. I appericate any help I can get. Take Care....NeutralHomer ^T:C 23:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would work. Replace "LICENSE [choose at least one from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_tags ]" with "GNU Free Documentation License (link)" (as the all textual content must be submitted to Wikipedia under this license). --Iamunknown 00:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Should today's Featured article be protected?

Since it has been protected and unprotected and protected again once already, i feel this should be decided by consesnus. Todays FA GameFAQshas revieved a bit of vandalisim due to the fact that its a) The FAOTD and b) the last day of the character tournement. Should it be protected or not? I oppose protecting it, but am open to disscusion to cahnge my mind. The Placebo Effect 01:00, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

TFAs are protected when they're subject to insane levels of vandalism... like now. There are currently several thousand teenagers wetting themselves because their home website is on Wikipedia's front page. Unprotect if you feel like reverting all of them. – Steel 01:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think all FAs on the main page should be protected, they're nothing but vandal magnets and it's ludicrous to proclaim it as wiki's best when they are vandalized so much. We sure want new comers to come see the main page FA as our best when it has profanity, porn, etc on it--NOT. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Almost one a minute. Ouch. I think this is appropriate. --Haemo 01:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Our policy is very clear. FA must not be protected unless there is reason beyond doubt to do so, like adding libel information. -- ReyBrujo 01:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to head off the inevitable admin who'll unprotect it with the summary "We never protect the main page FA", they should read Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection first. The old axiom isn't really true. --W.marsh 01:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this should be unprotected. We've had much worse hit FAs than this one. Vandalism was being reverted quickly and protection being determined in less that an hour seems very hasty. This is far from insane levels of vandalism - we could cope with this by watchlisting and reverting. WjBscribe 01:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh, apparently my attempt didn't work because it's now been unprotected with pretty much the edit summary I predicted. --W.marsh 01:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Did you think Wii fare much better when it made it the home page? ;-) -- ReyBrujo 01:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If the article suffered, leaving it unprotected was probably a bad idea. Some people seem to enjoy leaving articles unprotected like they're the guy who stands in front of a cannonball at the state fair... we don't allow IP editing to show we can take a beating, we allow it (in theory at least) only because it usually tends to improve articles. In cases where improvement doesn't seem to be occurring... it's just masochism. --W.marsh 02:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, while I understand your position, I am one of those who still think a good anonymous contribution is worth the hassle. What I would change in the policy is that those who deface the page (replacing it with another text) should be warned just once and then blocked, or just blocked, depending on the administrator's judgment. This is because the user is vandalizing a very transited page in order to gain notoriety. -- ReyBrujo 02:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone name the last FAOTD that was semi-protected for more than an hour? The Placebo Effect 03:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Islam? Anyone who thinks "we never semi-protect the main page FA" should look at that one. --W.marsh 03:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, both the articles on Gerbils (I think?) and the article on Intelligent Design were protected a third of the day last month. We shouldn't do this; it is bad for the project long term. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

What's bad for the project, protecting them or leaving them unprotected? Mr.Z-man 03:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Protection is bad. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

W.marsh, let's not compare the vandalism an article like Islam, George W. Bush or similar could get with the one GameFAQs gets. This one is childish vandalism, by young people with a lot of free time to browse internet but little to think. The others border libel and racism. -- ReyBrujo 03:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I just object to people saying "we never semi-protect the FA" when we obviously do sometimes. --W.marsh 03:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Featured article is aways hit the hardest because it's the first thing the little bastards charming young souls see. HalfShadow 03:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, I understand. And I used to think we should protect them (I even reported once that it should be protected before realizing there is a policy against it). You must excuse my behavior, I believe the perfect article must not be protected, and therefore vouch for the unprotection of featured articles, unless there is something more than childish vandalism. However, that is just my point of view, if vandalism reaches a high peak and cannot be controlled, it could be protected for a few minutes. We cannot know if they have posted a note at the boards pointing to this article (although I am almost sure they did). -- ReyBrujo 03:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Eh, s'alright; I felt the same way for the same reason, once (first thing seen=hardest hit). Of course, it also means closest screened... HalfShadow 03:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for unprotecting during this discussion. I didn't realize this was going on. (I need to pare my watchlist down a bit). I haven't noticed that the vandalism level is particularly higher than usual main page FAs, eh? —Wknight94 (talk) 03:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protected - I'm a regular RFPP patroller and in all my time, I've not seen a mainpage article get so beaten up. As this is an extreme case and because we've had precedent before, I've upgraded protection to semi-prot, sysop move. Anyone can feel free to review and change this at any time but for the moment, give the article a chance. It's being vandalised faster than it can be reverted and the brakes need to go on, even if for just an hour or so - Alison ^❤ 04:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

sic transit gloria mundi. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

And now here come the sleeper socks. When is the last time we needed full prot on a main page article? At that point, it might need to be taken down IMHO. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The more sleeper socks we block, the better IMO. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Zero tolerance on the sleepers. I would have prefered to keep the page unprotected longer though :(. Ah well, we can try unprotection again in a few hours... WjBscribe 04:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, they are likely creating accounts which become sleepers because they can't use them right now ;) -- ReyBrujo 04:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Normally, the main page isn't protected. But come on, this amount of vandalism is ridiculous. It should slow down once all the GameFAQs migrators get it out of their system. Leave it sprotected for 2-3 hours I'd say. Wizardman 04:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

well, if it is that bad, fine. But an hour or two is stretching it. -- Kendrick7^talk 05:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

PalestineRemembered‎ (talk · contribs)

I was under the impression that PalestineRemembered (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) had been placed under community mentorship. He was assigned Zscout370 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) as his mentor, but Zscout370 has since resigned from this role, leaving PalestineRemembered with no mentor. I'm a little concerned that he now seems to have chosen his own mentor (Kendrick7 (talk · contribs)) to replace Zscout370. If my memory serves me correct, I've seen Kendrick7 come out in support of Palestine remembered on a number of occasions, most notably his request for arbitration. I think it's best if a neutral mentor is assigned, and one chosen by the community - thoughts? Ryan Postlethwaite 02:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm willing to do it as long as someone will familiarize me with the history of the dispute. east.718 at 02:06, 11/5/2007

Mm, I wonder where a nice, neutral mentor could be found **looks at Ryan** :] I Like To^Talk 02:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I volunteered. As far as support, I may have assumed good faith beyond what others were willing to assume at certain points. But having worked in the past in the same series of articles as PR, which are a uniquely troublesome area of the wikipedia to work in (involving an ongoing civil war), I had hoped I'd be uniquely qualified for the job. But, whatever is clever. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Kendrick7 volunteered when nobody else did; he wasn't selected from among multiple volunteers. See User talk:PalestineRemembered#Can I be your new mentor?. A dual mentorship might be best; Kendrick has more recent editing experience in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict areas than Ryan does, so he definitely brings an experience of what the mud in the trenches is like that Ryan doesn't have. Ryan is an admin, which Kendrick7 isn't. The combination could be good. We have one other dual mentorship in this dispute area; Isarig is being mentored by FayssalF and Avi. GRBerry 02:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

1. I could not agree more with Ryan and I note that PR's suggestion that he's already got a mentor^[7] confuses me.
2. I have no qualms with Ryan's suggestion that he'd mentor PR or with East718 for that matter, however i fail to see how Kendrik7 is a qualified well established admin of the caliber of Avi and/or FayssalF. His initial statement that, he's "always taken a shine to (e.g. PR)"^[8] and that he does not understand the last block (intentional repetition of WP:NPA despite warnings from mentors and non-involved editors) was enough to illustrate a would be problem.
3. I still believe PR should be topic banned until some mentorship rules be established. as of now, he continues to soapbox and shows a strong disregard to context despite explanations [9][10].

-- Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 02:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I actually and literally did not understand the last block; I hadn't been paying attention for a while, and was oblivious to the exact circumstances even after reviewing PR's talk page. I am paying attention now however and was meaning to mention to PR to be kinder in his edit summaries. Topic banning PR does little good, as he is a permitted WP:SPA which only edits in this area. (If I had such wisdom long ago, I'd be an probably be an admin by now.) -- Kendrick7^talk 03:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind that idea, GRBerry. Between myself and Ryan we could be the old carrot and stick. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the specifics, here, but I generally trust Ryan to be neutral, experienced, and even-handed. No disrespect intended to East, I'm just not as familiar with you, personally (yet!). Kendrick sounds willing and familiar with the matters at hand; it may not hurt to have a sympathetic mentor, provided there's also some balance to the mentoring. If everybody's open to trying a new way to solve problems, I'd say I could think of much worse arrangements. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Mentee speaks - I have a concern that each of my mentors has been bombarded with volleys of baseless allegations, both against me and against the mentors. As each of these people has shown their commitment to the process and project, each has suffered increasing degrees of personal harassment. In each case, this harassment has escalated to such a degree as to adversely affect their own participation in the project. One of these mentors was forced to resign, one was de-syssoped and one has been blocked permanently (only the last of these for reasons generally understandable to the community).
• Needless to say, the harassment of mentors has largely been carried out away from the public eye - but see here for two public examples of this nastiness. And see User:Jaakobou/GeniVolunteering for a page that was created (but then deleted by administrative action) as an "Attack Page".
• Furthermore, this pattern of harassment is not new to me and my "mentorship" - it's engulfed everyone who has sought to defend my generally solid editing. Every one of the (very largely) evidence-free and inconclusive "disciplinaries" brought against me have led to many other editors themselves suffering immediate personal attack. When these editors are not silenced immediately by this treatment, then in many (all?) cases, further "disciplinaries" have been opened - this time against them. These payback attacks have often been on grounds so trivial as to amount to malice.
• I'm nervous of documenting behavior so unpleasant and inimicable to honest editing because doing so is bound to make these other editors feel still more uncomfortable. However, there is one individual who has been so patient with his attackers, whose scholarship is so obvious and his value to the project so great that I'll link to the attack on him. I fail to understand why the individual who made that complaint hasn't been summararily ejected from the project.
• Back to my own case - it's not even as if this harassment is confined to editors expressing their opinion that I've done little or nothing wrong. An early attempt to get rid of me permanently was a transparently false accusation I'd used the Holocaust Deniers for information. I was effectively blocked for weeks - a complete stranger came forwards to act as my "advocate" during this time. Amongst other time-wasting unpleasantnesses, this person was aggressively grilled by an administrator in good standing for coming forwards. My advocate answered the questions in detail and then quit, not surprisingly.
• The time must soon be coming when people who set out to make accept good faith impossible in these ways suffer the consequences. Any real or potential problems with my participation couldn't possibly be doing as much damage as this harassment of me and others. Some readers of this might even think my only crime is putting good information into articles and the accusations against me come entirely from editors who have content disputes with me.
• Finally, I put it to the community that my mentorship (which could only have been of limited use in the first place) has been rendered impossible by the reckless behavior we're seeing. A mentor has come forward and I'm grateful to him - but a wave of poison will make his best efforts (and his very participation) impossible unless and until real problematical editors are dealt with. PR^talk 12:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I would support a dual mentorship. Ryan is an experienced admin while Kendrick is an experienced editor of Israeli-Arab subjects. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 10:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

As Kendrick7 seems to have edited many of the same areas as PalestineRemembered, and has been involved in disputes with some of the same editors, I don't think it would be a very good idea for him to mentor. A mentor with not even the appearance of any possible involvement would be the best move here. One that has had community trust confirmed with the mop or beyond, like Ryan, may be even better. Tewfik^Talk 11:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tewfik that Ryan and an uninvolved editor would be a better choice. ~ Riana ⁂ 12:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Assuming Ryan wants to, he'd be a good choice. I think the other also needs to be an admin, and not an "ally". I think the "Isarig model" was a good one and it should include a topic ban like Isarig's did. I'm interested to see how it works out in both cases. Hopefully, it will be to the projects's benefit -but if not, we need broadly respected mentors who will have creditability if they need to say that the experiment has failed. <<-armon->> 12:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Please remind me what PR ever did that would merit a topic ban? (I believe, by contrast, Isarig was caught sockpuppetting?) I do get concerned that, because of the steady drum beat for sanctions like topic bans just being casually tossed off towards PR, that some flyover admin might hear those drums from 20,000 feet and believe they portend more than they do, and not give PR a fair shake. I've at least gone native long enough to know that editors in this topic area simply enjoy banging on drums, even though this may have resulted a handful of editorial disagreements (none of which I would call a "dispute") I've had there. -- Kendrick7^talk 13:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

That bad, huh? I guess since I haven't put in work like Ryan like or FayssalF, I'll defer to them, especially since FayssalF has a much stronger history of mediating disputes than me. east.718 at 15:21, 11/5/2007

Yup, really that bad. The situation is that three editors have now attempted mentoring of me and none saw any reason to vote me off the island. Two of them effectively had no complaints. The last of my mentors declared I should be temporarily blocked for a genuine (and only slightly tongue-in-cheek) attempt at dispute resolution here: "Tell me your problem". Why that should be blockable is quite difficult to understand, it's the fifth (and mildest) consecutive complaint on that editors TalkPage about his conduct. See Warning, Junk mail, Stop harassing me and Stop, so 4 other editors had simultaneous problems with his conduct, perhaps even more severe than the problems I was having.

But two of those three mentors were sanctioned severely within a few days of coming forwards, and the third lasted 3 weeks under increasing unpleasant harassment before being bypassed completely with another worthless "disciplinary" on me. I was going to say it's become effectively impossible for anyone to come forward and offer to honestly mentor me. However, Kendrick has done so, and (although I know almost nothing about him) I believe him to be genuine, as I'm quite sure you were.

Fortunately, the conditions of my mentoring are that I get to choose who does it. FayssalF has only blocked me once and did not harass my "advocate", so I might choose him if you and Kendrick have really been bullied into withdrawing before you've started. But if you ask me, it's farcical to expect anything worthwhile to come out of a system so entirely dominated by harassment. PR^talk 16:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I haven't been bullied into anything, I'm pretty much flameproof. It's just that I agree with Luna Santin and Tewfik's sentiments. east.718 at 16:27, 11/5/2007

I'm all good here, though I get the sneaking suspicion that Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict has officially entered project phase six.... -- Kendrick7^talk 18:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm with FayssalF (talk · contribs) on this one. Kendrick hasn't actually demonstrated any negative actions here, and we really are dealing hypothetically. However, the concerns raised by Ryan are something we'd best nip in the bud, just to be on the safe side, so I definitely think a joint-Mentorship between an experienced Administrator (best-case scenario, Ryan, if he's up for it), and Kendrick. The combination of trust and article experience here would be the best course of action. Anthøny 19:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Profanity and homophobic epithets at User_talk:Sir Crimson

Sir Crimson, who has a history of vandalism and vulgarity, reverted edits I made to his talk page which contain highly inflammatory and inappropriate language for this encyclopedia. I would ask an administrator to revert and/or protect the page so he's unable to replace it. Thank you. Cumulus Clouds 02:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I've protected it for 24 hours and blocked the user for the same amount of time. Mr.Z-man 04:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Um, I thought WP:NOT censored? — Rickyrab | Talk 04:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

That is only for articles, and when it has encyclopedic value. Those comments aren't really needed in a talk page. -- ReyBrujo 04:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

IN this I'd say of greater concern ist that Sir Crimson attributed the word to another editor [11] Gnangarra 04:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed! That means Sir Crimson probably holds a grudge against The Wookieepedian (talk · contribs). -- ReyBrujo 04:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I left a note at Wookieepedian's talk page, to see if he can identify the user. If he is a sock of a vandal he can recognize, we can indef block Sir Crimson directly. I think he should receive a warning for signing an attack comment as if he were another wikipedian, unless he can point out when TW said that. -- ReyBrujo 05:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

That is a concern... though even if Wookieepedian did say that, at some point in time, is it serving any productive purpose to blank one's talk page to post that sort of quote, accurate or not? I can't imagine any goal, there, except to agitate other user(s). There may be some history here that I'm not aware of, but obviously something is amiss. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

That's... very bizarre. I've never ran into the guy before. The Wookieepedian 15:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Insignificant Ban

Hi there. I was banned for a reason that I don't think was justified. I clearly had a direct quote to correspond to the verifiability act, yet I was "overidden" by a mere "consensus". I thought that having verifiable sources outweighed the mere possibility of a group of people forming a consensus to edit and place unreliable sources. If I am wrong, then I will clearly adhere to this possible, yet unlogical, principle. Sincerely, InternetHero 03:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the ban was by RobertG (talk · contribs) due to this edit. --W.marsh 03:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring is never a good way resolve anything, and the block has already expired. I did offer a suggestion to InternetHero about the painting so maybe that'll take some of the heat out of its inclusion in the article. Gnangarra 04:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

You'll have to show me the part where "but I'm right!" is an exemption from WP:3RR. We know you think you're right, that's why you're edit warring -- problem is, everybody else thinks they're right, too, and we find ourselves at a bit of an impasse if people just revert back and forth to their own personal versions of rightness. Yes, talking and negotiating is a complete pain in the ass, sometimes, but it also happens to be one of the few ways to really accomplish any form of consensus. If your reasoning is really as good as you say it is, convince everybody else of the same thing with your conviction and persuasive ability, instead of edit warring and throwing up silly challenges, and then you won't have as many problems to put up with. It's not a battleground, it's a collaborative project. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't have said it better myself :) my thoughts on edit warring are basically summed up in this template, which I strongly urge InternetHero to have at least a glance at. Anthøny 19:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Quote/fundraiser mess at the top

So what are we putting in our monobook.css to block that "Wikipedia itself is an outstanding achievement of humanity." — Anon [Hide this message] mess at the top now? If you click the "Hide this message", all it does it change it to the fundraising bar... -- ALLSTAR ECHO 05:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

One of the sections on WP:VPT has the new code. --NE2 05:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The code is:

#siteNoticeBig { display: none; }

#siteNoticeSmall { display: none; }

Just put that in Special:Mypage/monobook.css. Neil ☎ 10:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't seem to recall IPs having a monobook.css. Why do the sysops do this? First the ugly red thing then this? ♥ Fredil 12:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredil Yupigo (talk • contribs)

Excellent. That did it. Thanks. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 14:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

So why does the design keeps changing every two days? is there any ongoing discussion? because the current one doesn't look particulary interesting (stick figures?) wich means it probably won't attract the attention of some potential donors. - Caribbean~H.Q. 14:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fundraising redesign is where the ongoing discussion is at the moment. --ais523 14:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :-) - Caribbean~H.Q. 15:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

But seriously Mr ALLSTAR ECHO, is there anything I can put in my monobook to hide the "mess" that is your rather irritating signature?--Doc^g 15:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Concur. --Ali'i 15:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's not get off track... did anyone notice that fundraising was just a touch faster last year without the annoying banners? ♥ Fredil 20:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Procedure for dealing with banned vandal

What's the procedure for dealing with a banned (not just blocked) vandal who is continuing to set up multiple sockpuppet accounts each day and is using these to launch personal attacks and to violate privacy? That is, is there anything more that can be done other than blocking, reverting, and perhaps oversighting? One problem is that he is on one of the Big ISPs so he hops IP addresses. I'm not sure if we can really block account creation from a Big ISP for any significant length of time. That is to say, I think we probably can't unless the vandal is stunningly abusive. --Yamla 15:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If the situation is that serious, it may be a good idea to block account creation for the ISP - we have the unblock mailing list (as you know) which easily copes with a number of large ISP blocks (my IP's blocked from account creation as I'm on Tiscali for instance). Maybe a two week range block followed by some evaluation? Ryan Postlethwaite 15:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Who is it? User:Daddy Kindsoul or User:Verdict? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who it is really, let's not give them any credit. Ryan Postlethwaite 15:55, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Is notifying the ISP possible? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, notifying the ISP is an option, but unfortunately, they don't tend to do much - it's much more effective to sort things out in house. Ryan Postlethwaite 15:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions (and I welcome any more ideas). If it does become necessary to block the ISP, I'll make sure the unblock mailing list knows ahead of time. I suppose I should probably set up one of those long-term abuse pages as well. --Yamla 16:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

We need more admins urgently

Since IP page creation looks like it will be re-enabled (see Link) we are probably going to need a lot more admins doing Special:Newpages. Could I ask everybody to ask at least one editor you think could make a good amin if they would be interested in a RfA? Tim Vickers 16:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I've asked a number of people during the week with only one person accepting. Nothing to do with this though--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 17:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this really going to happen? Oh dear. The thing about wikien-l is, they are often somewhat nostalgic for the good old days. I fear they may have failed to take into account just how important it is to get your Great New [ Idea / Theory / Band on Wikipedia ] these days. The best argument against anonymous page creation as far as I can see is CAT:CSD. Guy (Help!) 18:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

This will be fun. –– Lid^(Talk) 18:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

All I can seen from this is CSD being constantly backlogged. *sigh* oh well. If it can be turned off once it can be turn off again when they see the folly of the "experiment". ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Any editor can patrol new pages, if the csd backlog does get out of hand then I think a posting asking more existing admins to help will be effective. We always need more admins, but no more than normal I think. 1 != 2 18:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I think "urgently" is over blown. Unless someone is planning to write a press announcement, I suspect that most anons won't even notice the change for weeks or months. In other words, whatever the ultimate effect of such changes, I suspect they will ramp up gradually over a substantial period of time. Dragons flight 18:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Dragons flight is probably correct. Given that this decision seems to have happened in such a way that even fairly active editors are just now becoming aware of it (I myself just found out in the last couple of hours), I don't suspect that this will result in a big flood the first day it is enabled. I can see this being a real headache in < a couple of months, but I don't see the urgency right this moment.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:16, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it, all it takes is one blog post or one newspaper reporter for this story to be on the evening news. I can bet to you one of them is reading this. The Placebo Effect 18:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

We can deal with it - no problem. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The urgency comes from the lag in getting admins through the RfA process matching the probable lag in IP's learning they can now create pages. We can't create new admins overnight, so if we need more admins in 1-2 week's time we have to start working now. If we all invite a few people, this will hopefully make a big dent in the problem. Tim Vickers 18:23, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

CSD is an exceedingly easy task using tools out there. I don't think we need a single new admin to deal with the new issue. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Or we just can abandon what is undoubtedly a silly idea of going back to IP newpage creation.--Isotope23 ^talk 18:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Too late now to abandon this idea; the flood is coming. It is not too late to nominate new admins. I suspect the flood of stupid new articles will not come for a few days or so - my prediction is Wednesday, November 14. Bearian 18:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The sanguine view that we will be able to cope with our present set of admins is one I hope is true. However, although this best-case scenario is certainly possible, if we are wrong and we can't cope then things could get pretty unpleasant and generate a great deal of negative publicity for the project. Consequently, I think it is most sensible to plan for the worst-case scenario. Tim Vickers 18:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, and would probably disqualify myself on the basis of having an occasionally hot temper. However, I do note that Wikipedia:Admin coaching exists for individuals who might consider becoming admins a bit of an idea what being an admin is like. Maybe we could try to get some current admins to ask prospective admins whether they would consider becoming such, or alternately, if they think they might not be particularly qualified, maybe offering to coach them until they either qualify or decide that the role isn't for them? John Carter 18:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(e.c.) I agree that we need more Administrators, but that problem clearly doesn't stem from a lack of trying. Rather, we might want to look at a re-focusing of the atmosphere of RfA, in an attempt to ensure that the percentage of candidates enlisted here who are likely to pass increases. There seems to be a general trend of nominations here increasing, yet the success rate is decreasing, indicating a rise in the number of, shall we say, mistaken (often self-) nominations. Having said that, I support the re-enabling of IP article creation. This move sends out a clear signal to both our Community and the Wide World that we really do invite everybody to edit here, and that those who don't choose to create an account aren't restricted to the interests and imagination of others. Anthøny 18:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

And for a hearty example of the RfA atmospshere, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/LaraLove; the "bad mother" card was played. No one needs those kinds of low blows in life. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Meh. I'm not saying we shouldn't have more admins... I'm just saying that we have a stupid number of inactive admins sitting around. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind being an admin, but my two previous attempts went heavily against me, along with a block I had several months ago. It's not like I would abuse the tools, but some editors might not trust me. :( Davnel03 19:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe its time for Jimbo to give some users Sysop tools. He's done it in the past [12]. SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 19:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering when someone would quote that...-- John Reaves 19:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Got two up already. If you guys want I'll go into my backlog and put out 3-4 more :) Wizardman 19:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you might as well. Davnel03 19:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought that one of the reasons for disabling immediate, anonymous IP page creation was due to BLP concerns...? Aside from the general 'firehose of crap' problem, are we setting ourselves up for another Seigenthaler controversy? And if not, what measures are in place now that weren't available to us before? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC

Do you have some magic list of trustworthy users interested in doing administrative scut work that also are unwilling or unable to pass RFA? Dragons flight 19:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(e/c)There is a software change coming that will enable patrolled edits for Special:Newpages. Gmaxwell has it set up on his personal wiki (you need to get an account to patrol) if you want to test it before it gets here. To mark a page as patrolled, scroll to the bottom of the article and click the little [Mark this article as patrolled] link. Pages in the list highlighted in yellow need to be patrolled. Here, this would be used for marking good newpages or pages already tagged for deletion. I'm not sure when this is coming (soon), you'd have to go on IRC #wikimedia-tech and bug Brion. Mr.Z-man 19:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If we need more administrators urgently, then we probably should stop turning down fully qualified candidates on specious grounds such as those discussed in this thread. Newyorkbrad 20:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC

I agree, We don't need more administrators, we just need more good and active administrators. We don't need people who will sit back and do nothing. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 20:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If anybody can think of a simple way of improving the quality and activity of the admins we have at the moment, then they should go ahead and do it. However, the only thing guaranteed to increase the number of active admins is to increase the total number of admins. Encouraging other editors to apply is pretty simple, its no big deal! Tim Vickers 21:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I could send every administrator a message to start being more active on admin backlogs...Or else! Opinions? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm almost tempted to advise you to do that ;) Tim Vickers

Maybe you could ask a bot to go round and send a message to every single admin telling them to get more active? Just an idea. Davnel03 21:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it was a fully serious proposal. Alerting admins on this noticeboard is satisfactory. Afterall, they're volunteers in the first place just like everyone else, they can't be forced to be more active. Leebo ^T/C 21:20, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling that such a move would be met with hostility. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 21:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

IM(extremely uninformed)O article creation numbers will continue to go up even if we don't have this experiment - we'd just be delaying the inevitable. Resurgent insurgent 21:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Misc

User:123.176.40.195 is repeatedly vandalising the articles.Pls ban the ip adresss from further editing wikipedia. Thanks John Rambo 20:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

You're looking for Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. But while you're here, the IP's edits don't appear to be vandalism. -- John Reaves 21:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he is. 123.176.40.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) seems to be editing articles related to certain castes in India. Most of what it's doing doesn't look like blatant vandalism, so I'm presuming the IP is either adding subtle disinformation that I and others not familiar with the subject matter are not able to detect, or it is adding information that Rambo4u just doesn't like. Can someone who's familiar with this stuff take a look? This was probably meant for ANI. --Dynaflow babble 21:36, 5 November 2007 (UTC)