Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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Proposal: admin-only pages

There's a constant tension between maintaining open discourse on Wikipedia and avoiding leaking information to malicious parties. WP:DENY prevents us from publishing information about vandals, but as admins cycle in and out over the years, many a vandal is forgotten and gains another chance to wreak havoc. Many oversight issues have to be handled with great care to avoid further publicizing the private information involved. In particular, I think it would be useful if more of the sequestered discourse of ArbCom on their mailing list were visible to all admins. Copyrighted material that may still be under discussion also needs to be quickly removed from public view.

I don't believe there's currently technical support to restrict pages so that only admins can read them; I propose that such a feature be implemented and some pages created for some of the types of information I describe above. An alternative would be a private wiki configured so only admins can read it (an existing setting I believe), with all En admins automatically made admins on it.

The most obvious objection to this is that not all admins can be trusted all the time and they might leak information as a means of vengeance, or if they think they're just doing someone a friendly favor. I don't know, what do you guys think? Dcoetzee 01:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I see two sides to this. One is that it makes it easier to share information that would make admins' life easier, while not enabling the trolls. The other is that a private wiki/admin-only pages makes it a lot easier for people to say "zOMG teh cabal iz taking over!!!1!!11". I don't know, personally, which concern outweighs the other — just giving my two cents. Hermione1980 01:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

zOMG teh cabal iz taking over!!!1!!11
I see how an admins only forum would be useful in some cases but I think propensity for overuse is just to great as compared to benefits. If DENY gets in your way, ignore it. There is nothing terrible about discussing a vandal on wiki, frivolous discussion of them should be stifled but it does not do that much harm if we do: most vandals worth discussing are already so dedicated a little recognition wont make much difference. Cases so sensitive that they must be discussed in private should be referred to the ArbCom, silent discussion of users for no pressing reason, to which I imagine what ever was set up would devolve to quickly, is a bad thing. The admins IRC has already proven itself a failure. Icewedge (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

-admins and the satellite channels is where all the Grawp fighting goes on without any problems. BJ^Talk 02:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't really think of many uses for this TBH. The type of vandals that last for years are the type that WP:DENY isn't going to make a significant impact on, but there's only a handful of them (see also WP:LTA). The vast majority of wiki-related things discussed in the admins IRC channel are much better discussed in a real-time forum like IRC than in wiki-style discussions as they're either trivial things that need only minutes of discussion, or they're things that need urgent attention. If we did do this for some reason though, it would have to be a separate wiki, as MediaWiki isn't designed for per-page read restrictions. Mr.Z-man 02:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Z-man here... I don't see much use for it and see the negatives outweighing the positives.---I'm Spartacus! ^PoppaBalloon 03:34, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Zomg the cabal is taking over. Can't imagine the use for this. Isn't there already an admin only IRC channel or something? Protonk (talk) 03:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• Past experience suggests that this would play really badly with the community, especially those whose agitation it is most designed to avoid, and it would undoubtedly be compromised anyway, as the admin IRC channel is. Guy (Help!) 10:12, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This already exists. It's called deletion.--Patton^t/c 12:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't even support it as an admin. Whether it is the cabal spider hole or the executive lounge, until the need is shown for it, it should not occur. Would we desysop people for telling "secrets"?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I can think of something. It relates to a problem which may, or may not exist - a way for vandals to cause trouble it might be hard to detect initially. I don't know whether it is minor or potentially serious. How should this be raised? Ben MacDui 20:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

An admin only page isn't needed, as much of the corporate memory is not invested in admins but all the contributors to the noticeboards and requests pages. There will be editors who have the knowledge that it is proposed may be kept in an admin only page who will therefore not know that it is being called upon. I would also suggest that having another perception of the difference of value between having and not having the sysop flag is not worth any potential gain for the existence of such a thing. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• WP:DENY is an essay. I wish people would realise that, and stop treating it as though it's some sort of policy, which we all must follow. Majorly talk 00:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

My question above is perfectly serious. There are several editors, including admins, aware of the problem but my take on the discussion is that no-one wants to raise it at Village Pump or here in case doing so might have significant consequences. Discreet suggestions here and there seem to have achieved nothing. It is my suspicion there is no way to address the issue directly. Ben MacDui 12:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no need for it justified in anything Wikipedia uses to describe administration duties. That it is suggested in seriousness suggests to me that some WP:Administrators are very confused about the purpose of Wikipedia. --KP Botany (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting anything. I'm asking a question that I notice nobody seems to be able to answer. Ben MacDui 15:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest emailing the person(s) you feel are in the best place to handle...whatever it is you're talking about—a trusted admin, ArbCom, or whoever. I understand why you can't be more explicit, as that would defeat the purpose of your question, but without more information, it's hard to answer. Hermione1980 16:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I outdented my response, above, Ben MacDui, to make certain you understood I was replying to the primary post, not yours. E-mail me, don't describe your issue, it doesn't matter, but I'll tell you the name of an admin you can e-mail to ask a question, who can maybe steer you in the correct direction. --KP Botany (talk) 20:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm only responding because the question was asked. And I do understand that 1600 admins to 8 million editors forces a certain unity (even if sometimes contentious) simply out of the sheer numbers. But there are email and IRC options, and with an already prevailing paranoia of admin cabalism, I'd seriously question the value of an admin only page. All IMHO — Ched (talk) 17:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for attempting to help. Of course, if I knew who to email I would do so. It would need to be someone who was motivated to help, had sufficient wiki-experience to know whether the problem was real or not, understood something about anti-vandal fighting, had some serious technical knowledge and the clout to get something done. I'm not familiar with IRC and nearly fell asleep reading about it. Perhaps that's the answer, although I am not sure what the difference is in principle between an "admin-only page" and an "admin-only IRC". I have no interest in cabals but this is a conundrum it seems hard to nail. Ben MacDui 17:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Could you talk to one of the admins who supported you when you had you RfA? Maybe in an IM program? or email? — Ched (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I have fired off an email or two. Ben MacDui 20:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I object to this for the same reasons that many people object to the admin-only IRC channel. The entire point of something being on-wiki is having it accessible to the public. Jtrainor (talk) 23:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the duh comment. And, of course, the first thing human beings do when given the least bit of power is abuse it to the utmost. Mop and bucket--the latter for me to puke in. --KP Botany (talk) 06:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Fast copyedit required Giles Hattersley

Can someone check this stub for grammar and spelling etc - ASAP for obvious reasons. Thanks. Giano (talk) 15:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Gave it a look, should be passable now. Does anyone know what this business about false claims in the apparently non-existent article is all about? Skomorokh 16:29, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It is why I have written the page, 1000s must have looked for it today. It is important that we defend ourselves from these allegations when ver possible. Today's was totally spurious. Wikipedia's PR, or rather lack of PR, is more than worrying. Giano (talk) 17:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth: "15:48, 2009 February 8 Jimbo Wales (Talk | contribs) deleted "Giles Hattersley" ‎ (pending further investigation)" [1] — Gavia immer (talk) 20:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That's just great, now Mr. Hattersley can point to the deletion log and claim that Jimbo's deletion of the article is some kind of acknowledgment that the article contained exactly what Mr. Hattersley previously claimed it contained (before it existed). — CharlotteWebb 20:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible that the article DID exist, but was oversighted (leaving no trace), perhaps seconds or minutes after Hattersley's article hit the press? Or that Hattersley is talking about an article on another Wikimedia property than the English Wikipedia? Just an extremely "assume good faith" concept from a banned user here (check with Alison). Delete this question, if you must. But, I think the idea is worth considering. -- 76.98.14.41 (talk) 22:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Related conversation at User talk:Jimbo Wales, but right now, no one can find any trace of the supposed claims on Wikipedia-en.--Tznkai (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Well...I'll say it now. It was not wise to create an article which had never existed purely because a person complained (falsely) that a wikipedia article on him contained errors. It was also unwise to delete this article, turning a minor complaint from a minor journalist into an issue that "looks" bad. Regardless of what we tell ourselves, we can't prove positive to the public that no article containing falsehoods ever existed. All that is publicly available is the deletion log. A deletion log which notes permanently that Jimbo deleted it--a triviality that I'm sure the British press will ignore. We need to get out of the business of self-referentiality and into the business of maintaining an encyclopedia. The next time that a blog in the guardian says, without evidence, that we have done something untoward, let's not trip over ourselves to look as guilty as possible. Protonk (talk) 22:36, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Blog in the Guardian? Which blog in the Guardian is this? DuncanHill (talk) 22:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, the Sunday times. He used to work for the guardian. Protonk (talk) 23:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think he did. The Guardian has had stories about him, but he seems only to have worked for the Sunday Times and Arena. DuncanHill (talk) 17:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Abolishing AN/I

The Incidents noticeboard is an unhealthy plague on this project. I would like to see it marked historical. How can we accomplish this? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

We can't.  GARDEN  22:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

We can do anything so long as we want to!  :) Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it just spill over here? rootology (C)(T) 22:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Not feasabley possible IMO. Where would people go if they had an incident to report? Where would all the reports currently on ANI go. For any proposal concerning the abolishment of ANI, I'd strongly oppose. Something like this would need community wide discussion. I'm guessing Jimbo would oppose abolishing ANI. D.M.N. (talk) 22:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a poll. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• You could just...awwwwww! C'mon! Protonk (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
• Duh! --Rodhullandemu 22:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The question is, why is Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents an unhealthy plague? —harej ;] 22:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(4ec) Could be done if we abolish admins. DuncanHill (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, let IPs delete the main page...  GARDEN  22:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Its the atmosphere of the place. We need a more village pump-style place. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

As much as I regret the frequent drama there, I doubt that any change in format will improve the atmosphere there. We need a place where frustrated people can ask for admin help; by definition, people who bring things there are frustrated. Tempers will flare and drama will exist. Frankly, I'm always impressed by how calm many of the participants are.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No. The village pump serves a good purpose. It lets people talk about features and ideas which they don't have the expertise to write themselves but want someone else to do it for them--for free--and it concentrates it in one place where I never have to go. It is wonderful. Protonk (talk) 23:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the most ridiculous idea I've heard all year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 22:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Hey wait, AN/I hasn't existed forever. What did we do before it? Why couldn't we go back to that? Hermione1980 22:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Before ANI, we just dumped all those reports here on AN. Basically, what MZMcBride is proposing is to re-merge AN & ANI, which would bring back the same old problems. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• It would certainly be possible; most of the real incidents there have other places to report them: the various noticeboards like WP:BLPN, WP:NORN, WP:AN3 or general reporting areas like WP:AIV, WP:RFPP, WP:SPI. Most of the rest of the reports are just noise. Mr.Z-man 22:16, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the solution is simply to pay less attention to it. If you're an admin, only post here if you have a real solution to what is clearly a real problem. Cut out the drive-by opinions and let the bullshit reports simply be archived without attention. Without fuel, the fires will die. Tan | 39 22:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think ANI is overused, but the inverse of that is the other boards are often ignored by admins. I've had notices at SSP and Edit War go unanswered for twelve or more hours. ANI (and AIV for the simplest of cases) is the only board that's regularly maintained. Dayewalker (talk) 22:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

One of the reasons those boards are underused is the fact that AN/I gets results. Another reason is that some of those boards are difficult and confusing to users (AN/3 used to be a complete mess, took me so long to figure out how to write a report that the edit war was stale by the time the message was posted, SSP/RFCU was the same way). Things improve and decline in that regard over time in different areas. AN/3 is better now, as is SPI. But AN/I is still the all-purpose "this is a problem and it needs fixing" board. That leads to DRAMA, naturally. but it is also awfully hard to fix. Protonk (talk) 23:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The idea here is to do what Mr.Z-man suggested. Diffuse the drama to various places rather centralizing all of it (and thus creating a powder keg). --MZMcBride (talk) 22:30, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Where would the civility ones go? As they make up a big bit of ANI? rootology (C)(T) 22:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:WQA might be the place for them. MBisanz ^talk 22:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with MBisanz here. WP:WQA would be the place for civility issues. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This whole discussion is crazy, AN/I is the only reliable wikipedia project. Elbutler (talk) 22:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Spreading the various types of complaints out onto their "home" forums is fairly easy to do... One would simply have to replace this page with a template asking the user to choose what type of complaint they are making, a la the image upload templates that select a proper license type. It would lead to two issues, however: first, all of these pages would have to see increased monitoring from admins, and second, there would still need to be an AN/I type forum for concerns that don't fit a specific problem type. Resolute 22:44, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

So we keep this board for specific admin-related issues. See Template:ANI deprecation notice. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• There would still be many issues that can't be easily shoehorned into any single category. Moreover, drama on ANI is due to the existence of drama. Removing ANI will not reduce the overall level of drama. Furthermore, there's a common misconception that seems to be implicitly accepted in this discussion. There's a notion that "drama" is somehow a necessarily bad thing. We as a community are composed of many different people from different backgrounds and often different ideas about what is best for the project. We disagree over content inclusion, general policies, how to interpret policies, which of conflicting ideals take priority and many other things. That such disagreements will often be heated and generate "drama" should not surprise us nor should it bother us. As long as people continue to work on this project together there will be drama. At the end of the day what is important is that such interaction leads to an improved encyclopedia. More often than not it does. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
  • This isn't a poll. And your argument is rather silly when one looks at the facts. People aren't "continuing to work on this project." They're leaving because they get sick of the drama. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I've refactored the first part of the remark so it doesn't look like a poll vote. The rest of your comment isn't a response to my point at all. Drama will exist no matter what. High levels of drama are inevitable. Yes, people do leave when they get sick of drama. That's the way it is. If you think you have some way of actually reducing drama without harming the project then I'd be happy to listen to it. Reorganizing doesn't do that. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:54, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Diffusing the issues has a number of benefits. It allows admins to selectively watch boards that they're interested in. It creates less likelihood of drama building up all in one place (which means there's a higher likelihood of boards being productive and drama-free). And it means that discussions can stay active longer without having to archive due to page size. What's the disadvantage here? I think abolishing AN/I will reduce drama and I've seen no evidence to the contrary. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
      • "Diffusing the issues" = splintering focus. Other boards have failed for this very reason. Either they receive too little attention from the wider community or they receive too much attention from a certain subset of editors. AN/I is a good catch-all and off topic discussions can redirected easily. The solution is not to abolish the board but correct its use. - auburnpilot talk 23:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
        • This is chicken and the egg. If people can't go to AN/I, they'll focus on other places. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
• AN/I is a plague, RFA is broken, ArbCom is incompetent, Jimbo is <today's opinion>... - auburnpilot talk 22:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
  • So we try to improve things rather than accept the poor current status. And I would hardly call the view that AN/I is a plague transient. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 22:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• No, but in my opinion, it's equally without basis or viable alternatives. - auburnpilot talk 23:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• • • Did you read Mr.Z-man's suggestion above? What are your thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 23:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support - wow, MZMB with a good idea? Say it aint so! :o Sceptre ^(talk) 22:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
  • It ain't so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Why's that? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
• I don't think that anything on Wikipedia is per se broken, first of all. Redundant, perhaps. Maybe I just don't participate in WikiDrama™ much, but I don't see much of a difference between regular AN and AN/I. Also, 99% of the time, anything I've seen posted to AN/I can be diffused. I've never understood why AN/I was separate anyway. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 22:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

My question as to why Administrators Noticeboard Incidents is a plague was never answered. —harej ;] 23:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That post - right above this - is partially the reason AN/I sucks. Tan | 39 23:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

While one can shoehorn a lot of discussions into a few major categories, not everything will fit and some things will only fit if you squint real hard. For example, dealing with Betacommand's bot behavior, or when someone makes a death threat, or when a professor assigns 200 students to write wikicontent, or admin X is discovered to be running a sockpuppet farm, etc. There are many infrequent issues that are hard to categorize and if you dump AN/I they are just going to land at AN (which gains nothing as far as I can see). While I can understand encouraging discussions to be moved to dedicated noticeboards when the clearly fit, I think it is unproductive to try and close down AN/I and offload everything. Dragons flight (talk) 23:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I always thought it was strange that we had two noticeboards that served the same purpose (WP:AN and WP:ANI) and were used interchangeably (whether people are supposed to or not). On top of that, 97% (my own approximation) of the threads on those two noticeboards can be handled elsewhere (like the other noticeboards that are listed at Template:Editabuselinks). I'd support this idea. - Rjd0060 (talk) 23:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec, resp to initial post) You can't change people's behavior by eliminating the place where they misbehave. The problem with ANI isn't the existence of the board -- it's the behavior of the people who post on it. Does anyone else see the relationship of this thread to the one above? DG suggests that those of us with the bit must "lift our game." That's what it would take to make ANI less toxic. All of us who post there can take that one extra moment before clicking "save" to determine whether or not the snipe, flame, or snark we just wrote actually helps the encyclopedia or not; and if someone insults you, you don't need to insult them back. "Revenge yourself on your enemies by not becoming like them." (You may leave your incivil replies and insults to my mother below.) Antandrus (talk) 23:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

YO MOMMA WAS AN ADMIN, OOPS THATS YOU - David Gerard (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I've thought before that it might do more good than harm to lock everything but the articles, but ultimately it's not practical. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Bad idea, we already have enough of a problem with bureaucracy. All that will happen is a smaller group of editors will create a much more bureaucratic atmosphere at the smaller noticeboards. The answer is to fix the problems here rather than to splinter then into smaller pieces. RxS (talk) 23:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I am with TenPoundHammer. The issue for me is less the drama of ANI and more the question of what exactly is the difference between reporting something here and reporting something at ANI. I would like that clarified if possible. JuJube (talk) 23:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Specific proposal

To report:

• Problems with biographies of living persons → Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard.
• 3RR violations → Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring.
• Ongoing vandalism → Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism.
• Pages needing protection → Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.
• Civility issues → Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts.
• Everything else → Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard.

Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 23:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Bad idea. That's just effectively merging ANI with AN. The backload here is already massive. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The backload would be shifted to other places. This isn't merging anything. It's quite the opposite. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I support changing the admin noticeboard into more of an index, with more specific notiveboards - however, we'd have to create a few more than we have at present. WP:AN/Content, WP:AN/User conduct e.t.c. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

So make some suggestions, though it's very likely somebody has already created such noticeboards and they're just not visited much. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What about, instead of getting rid of AN/I altogether, we'll simply be bolder in moving threads to the right page/noticeboard? MZMcBride already wrote what belongs where, and most of the time threads on AN/I simply don't belong there in the first place. --Conti|✉ 00:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I fear that the only way to enforce such a thing is to lock the page altogether. I see no other real way to force people to post elsewhere. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. The problem is not AN/I but the way editors use it. If a discussion belongs at a more appropriate board, copy/paste and leave a note explaining where it went. Closing AN/I while simultaneously creating a half dozen new boards is not a good idea. - auburnpilot talk

Remember that WP:AN started because Ta bu shi da yu thought "oh, that'd be useful." It promptly spawned ANI and AN3 as sub-boards. Supposedly ANI is for current news reports for admin attention, this is more of a longer-term thing. And the traffic here is already vast.

I suggest leaving ANI there, steering more problems off to the further sub-boards and fixing the behaviour that makes ANI a problem - make it effectively redundant rather than just removing it - David Gerard (talk) 00:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

All right, fair enough. :-) So do we have consensus to start doing this a tad bit more aggressively? --MZMcBride (talk) 00:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

How about a proof of principle discussion so we can see if we are on the same page. Of the 38 threads on ANI currently, which would you move elsewhere? Dragons flight (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• 1 Scribe711/Wired for Books ## Don't we have noticeboards for spam-related issues?
• 2 User:SmashTheState, or, Now we see the violence inherent in the system!!1 ## Username violations surely have another place on the site
• 3 Reversion of large numbers of my edits by User:Pigsonthewing ## 3RR noticeboard
• 4 Big Dunc, blocked ## Unblock request; use user talk page
• 5 Continuation of edit warring by User:Arimareiji in Rachel Corrie ## Edit war noticeboard
• 6 User:HorseGirl070605 ## Legit use of board
• 7 Images used in Intelligent design covered by Non-free content policy? ## Non-free content issue / edit warring on AN/I? The hell? We have like twelve other more appropriate places. Article talk pages would be a start...
• 8 User:Godvia ## Legit use of board, though AIV also works
• 9 Eugene Krabs dilemma ## Conflict of interest noticeboard (yes, I'm pretty sure we have one)
• 10 Disruptive editor at South Korea and some related articles ## AIV? Edit warring noticeboard? Take your pick
• 11 Upcoming revert war on several articles ## Edit warring noticeboard
• 12 Pope John Paul II ## I assume there's a socking noticeboard. If not, one should probably be created; or use RFCU or something
• 13 Problems at Indiana University South Bend ## COI noticeboard again?
• 14 User:Cheapfriends and North / Northern Cyprus ## Socking again...
• 15 User:SoUnusual ## Legit use of board (admin misconduct)
• 16 Infoboxification by Dwiakigle ## User talk page? Article talk pages? WikiProject talk pages? Surely there are better places than AN/I.
• 17 User:TAway ## Talk page of the user or article; or edit warring noticeboard
• 18 Vandal harrassing User:MBisanz ## AIV
• 19 Large sockfarm ## Socking noticeboard? Put all of this is in a centralized place so I don't have to look at it. :-)
• 20 Incivility by User:Panlatdelkwa ## Wikiquette board
• 21 Possible sock of Manhattan Samurai ## Socking noticeboard
• 22 IP 69.14.222.125 ## Spamming noticeboard? Conflict of interest noticeboard? AIV? Edit warring noticeboard? Specific admins' talk page? This could go anywhere.
• 23 User:Miklebe impersonating User:Mikebe ## Probably legit use of board
• 24 3RR discrepancies ## 3RR noticeboard exists for a reason
• 25 Content Managment System pages and Deletion ## No idea what this is. Looks like it would be better off on the article's talk page
• 26 BLP concern John Burris ## BLP noticeboard exist. I posted there today.
• 27 Continued userspace campaigning by indefinitely blocked user ## Legit use of board, probably
• 28 User:LOLthulu ## Socking noticeboard!
• 29 User moving articles without discussion ## User talk page. Article talk page. WikiProject talk pages. Then come to AN/I.
• 30 Drake Circus ## lolwut? Article talk page?
• 31 User:Johnlemartirao ## Block request for user for vandalism / disruption --> AIV seems appropriate
• 32 Racism and the panarabism ideology ## Speedy deletion request. Tag the page. Don't post about it.
• 33 Israel Shahak article ## Legit use of board
• 34 Tag-abuse by Dicklyon of a page for which he is already in formal mediation ## Sanctions noticeboard? User talk page? AIV? Maybe AN/I, just maybe
• 35 User:Nationalist320 and his sock User:Sea888 ## Socking noticeboard
• 36 Disruptive editor/Sockpuppet ## Socking noticeboard
• 37 Sort of kind of a legal threat ## Legit use of board
• 38 Personal attack by User:Damjanoviczarko ## Wikiquette

I think the only thing we need is a noticeboard dedicated to socking issues (if we don't have one already). --MZMcBride (talk) 01:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Ohh, sounds like fun:

1. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Scribe711.2FWired_for_Books→Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam
2. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Big_Dunc.2C_blocked→WP:AN or WP:AE
3. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Continuation_of_edit_warring_by_User:Arimareiji_in_Rachel_Corrie→WP:AN3 (which claims to be more about edit warring than 3rr these days but I don't think that is true in practice...not sure though)
4. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Godvia→Not sure. Any admin talk page might work.
5. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Eugene_Krabs_dilemma→WP:EAR
6. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Upcoming_revert_war_on_several_articles→WP:AN3
7. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Cheapfriends_and_North_.2F_Northern_Cyprus→Probably WP:AE. If we haven't had an arbcom case on that part of SE europe, I would be surprised.
8. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:TAway→WP:AN3
9. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Vandal_harrassing_User:MBisanz→WP:RFPP, I'm dubious on the "we'll find socks if they keep doing it" claim, there are a whole lot of IP addresses in the sea.
10. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Large_sockfarm→WP:AN or WP:SPI
11. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Possible_sock_of_Manhattan_Samurai→WP:SPI
12. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#IP_69.14.222.125→Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam
13. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Miklebe_impersonating_User:Mikebe→Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam..maybe.
14. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#3RR_discrepancies→WP:AN3...or WP:AN since the blocks came from "edit warring"
15. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Content_Managment_System_pages_and_Deletion→Wikipedia:Help desk?
16. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#BLP_concern_John_Burris→WP:BLPN, where it was sent, but evidently not responded to.
17. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Continued_userspace_campaigning_by_indefinitely_blocked_user→talk page of any active admin
18. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:LOLthulu→WP:SPI, as that's basically what it turned out to be.
19. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User_moving_articles_without_discussion→Dunno. see the cyprus comment.
20. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Israel_Shahak_article→WP:AE, I'm almost certain that article is under probation.
21. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Nationalist320_and_his_sock_User:Sea888→WP:SPI
22. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive_editor.2FSockpuppet→Ditto. That editor adding the reports shows up on AN/I a lot.

Soo, 22/38 is about 2/3rds. Not too shabby. Protonk (talk) 01:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a problem in being proactive about shutting down non "admin intervention needed immediately for problem that doesn't fit SPI/AN3/AIV" threads and directing users to various other noticeboards, so long as we do it consistently, clearly and helpfully. This means we can't just say "An3 is ← that way" (I've been guilty of that) and we can't just fix their problem in record time then say "Well, if you really wanted your problem fixed, you should have gone to ABC noticeboard" (Guilty as charged for that, too). We, that is the editors who lurk on AN/X, should spend more time on the other noticeboards. Complaints answered there work doubly. They remove the complaint (duh), but they also remove the implicit incentive for editors who are party to the complaint to bring something like it to AN/I next time. The faster and more completely a problem gets resolved on those 'other' noticeboards, the less crazy AN/I will be. Another thing that will dramatically reduce the influx of AN/I threads on non-emergent issues is to sit down and really give some teeth to WQA and RfC. right now the former is worthless unless someone is going to be chastened by a 'stern warning' and the latter serves little purpose (in most cases) except to show to Arbcom that all steps in DR have been taken. Those need to get fixed. That will help stem this tide of dramahz. Protonk (talk) 01:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You talked me into it. I just added WP:RFP to my watch list, and I've already taken care of one item there. Looks like it's a lower drahhhhma area, too. :)--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It would seem that AN/I would be the appropriate place to go with editors' behaviorial problems which extend past the boundaries of other boards, i.e. the problematic editor who's uncivil, edit-wars (or close to it), is disruptive or tendenitious, etc. Each of the behaviors might not be significant enought to get a strong response on an individual board, but together they indicate a problem editor who should be dealt with in some way. Isn't that something that should be reported on AN/I? (And aren't those editors exactly the kind who stir up drama?) Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 01:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

ANI is a mess because it deals with disruptive editors who don't want to be blocked, and frequently think that the best way to avoid a block is by continuing their disruptive behavior there. As we can't get rid of disruptive editors (sadly!) all abolishing ANI would achieve is to move the same disputes into boards where there's potentially less oversight. Nick-D (talk) 03:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Why don't we make (offically) ANI specificly for blocking requests which do not fit into the other noticeboards and/or are too complicated for AIV, then move other issues to their appropriate noticeboards as has been proposed below? Right now the notice at the top of this page says "For evasion of blocks, abuse of admin tools, or other incidents, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (WP:ANI)", It'd be nice if we were to define what exactly incidents, noone seems to have a clear understanding of what it is, only what it supposedly isn't. —Nn123645 (talk) 04:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Moving toward a consensus

So, do we have at least some general agreement that we should begin to start pushing people toward more appropriate forums when they post to WP:AN/I and it belongs elsewhere? I propose putting Template:Noticeboard key in the editnotice of WP:AN/I and possibly on the page itself and then getting serious about enforcement. Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If we are going to enforce this we need to make sure we do it in a non-bitey manner. Don't simply shut down threads that aren't appropriate. Copy them over to the correct board and let the person who made the thread know. Furthermore, we need to be ready to move the complicated cross-situation ones back over to ANI if it is necessary. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Joshua and to take it further, admins need to pay more attention to these othere areas as well. I've encountered things posted at different areas that are there for hours, a couple even there for a couple of days. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 01:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I think some handy ?action=watch links in the editnotice would do the trick. And I agree that we need to do this in a user-friendly manner. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well...I think you have consensus to do what should have always been practice: move non-emergent disputes from AN/I to the appropriate fora. In order to do something more I would want to know that the targeted boards can handle the change. Because if they can't, we are right back where we started. Will SPI push DUCK cases back to AN or AN/I? Will AN3 push "edit warring but not 3rr" cases back to AN/I? Does the spam noticeboard get sufficient attention from admins willing to mete out blocks for persistent spammers? Also, is this universally a good idea? We may think it is (here on AN), but I bet one of the reason people like it as AIV is that they can just dismiss reports that don't fit a specific rubric. Same with (well, it used to be) AN3. RFCU used to (a while ago) be that way. There may be some merit in specialization and systematization. Protonk (talk) 02:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm in favor of keeping any section headers and leaving a "Discussion moved to: Foo" note. And then we just need to encourage people to watch the boards that interest them. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Moving posts to more appropriate boards would probably work, if those boards were actually watched. The few times I've posted on more appropriate boards, and it's been ages, my posts have been ignored. Completely ignored. Which is a lot nicer than some bored and immature administrator stopping by AN/I for a closing pot shot. So, yes, even though no one here considered that the vast majority of those editing Wikipedia wish all the bureaucracy would simply die off and have no idea of all these other boards and stuff because it is impossible to find anything on Wikipedia outside of articles (and there's a user currently trying to fix that issue) it might work to simply forward posts to the appropriate boards. It's a simpler idea than creating a new level of surveying, and hiding where most newcomers might think to come behind a frustrating voice mail board.

Of course, moving posts would have to be done with a simple and polite message, and that seems almost impossible at AN/I (mostly due, again, to immature administrator cheap shots). But, yes, I think this would probably work.

Oh, and all discussions discussing the drama consumers (those two or three editors that consume over 30K every time someone mentions them at AN/I) should have a special drama board. It could be called something nice like, "Repeated issues," to make it seem like it's not the drama board. In fact, just doing this, making a large volume repeated drama board might make the whole of AN/I more civil by giving those craving the drama a creative space, and probably the asshole drive-by cheap-shot administrators and editors would be more attracted to that board--maybe.

By the way, the Burris BLP issue was taken care of in the easiest way possible: other editors started watching and editing the article. However, last time I suggested an issue had been assisted at AN/I I got personally attacked by a couple of cheap-shot, drive-by, administrators, so the issue must stay on AN/I even though it has been dealt with. God forbid a mere editor would be allowed to say an issue they raised had been dealt with when there were a couple of little kids with mops looking to have some malicious fun. Yup, board forwarding sounds like it could work. --KP Botany (talk) 07:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

NB that the "Burris BLP" issue, which wasn't really an issue since there was no BLP violation, was resolved by you leaving a talk-page comment, and the other editor on the page immediately agreeing with your proposed addition of a 1996 factoid to the article. It wasn't even appropriate for BLPN, much less ANI, and it was only because you didn't AGF that you felt the need to go complain. THF (talk) 11:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There's no need to assume good faith with BLPs--there's a need to go on the content of the article itself. If a BLP is negative, one doesn't bother assuming the editors had good intentions, or bad intentions, that's not how BLPs are dealt with. One takes care of the problem with the BLP immediately. I'm a full time student, the article was seriously negatively weighted, highly positive information about Burris, from articles that were used as sources, were ignored completely, but I requested other editors monitor the article in a public forum, other editors agreed to do so and have been monitoring the article. If I had felt the need to guess as to the article's editors intentions in writing such a slanted article, I would have carefully checked the edit history and posted notices as needed. If I had assumed bad faith, I would have popped a BLP violation notice on the talk page of the guilty party, after requesting the article be oversighted if there were materials in the article needed that. And, yes, there is a nice administrator who takes care of oversighting these BLP issues when I find them. --KP Botany (talk) 06:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Wow, looks like you folks might be serious about this. One observation I'd like to make, and perhaps I missed it in skimming through everything since my last comment, but I think there would need to be one or two guidelines. What comes to mind, and forgive me if I missed this in the "quick skim", but 1.) The editor (or admin) who closes the thread at AN|AN/I should be required encouraged to ensure that a thread has been started at the appropriate board, (as well as a link provided to said new thread in the closing) and 2.)(optionally) make sure that involved parties are notified of the new board/thread on their talk pages. — Ched (talk) 10:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC) ... and in line with MZM, let's hope that foobar doesn't end up FUBAR (sorry, I just had to add that) .. ;) — Ched (talk) 10:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea. Let's do it. --Cyde Weys 02:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I wasn't sure at first, but now I agree with you all. ANI is the Ma Bell of drama. Let's break it up. People will catch on fast enough. Benefits of this will be less of a rolling fireball of anger and hurt, and the "ANI regulars" will be free to help out on the less visible pages that will be focused to fix certain issues. ANI is too much of a dumping ground for people to see and be seen. Better that bad behavior and slagging of reputations is never again rewarded with a central showcase and venue. Baseball Bugs's comment comparing AIV as an example of how to do things is especially persuasive. ANI is a waste of our "lives" on here and a net negative. Let's do it. rootology (C)(T) 03:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

RfC?

Anyone else think we should initate a RfC on this to involve the wider community? If we do, I suggest we should add a notice to the watchlist page. D.M.N. (talk) 16:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems like overkill to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, its not like we're changing a policy or anything. Its especially overkill if we're just going to be more proactive in moving threads to more appropriate boards, which is really something we should already be doing. Mr.Z-man 17:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

No. Just be more aggresive in moving posts to the correct pages.--Patton^t/c 19:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If the original complainants goal is to encourage vandals and discourage regular editors, this would certainly be a good step in that direction. Too often we hear an admin say, "This is the not the place to post that complaint." WRONG ANSWER. The right answer is, "Oh, that's a problem, I'll fix it." This kind of splintering (which is already too much) does nothing except encourage lazy admins to give an answer that equates to what Freddie Prinz's landlord character used to say: "Eet's not my job, mon." Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed fully. WP ought by its own history be antithetical to bureaucracies and creation of dozens of "proper places for discussion of that problem", and supportive of individuals actually acting responsibly on any problems which they see. Collect (talk) 15:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. We try to do that, but what happens is a siphoning of interest from specialty boards to the general boards. Why go through the bother of reporting someone at AN3 when I can just make an AN/I report? Every time we take one of these wrongly placed queries and fix it instead of moving it we send an implicit signal: "Don't go to the other boards, come here." We don't want to do that. We want (presumably) SPI/AN3/AIV/UAA/etc to work. We want the various content noticeboards to be fruitful places of discussion. We don't want every issue coming to AN/I. In order to do that, we need to give people an incentive to go to those boards. Does that mean that we say "wrong queue, I'm not helping you"? Of course not. We say "I'll move your request or tell you how to move it, then someone will help you there." That is the right answer. I appreciate the anti-bureaucratic argument that we shouldn't have "proper" places for discussion but I submit that ship has sailed. we have those noticeboards. Some of them work rather well. They benefit from specialist attention and lack the drama-rama of AN and AN/I. So part of what we do should support that. Protonk (talk) 16:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

To echo the point, I personally don't much care for drama. Accordingly, I seldom post to AN/I, and don't watch it regularly. However, I do watch, and participate, in some of the other noticeboards - AIV if I notice a backlog, RFPP, BLP/N, etc. To the extent that appropriate cases are moved to the appropriate venues, you'll get a different subset of admins who have chosen to deal with those issues. As long as others pitch in, there no reason that over time that processes like WP:RS/N couldn't take hold just as firmly. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 16:43, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:AIV is an excellent example of the way to do things. It doesn't require the tedious construction necessary to post at the 3RR page, for example, which requires you to have two screens open at once to repeatedly go back-and-forward to find and post stuff that's already visible in the history. AIV simply says, "Here's a problem - fix it." AIV should be the model for the way to deal with issues. It's shortcoming is that it's too restrictive. If the complainant were to post a sentence or two explaining the issue (3RR, POV-pushing, etc.) then you could use AIV as the one-stop shop for most all disruption, and then you wouldn't need WP:ANI anymore. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I should point out another problem with the notion of splintering ANI further, and that is forum shopping. If a user doesn't like the answer you get in one place, he takes it to another place. Well, if there's a one-stop shop, by definition there will be no forum shopping going on. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It's pretty easy to see if someone is doing that, though. The potential of forum shopping isn't a reason to not do it. The only real hit from this, from reading all of this, is that AN/I regulars will be out of business. That's no big deal and irrelevant, so I still don't see a reason this won't be good overall. rootology (C)(T) 03:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Wait, we need an RFC about the AN thread about AN/I? Does ARBCOM or NASA need to be informed? Seriously though, it's probably better to have a one-stop shop for people who need attention, rather than making people learn the yellow pages of WP acronyms, or pelting them with tut-tuts if they use the wrong board. Much as I'm not a fan of the dramas, at least it all seems to be gravitating to one place. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 03:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. This is where acting like an adult comes in, a commodity that seems always in short supply on AN/I, especially among admins. If someone posts a problem on AN/I that is belongs on another specific topic matter board, a mature (meaning able to act like adult, not meaning old) administrator posts an appropriate response, moves the thread, and posts a note on the talk page of the poster.

"This guy has been following me around for days, changing all of my edits to the Herbal Medicine articles, where I'm adding my website. Other websites are on Wikipedia, someone please tell him to stop reverting mine." Signed Julie-Sells-Orange-Juice.com

Hi, Julie-Sells-OJ.com, this issue should be discussed with editors and administrators who monitor the COI board (heck if I know what's the correct board, says KP, but not the admin). I've moved your notice there, and closed this thread here. Here's a link to the new board. I've also posted this notice and link on your talk page. Signed Admin-who-acts-adult-like

At COI notice board, "Hi, folks, Julie-Sells-OJ.com is having a problem that she posted at AN/I. Here's here contribution history, and the other editors's contribution history, and here's her post from AN/I. Thanks. Signed Admin-who-acts-adult-like

You act like human beings to people and they'll act like human beings back. The ones who won't you couldn't have done anything about, anyhow, but you've looked good to the uninvolved ones who will in the meanwhile. --KP Botany (talk) 06:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, not everyone who might move a thread is an admin, and it's not unheard of for admins to get a little frosty :-). OTOH, it might actually be a good thing if that were done in an easy-to-follow way, so that if people aren't sure which board to use, they can use a grab-bag board with the understanding that it will be moved to the most appropriate place. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I think non-admins moving the threads would be a good idea, too, because it would allow admins to take care of work that requires admins. But last time I suggested a non-admin was capable of doing something at AN/I I got attacked by the kiddy contingent (and this means the immature brats, not the youth, as some of the best admins are, imo, a few of the youngest) for usurping their power-tripping. But, yes, I think that non-admins would be quite capable of sorting what goes where along with admins. Especially if it speeded up the amount of time required to deal with an issue.

I don't think the grab bag board move is a good idea, though. If you don't know where to move something, simply don't. Someone who knows will come by and move it, or it can remain on AN/I. From MB's post above it seems obvious where a large number of posts belong. Don't worry about handling and redirecting everything, just haul ass, politely, on the obvious ones. --KP Botany (talk) 02:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Lex Luthor (no, not the one in the comics)

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive512 § The Lex Luthor of Wikipedia

I have just received this email:

[redacted] by //roux   03:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

-- This e-mail was sent by user "An Argento Fan" on the English Wikipedia to user "DuncanHill". It has been automatically delivered and the Wikimedia Foundation cannot be held responsible for its contents.

Make of it what you will. DuncanHill (talk) 03:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm in contact with Manhattan Samurai also. I don't get the impression at the moment that he's terribly sorry. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Return? Hell no. MS proved several times he was only here to stir up drama; give him an inch and he'll take a mile. Also redacted the email text (feel free to put in a summary) per som ArbCom decision for which I do not have the link. //roux   03:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

A bloody ridiculous ArbCom decision if you ask me, but I won't revert you over it! DuncanHill (talk) 03:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I told him that if he wants to come back he should spend some time editing another project productively. I'd be perfectly willing to let him back in say three months if he doesn't sock during that time and is a productive editor elsewhere. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

DuncanHill (or anyone else with email contact), could you ask this user for their permission to quote this email on Wikipedia so that it can be unredacted, in order that the community can evaluate it. They dont need to give their permission; if they dont, it can be summarised. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC) p.s. a Committee member also received an email from "An Argento Fan" (possibly the same email) but if the community wants to evaluate it, that would at least save the committee some time digging up the history, and we can go back to drinking pina colada on the beach.

He gave me permission to publish. I'm not sure that's sufficient since the email was sent to Duncan not me (am I just being anal?). If it is then I'll just stick it here. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a notice on both my talk page and my userpage saying that I may publish any emails sent to me through Wikipedia. I am reluctant to reply to him directly, as I am not entirely confident about letting him have my email addy. DuncanHill (talk) 04:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, here is a summary:

He wants to apologize to the community for "Lex Luthor" malarky, and to open talks with the community to apologize for other things. He says he has been "an intellectual pretzel", sometimes making excellent contributions and sometimes being disruptive. He wishes to make amends. He proposes starting a discussion, with the aim of returning as User:BillDeanCarter.

It's hard to summarize something very short. DuncanHill (talk) 04:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He sent me the full text with permission to put it here. So:

I would like to apologize to the community for the "Lex Luthor" disruption and to open up talks with the community to apologize for my other actions. I have been an intellectual pretzel, making excellent contributions on the one hand and then being quite disruptive on the other hand. I would like to make amends for that. I propose that we begin a discussion and that we discuss my return under the account User:BillDeanCarter.

For what it is worth, I think he is sincere. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:56, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Is he BillDeanCarter though? DuncanHill (talk) 05:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. He claims that a checkuser will confirm that he is. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why he chose me to email - I do have a kindly face apparently, but am not particularly familiar with him or the problem. DuncanHill (talk) 05:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I oppose this, but I'm no neutral party. If this is even considered, then he'd have to agree to a total topic ban, indefinite, to anything related to Gonzo Journalism OR Alan Cabal. It's pretty clear to me from his many comments on the topic that there's a conflict of interest there. I have a lengthier hypothesis on the matter, but won't go into excess detail without being asked, but the phrase 'Gonzo Journalism from the inside out' would be the nut of it. ThuranX (talk) 05:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The editor in question asked me to make the following statement. I presume in response to Thuranx's comment here:

"I would like to extend my apologies to ThuranX and Arcayne for the funny business I performed last month and any trouble it may have caused. I was just being silly and did not intend to be malicious in any way. My actions were simply to annoy in a playful way rather than damage your reputations."

Make of that what you will. JoshuaZ (talk) 06:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Support a return (as the neutral outsider that I am) on the conditions that:

• He edits productively on another WM project for 3 months
• CU on that project confirms he has not socked
• He is topicbanned from Gonzo Journalism and the related articles

• Any violation of the third condition will result in him being reblocked; obviously if he screws up the first two he wont be unblocked in the first place.

Any takers? Ironholds (talk) 10:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - nope. It all looks rather self-serving to me; I suspect that the whack-a-mole has been nuking his socks faster than he can establish them and he's getting put out. He can come back in a year, maybe. //roux   12:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I supported the last unblock and even tried to work w/ him over email to craft an appropriate condition for unblock. A lot of people spent time and effort to help him work on "his" article (almost always a mistake, IMO...but one I made as well). When he went back to trolling/etc. he brushed aside all of that work and spoiled any good faith that may have been built up. Protonk (talk) 16:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose We've given him two second chances, he failed both of them and the 2nd time declared a personal vendetta against wikipedia..in this case third time's not the charm. Elbutler (talk) 17:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose anybody who considers themselves the LexLuthor of wikipedia need not be here. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 16:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Resolved

 – This isn't a pressing matter.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 07:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering if you could tell me how tall the average administrator really is? Please let me know?? South Bay (talk) 05:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

About the same as Napoleon. DuncanHill (talk) 05:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was 1.57 m. MER-C 05:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm trying to see how to alter that to get a standard distribution. My initial thought was to take a bunch of rands and average them to get a close to standard distribution. But the rand template automatically picks the same random number whenever it is called on a single page load so that doesn't work. Incidentally, actual admin issue, there's a typo on the template documentation. "Invokation" should be "invocation." Hmm, looking at it the typo occurs repeatedly. Is invokation a different (correct) term? JoshuaZ (talk) 05:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Josh, please don't go messing with rands, we get enough trouble with them already! DuncanHill (talk) 05:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

So how would you objectively choose a random a number? JoshuaZ (talk) 05:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The same user had asked, on Feb 1, what the average age of an admin is. The answer to both questions is as follows: The admins are ALL of average height, weight, and age. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 10:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Got my curiousity aroused -- "invokation" is the Swedish spelling -- for some reason it is a real common English misspelling as well. The "k" use is found a lot -- WP has an article on Autarky though "autarchy" is more logical on its etymology. As for height, Abe Lincoln was asked by a child whether his legs were extraordinarily long. Reply: They are exactly the right length to reach the ground. Collect (talk) 15:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed community ban on User:Fragments of Jade

I propose a community ban on Fragments of Jade (talk · contribs) and any sock thereof per the extreme disruption and sockpuppetry—see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/67.163.193.239, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/67.163.193.239/Archive, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Checkuser abuse, and related other sockpuppet cases. Editor is engaging in abusive sockpuppetry to harass and attack other users as well as to blatantly disrupt the encyclopedia. Thank you, MuZemike 08:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Support ban, although it seems a tad pointless; an indef block, and any socks that turn up will be indefed as socks. I guess this is just making a more formal "whatever you turn up as you are not welcome" statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ironholds (talk • contribs)
• Yep, what Ironholds said. I've only seen one of the socks, but that was sufficient for me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:36, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed. MER-C 12:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Yeh. No-brainer. //roux   12:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support - This degree of abusive sockpuppetry on an ongoing basis is unacceptable. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support - Community ban, as I understand it, gives priority to requests for checkuser for suspected socks. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support - Harassment and disruption, nothing productive here. Dayewalker (talk) 01:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

"Hit list" accusation from User:CadenS

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Resolved. while keeping a list of user edits and actions may not be the most tactful way to observe edits, no policy is being broken. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Please see this thread on my user talk page: User_talk:SheffieldSteel#Hit_List.3F. CadenS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) In a nutshell, CadenS accuses me of maintaining a hit list of editors. I have a user sub-page containing a list of editors I have been monitoring. In the absence of any kind of "editor watchlist" provided by the mediawiki software, this is the best way I could think of to conveniently check the contribs of multiple editors. This page was not linked from anywhere on-wiki until CadenS found it, presumably from looking at my contribs. He has posted to the talk page of every editor on the list, and has demanded that I resign the tools. I can see several possible solutions to this. I'd like feedback from other editors about which might be best. Keep the page as-is, ignoring CadenS. Add a disclaimer to the top of the page, saying e.g. "This page is a list of editors this admin is monitoring, and is not intended as an attack on them or any kind of public statement about their actions." (done) Remove all annotations and comments from the list. Move the list onto a piece of paper, delete the page, and type in the user names by hand in future. Open a user conduct RfC on myself with a view to resigning the tools. (I am not interested in speculating as to CadenS's motivation for this, and I'd appreciate it if the discussion wasn't distracted by that.) SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 14:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC) I'd consider the source, personally. Take option 2, let CadenS calm down from this latest outburst, move on. //roux   14:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Defintly 3 at least. You can't list perceived greviences on a user subpage unless dipute resolution is forthcoming. Not sure if there is anything against a list of names, but if you removed annotations and put a describer at the top, that should be fine. --Narson ~ Talk • 14:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC) 6. Use the Bookmarks/Favourites list of your browser to keep this off wiki. –xeno (talk) 14:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Or copy the list into Microsoft Word or something similar. That would preserve the hyperlinks and comments while keeping it off wiki. Hermione1980 14:45, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Keep as is (option 1). CadenS is under community editing restrictions. Someone, somewhere has to keep a note about that and actually monitor them, or the restrictions are meaningless. Personally, I keep my editors' watchlist as a mix of watching their talk pages and paper notes - your way is better and more transparent, not less, and all editors listed have a reason to be on the page. It's not like Kelly Martin's B Ark list of many moons ago. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ dedicated to making a happy man very old 14:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Option Z: Move it to a google doc, forget about the accusations. Still copy/paste, still accessible anywhere. No drama. If you have editors you keep tabs on for various reasons, it is almost always better to leave it off wiki (IMO). that doesn't mean leaving it on-wiki is wrong, just that it evidently causes people to endure cruel, cruel butthurt. The wiki pays a price in openness, but we can blame those who would complain about lists more than the list makers. Protonk (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Support any move off-wiki. An RfC isn't necessary. Ironholds (talk) 16:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Well, I'm not an admin, hell - I'm not even sure I'm past my trial period yet, but given that it would be easy to just pick File..Save as, and save an html file to your HD - (or any of the other options above), I don't see what the problem is. I would personally probably go with the advise of the other admins just to save the drama - but you don't have to justify yourself to anyone. — Ched (talk) 16:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Comment. Shef your inappropriate list is linked on-wiki, that's how I found it. In the toolbox on my page there is "what links here", and when you click on that you will see that my name is linked to what I see as your personal hit list (of editors you clearly dislike). I contacted the others on your list because they had a right to know what you are doing. I do not believe your claims of "monitoring". Your annotations and comments from the list reveal that you have what looks exactly as a personal hit list and nothing more. As I've said before, do the right thing and resign. My other suggestion to you is to open a user conduct RfC on yourself. However, I'd prefer you resign instead. Caden S (talk) 21:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC) I'm sure you would. You might imagine that we would take your recommendations with more than a grain of salt. Can you explain what policies/guidelines Shef is violating that warrant desysopping? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Sorry, I find this to be utter nonsense; there's nothing there that isn't already available on-wiki, it's just collected in one place for administrative convenience. I'm sure I'm on many lists, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Some mature perspective please. --Rodhullandemu 21:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC) (ec)Comment - no misuse of the admin tools, no incivility, no breach of any applicable guideline or policy (as far as I am aware) - in fact, nothing more than a page of notes. An RfC would be unwarranted and a waste of everyone's time, and calls for resignation are, frankly, ridiculous. And people wonder why WP:AN and the associated boards get clogged up with dramahz...GbT/c 21:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Option -C- relabel the list "My bestest friends" and get on with life. Seriously, keep it as is. How else should you keep track of folks you want to keep an eye on? To me, its a bit like telling a parole officer not to write down your address. Guyonthesubway (talk) 21:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Thank you everyone for your input. On reflection, I have decided to move the page into "admin-only space" in the interest of avoiding further drahma. This reduces the convenience to me - and the transparency to non-admin users - but on balance that seems to be the best course of action. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 21:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC) The best course of action is for you to give up the tools. You've abused your postion as a admin with your "list". Moving your hit list to admin-only space does not solve a thing. You're still going to be stalking our every move, watching and waiting and adding other innocent editors to that list. That's wrong. Caden S (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC) This is not stalking, unless I am a banana. Disruption, however, is blockable. --Rodhullandemu 22:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC) As I told Caden last night on his page, I see nothing wrong with this. I've kept a similar page on some editors in my user space before. When you have to fill out a 3RR or edit war report on someone, it takes quite a while to dig up all the diffs. As it is now, when I find someone I'm pretty sure isn't going to be following policy, I just sandbox the diffs until I need them. If I don't need them, even better. Caden, you just seem upset that you've been blocked in the past and other editors remember that. If you go back to being productive, nothing will ever come of this. It's not a big deal. Dayewalker (talk) 22:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC) I actually have a problem with this. Why exactly are you letting a disruptive user bully you? Add to it that this won't end the drama, he'll just think you're stalking him behind the 'admin curtain'. I think he should suck it up, do his time (oh the pain of not being able to edit about 1% of wikipedia) , and stop the nonsense. Guyonthesubway (talk) 01:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC) Guyonthesubway, please try to remain civil and avoid making personal attacks such as calling me a "bully", a "distruptive user" or referring to my objection to the list as "nonsense". This type of behavior is not helpful. Also, please do not make allegations of me accusing Shef of stalking me. I'm doing no such thing and if you read my talk page you will see that this issue over the list is over. Furthermore, your remarks that I "should suck it up, do his time" etc is again incivil and not helpful to this discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CadenS (talk • contribs) 22:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC) Please remember to warn yourself on civility for the various comments you've made regarding 'hit lists' 'vandalism', and for not assuming good faith on the whole matter of the list. thanks. Guyonthesubway (talk) 23:09, 10 February 2009 (UTC) Once again, I ask that you remain civil. You are assuming bad faith again in regards to my objection to the list. Please read my explanation above in reply to Shef or see the reply I gave to him on my talk page. ← Guyonthesubway, drop the stick and back away from the horse. CadenS, behave yourself. In other words, drop it, both of you. //roux   23:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

When userfying, Leave a redirect behind, and then delete it

Just a note that it's probably a best practice when userfy'ing something to "Leave a redirect behind" and then delete it afterwards, rather than suppressing the redirect. Otherwise, it will be impossible for a future individual to find out just where the userfy'd article has gone. –xeno (talk) 17:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

See bugzilla:16950. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool. While we wait for that to be fixed, we should follow the above suggested practice. –xeno (talk) 18:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Or just put a link to the userfied page on the user's user page? – ukexpat (talk) 17:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

No, that wouldn't help. The problem is that if someone comes along one day looking for the article they wouldn't know where it went because moving without leaving a redirect presently leaves no trace other than the move log. –xeno (talk) 18:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

No action taken by TravisTX, admin?

Resolved

 – User:Jpaoewfjewf blocked due to suspicious noises. —Travis^talk 18:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ASandbox&diff=269569344&oldid=269569039 Mudlogger56's edit: "Go and get stood on ya queer bastard" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpaoewfjewf (talk • contribs) 17:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Probably because it's a sandbox? –xeno (talk) 17:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Wow. See if I get banned anytime soon. Jpaoewfjewf (talk) 17:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

We don't block people for a single edit such as that, especially since it wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, as well as being in the sandbox. Not to mention that mudloggers only other edit was a positive one--Jac16888^Talk 17:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, it may have been aimed at the user who kept adding over 500K of nonsense to the sandbox, who I eventually had to block. Even in that case, I'm not inclined to do anything about it at this time. If you feel differently, the correct noticeboard is over there. —Travis^talk 18:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed I'm not aware of anyone ever being sanctioned for not taking action on something. — CharlotteWebb 18:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm...the more I look at Jpaoewfjewf (talk · contribs), the more I think it is the same person as the one I blocked, Tiorutoiwerueoi (talk · contribs). Jpaoewfjewf was created one minute after Tiorutoiwerueoi was blocked. They both added a ton of garbage to their usertalk pages (and elsewhere, in Tiorutoiwerueoi's case). Both usernames are seemingly random collections of letters. And, Jpaoewfjewf's entire editing history is in response to a remark allegedly made toward Tiorutoiwerueoi. —Travis^talk 18:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Could I ask that a close eye is kept on User:Mudlogger56 from now on? I don't think that such a first edit bodes at all well, whether in the sandbox or anywhere else. DuncanHill (talk) 04:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Nothing's stopping you from doing exactly that, and reporting anything actionable. We can all keep eyes on folks as often as we feel like reloading Special:contributions. Jclemens (talk) 21:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Class project? Heads up.

Hey, I need to log off but I just came across this - User talk:Pmedward - looks like a class project. I'm sure there's a page with guidance about these somewhere, but I can't find it. Could someone welcome them and keep an eye out for any problems? Thanks. the wub "?!" 20:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you thinking of Wikipedia:School and university projects? Pagrashtak 20:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

That's the one. Cheers. the wub "?!" 11:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Removing autoblocks after unblocking users

Yesterday, I know of at least two admins who unblocked people and forgot to remove the autoblock. I have seen this happen many times in the past as well. Would anyone object if I add a note to MediaWiki:Unblocked to remind people to remove the autoblock? I was thinking of something like:

If you just unblocked a user account, please remember to remove any autoblocks in place on the account.

Thoughts? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 15:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Might also want to add "by searching looking through Special:IPBlocklist for the username". –xeno (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Problem is, searching by the username doesn't return the autoblocks. I looked at the Special page, and found about 500 blocks ago this block and autoblock:

1. 19:18, 9 February 2009, PMDrive1061 (Talk | contribs) blocked #1311350 (expires 19:18, 10 February 2009, account creation blocked) (Autoblocked because your IP address was recently used by "BigNigs". The reason given for BigNigs's block is: "{{UsernameHardBlocked}}".)
2. 19:16, 9 February 2009, PMDrive1061 (Talk | contribs) blocked BigNigs (Talk | contribs) (no expiry set, account creation blocked) ({{UsernameHardBlocked}})

But the search result [2] contains only the original block, not the autoblock. So a searching admin can't even find the autoblock to remove. I certainly don't know of a way of finding the autoblocks to remove other than asking the affected user to trigger them and report which autoblocks are in the way. GRBerry 16:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I meant the old-fashioned Ctrl-F method. –xeno (talk) 16:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

This tool can be used to find any autoblocks still in place against any given user. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, that tool should be linked in most of the unblock templates out there....hmmm....one sec. Protonk (talk) 22:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Added a note to {{Request accepted}}. Will at least make a handy link to click there once the unblock template has been tl'd. Protonk (talk) 22:43, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Eyes needed on DRV please

I believe the issues surrounding TurnKey Linux have been mentioned here (maybe on ANI) previously; there's another DRV underway (the first one was closed when the nominator and page creator, one of the developers of the software in question, withdrew it), that could definitely use some more eyes. I'm going to try and not go back there, because now I'm just flat out pissed off after having my integrity impugned by said page creator, but I can't guarantee it as the responses to anyone who feels the deletion was in order have been maddening at best and if I'm attacked further I'm likely to respond. (It takes a lot to piss me off. Insulting my integrity is a guaranteed escalation to DEFCON 1.) Additional opinions on the whole matter would be greatly appreciated. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:59, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Tom Lennox

This doesn't belong at AIV because it's not persistent, and it doesn't belong at Wikiquette, since it's way past that. Tom Lennox has gotten absurd with personal attacks and some minor vandalism. Here are some diffs: [3] [4] [5] [6]

Crotchety Old Man (talk) 19:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

If you check his talk page note that he received a block about an hour ago.--Cube lurker (talk) 19:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Well crap, all that typing for nothing. Crotchety Old Man (talk) 19:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear

Resolved

 – Speedied under A7 and A3. Horologium (talk) 20:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

This "article" doesn't seem to fulfil the Wikipedia standards.--Túrelio (talk) 20:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:Deletion process for information on how to properly bring articles such as these to administrator attention. –xeno (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It's gone. Horologium (talk) 20:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for splitting hairs, but I don't think A7 can be applied to a phrase... A3 didn't apply either. G4 I think would've been best (prior AFD). –xeno (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't a G4 candidate, as the old (deleted) article had nothing to do with the new article. It was a vanity article, complete with a photo of the "co-founder of the "Oh Dear" catchphrase and subculture." It was nonsense, something made up one day in school. I don't have a problem if you want to undelete it and send it to AFD. Horologium (talk) 20:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Nah, I'm fine with an IAR deletion, but I guess what I was driving as is that it's better to mark it as such rather than shoehorn it into a non-fitting criteria. –xeno (talk) 20:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• N.B. I re-created it as a wikt redirect. –xeno (talk) 21:36, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Hard telling what the original article was claiming about authorship, as it was deleted; but unless the "co-founder" was a picture of someone like ZaSu Pitts or Olive Oyl, it has to be considered bogus. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Block notices on IP user pages

Resolved

 – No admin action required.

It is frustrating not being able to get an answer.

• No reply to my post at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism, it just got delete by a bot with a notice in the edit summary of who placed the block,
• no reply to my post at Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism#User_page_block_notices
• No reply at the admin page User_talk:J.delanoy#Blocking_IP_users

But it does at least seem that admin J.delanoy has changed his practice as is now posting notices on IP users pages were in the past he had not, and least the pages I checked some of which I am posting here

• User talk:85.102.249.255 this page still does not have any notice about the block that was added
• User talk:71.43.248.99 - this user was blocked by an different admin but no notice was or is posted.

So is it policy to only slectively post blocking notices on IP user pages? Sounds like a very bad policy to me as another user coming in on that same IP would have no idea when the block will expire and may have no idea what or where a block log is. Dbiel ^(Talk) 21:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The second one did have a notice, look up the page a little bit. For my part, I usually leave a block notice except in the case where it's an IP hopping vandal who has a brand new fresh red linked talk page and I've duck blocked before they got any warnings. In this case it's always a rather short block. –xeno (talk) 21:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

If a new user comes in on that IP, they will still see the standard block message when they try to edit, which will give details of the block, its expiry, and the blocking admin. (Mediawiki:Blockedtext). Black Kite 22:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the information about the displayed block notice when attempting to edit. But it still does not address the policy question. Dbiel ^(Talk) 22:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:BLOCK#Explanation on blocking - blocked templates are not mandatory. —Travis^talk 22:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

If you actually reviewed my contributions for more than 2 or 3 days, you will see that I almost always leave a block notice. I have not changed my practice at all in the last few days. Please do at least a tiny bit of research before making accusations. Why is that so hard? Also, take note of the lengths of many of the blocks for which I did not leave a notice. In general, if I implement a block longer than a couple of weeks, I do not leave a block notice, since there is no reasonable chance that someone would visit their user talk page a month later before attempting to edit a page and finding out that they were blocked. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 22:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally I think it's still important to leave a block notice even for long blocks as it's an easily viewable record of the history of the user/IP. –xeno (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with this, and try to practice it 100% of the time myself. --Kralizec! (talk) 00:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That may have been because your policy question was unclear. I couldn't tell from your post what your question was about, just that it had something to do with J. Delanoy and blocks and that you had asked it elsewhere. Might I suggest that you provide a simple, concise explanation of the problem, your question, and the desired solution so that those of us reading these threads can contribute productively. As for the seemingly implied question, I feel strongly that block messages are entirely optional. Where there is a long term editor being blocked or where an IP editor is being blocked for something other than vandalism, a block message should be written out (not templated). Otherwise, one may leave a templated message or no message at all. The information in the block log as well as the existence of the block itself should be abundantly clear to someone trying to edit when it shows up in the edit window. For longer term blocks (e.g. schoolblocks or blocks where the IP owner is expected to change), a block message is obviously very helpful. But in the case where the message itself is going to be read by the person receiving the block, it is a lot of duplicated work. Either way you look at it, no one is mandated to do it and no one will be "punished" for failing to do it. Protonk (talk) 22:36, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry if the question was unclear but it thought "So is it policy to only slectively post blocking notices on IP user pages? Sounds like a very bad policy to me as another user coming in on that same IP would have no idea when the block will expire and may have no idea what or where a block log is." was fairly clear, but apparently it was not. And as for J.delanoy I did review numerous entries, scanned the contribution list and edit summaries which for Feburary 10 included numerious "You have been temporarily blocked." and previous were no where near as apparent and the pages I did check where 3rd and 4th level warnings were posted I did check the block log and user talk page and more often than not there was no current block notice even though the block log showed a recent block and as noted above it involved more than just the one admin. But again, the basic question was what was the policy, which has now been answered. So thank you, even though I do disagree with the answer, it is just one more case I happen to disagree with Wikipedia policy as I believe only registered users should be able to edit. But lets not drift off on a tangent, as what I think and believe is not important. So thanks for clarifying the policy. So I guess the easy way for me is simply to stop bothering to revert vandalism and leave it to someone else as it is taking up way too much of my time anyway. Will just cut down my 3,500+ watch list to those article as personally consider important. By the way, it is frustrating when an admin ingores the post you make on his talk page, which is made clear by the fact that he has replied to a later post by another user, and had made countless edits hours after the post was made. Dbiel ^(Talk) 23:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Boils down to: it's not as convenient for non-admins to check the block log history, so we should leave the notices for transparency and ease-of-reference. Jmho. –xeno (talk) 23:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

So very true. Dbiel ^(Talk) 00:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Help getting article posted.

Resolved

 – No admin action required.

This is all so confusing. Why can't I get my article uploaded. Can someone please help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sayyes1985 (talk • contribs) 22:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Replied on your talk page. Euryalus (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Without a specific problem description I can only makes guesses as to what trouble you are having. To create an article you must be logged in and have an account which is not blocked. To create an article you need to go to the Search Box and type in the article name you'd like to create, then click the edit button and create the page as if you were editing an existing one, once you are finished with your first edit click the "save" button, or you can click the "preview" button to see how the page will look. —Nn123645 (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Vanishing & returning admins

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Right to vanish#Returning RTVs which is the best place for it, as the policy that governs the practice. rootology (C)(T) 16:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

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

---

Say an admin resigns, then invokes RTV and has his talk pages deleted. Later he returns, and becomes an admin again (no RfA). Should his talk pages be restored? DuncanHill (talk) 23:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

RTV is dissolved when an editor returns. Their talk pages should be restored. It doesn't matter what user rights they have.   Will Beback  talk  23:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

+1. New name or same name? –xeno (talk) 23:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Same name. DuncanHill (talk) 23:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Same answer though, was just curious. Should be restored. –xeno (talk) 23:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

How could the admin get their `bit back if they used a different name? This is starting to sound like a plot hook in a conspiracy cabalist's pamphlet! --Kralizec! (talk) 00:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I guess by confidential email to a bureaucrat. It happens. Mostly so they can come back without the harassment that led them to vanish. Just look at how many admins have WP:Requests for adminship/TheirUserName as a redlink. –xeno (talk) 00:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

There are some who have vanished and then returned under a different name, than got adminhood restored. I believe I am right in saying that blocks have been offered to editors connecting the old and the new usernames. There are of course also admins who have never had an RfA under any username, so just because you can't find an RfA doesn't mean they have vanished and returned. DuncanHill (talk) 00:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

PS: I posted a similar inquiry at Wikipedia_talk:Right_to_vanish#Returning_RTVs. This should be covered in that guideline.   Will Beback  talk  23:20, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

An admin who vanishes and then returns should not be automatically made an admin again. The vanishing erases the editor's relationship to the community, and that's what adminship is (supposedly) all about, the trust of the community. A vanished and returned editor needs to re-establish that trust, and stand for RfA again, IMHO. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 23:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the answers, I have asked the one I noticed to restore his talk page history. DuncanHill (talk) 23:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Which he has done. Thanks to all. DuncanHill (talk) 00:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

In the past people have been restored under a new name and had their old talk page left deleted for privacy reasons. This has worked out well. Chillum 01:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a very thing to do for people making a clean break from their previous history. User:TomDickHarry, active on that name from 2005-Dec 2007, for example, but that started over as User:HarryDickTom in January 2008 with no connection between them, that would be totally fine. I think the concern here was with admins getting that done, and the usual side note of "new" names mysteriously getting +sysop. rootology (C)(T) 01:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That is what I meant, an admin comes back under a new name without a link to his old account. It has happened in the past a few times and it has turned out well. It is done as a method of protecting privacy. Chillum 02:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to say I don't like it. It makes it impossible for the community to know how/why a person came to be an admin, and it makes it impossible for any meaningful examination of their admin actions. Now, if someone came back under a new name, edited well under it, and then went for an RfA I think that would be OK. DuncanHill (talk) 02:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes. This is obviously the only practical way of doing it. I know I'd be beyond suspicious if I encountered a user who had been given the admin bit without any apparent history of how that came about, expecially if the grant were recent. As for RtV itself, I'm pretty sure that it was always supposed to be one-way, and that coming back under a new account wasn't optional (at least not with any pretences of picking up where one left off). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It does not matter why someone is an admin, it only matter what type of admin they are. It is no big deal you know. You can just look at their admin log and see what kind of an admin they are. A person is still the same person when they change their name. I don't think anyone personally knows every admin, we all have to deal with them at face value from time to time.

I will say that when you do see an admin whose past has been erased ask yourself why. Is it because they are trying to hide a dirty secret and the crats are helping them? Or is it because they were attacked and harassed by other users until they needed to improve their privacy? I would err on the side of caution and draw as little attention to such a person as possible assuming they are improving their privacy for a good reason. Chillum 02:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)If it really is no big deal (which I do not for one moment believe is the actual case), then why not go for a new RfA under the new name? No-one actually needs admin tools in order to be an effective and good contributor, it's just that the community needs some people to have them. DuncanHill (talk) 02:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

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

N00b got pwned

See log summary. Didn't y'all learn from the last time this happened? 129.49.7.125 (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The account was editing from a now-blocked proxy, says Alison. Bencherlite^Talk 01:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

If that was why it was blocked then the log should say so. DuncanHill (talk) 01:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Bencherlite may not have been clear. The IP behind the named account blocked above was the proxy server, not the IP noted above. Protonk (talk) 02:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

If the account was blocked for editing from a proxy then the block log should say so. DuncanHill (talk) 02:35, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the account was blocked for editing behind a proxy. I'll try to be precise. The named account was blocked for whatever reason it was blocked. Someone contacted a checkuser and said (probably) this account is likely using a proxy. the checkuser (again, probably) determined that they were through what I assume is the same process we would determine that an unhidden IP address would be a proxy and blocked that IP address. I don't know or care to know what IP address that is. The block of the proxy isn't related to the block of the account. If you want to know what IP address it is and whether or not the block message is up to snuff, you can sleuth around Allison's blocks and contributions to do that. If you would like Nawlinwiki to give a proper block message for Belkagen Kwarun, you may ask him to on his talk page. Protonk (talk) 02:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh forget it, can't be bothered. DuncanHill (talk) 03:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I do strongly prefer to avoid any false positives, in this area -- they risk far more damage than false negatives, which will be resolved soon enough anyway in most cases. In this particular case, there are deleted edits at Heaven Knows (disambiguation) from two other accounts which used the page to build a few edits before engaging in pagemove vandalism; deleting those edits obscures this information, unfortunately, which in turn highlights the importance of care when fussing around with page histories. – Luna Santin (talk) 01:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyright infringement at William Henry Harrison

Resolved

Hello. Half of the last paragraph of William Henry Harrison (version I'm looking at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Henry_Harrison&oldid=269924932) is copied verbatim from http://www.ultimatemontana.com/sectionpages/Section8/fortharrison.html, which according to archive.org has been around since 2004. The material in the article was added sometime after September 2008. Usually, I use {{copyviocore}}, but I think it's a bit overkill in this case. Can an administrator take a look and delete the infringing material from the article's history? Thanks, BuddingJournalist 03:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I nuked all but the first sentence of the paragraph which was lifted from the Montana Army National Guard site. The citation links to the page in question, so that should be good enough. Horologium (talk) 06:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Possible compromised account

Just goes to show what happens when you let your password into the wrong hands. User:Obliviatrix started out with some good edits, but today it degenerated into pure-D vandalism up to and including a threat of more vandalism on my talk page. What to do about this? I blocked the account and protected the talk page based on that last message to me. If it's compromised, I don't want to lock out a good user. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 03:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I would unblock the talk page but WP:GOTHACKED covers this pretty well. If we think the account is compromised there really is no way for us to tell that the owner is back in control without a committed identity. Protonk (talk) 05:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Or a previously certified PGP key. -- Avi (talk) 06:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Or other means such as checkuser, or someone else who knows the owner and can vouch for the identity. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It's probably best if the user just starts over. –xeno (talk) 16:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I unlocked the talk page last night, but no answer. I'll keep an eye on it and see what he does. Glad to see there's a template for such accounts; I'd never seen that one before! Thanks for the assist, gang. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 17:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Problem uploading

I am trying to upload a .wav file but it is extremely difficult for me, please help me out??? South Bay (talk) 06:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

.WAV files are not one of the files Wikipedia accepts, that is why you are having problems. From looking at the upload page, the only audio fiel allowed is .OGG. - NeutralHomer • Talk • February 11, 2009 @ 07:02

In the future, questions like this are much better suited for the Help desk. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You can use BonkEnc to convert the .wav to .ogg for upload.

The usual...

Resolved

Rocks on the road (talk · contribs). Several redirects to be deleted and salted. Doulos Christos (talk) 14:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Pretty sure I got them all earlier. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ dedicated to making a happy man very old 17:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Spam?

I would like to ask some explanation on the issue as follows.

[Start]>>

I absolutely do not agree, but this is the only thing what I can do.

Let us see what time brings on.

(On deleting article EURELECTRIC - yes; but e.g. Unipalm, Centra, UCPTE, UCTE - not :) Pas-6 (talk) 12:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

• 06:07, 31 January 2009 User:Jac16888 (...) deleted "EURELECTRIC" ‎ (A7: No indication that the article may meet guidelines for inclusion)

{{adminhelp}} (the story is above, no answer from admin User:Jac16888)

Pas-6 (talk) 10:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you ask him directly at User talk:Jac16888 first. Regards SoWhy 11:28, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

YES, I did it. No reaction.

Pas-6 (talk) 11:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

---

Unfortunately there is no answer, no concrete information why 'EURELECTRIC' was in this (my) particular case spam (?). Could anybody {{helpme}} help me, please? The history of my starting efforts you can see above. If you don't mind...

Pas-6 (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

---

You'll need an admin for that. {{helpme}} is generally not used for this purpose. Have a great day. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ guestbook ♦ contribs} 18:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Pas-6 (talk) 17:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

---

<<[END]

Not quite the end. The EURELECTRIC article was not deleted as spam, it was deleted under A7 of the speedy deletion criteria, see WP:CSD#A7. – ukexpat (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• A common problem: users with no contributions other than to create a single article and link it elsewhere (e.g. 750kV-powerline Widelka-Khmelnytskyi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)). I would not say that the article made no assertion of notability - it stated that the group "represents the common interests of its members of the electricity industry at European level", and as a MIET I know that is a claim of notability of a sort, but the article really had no merit as a Wikipedia article, it was just a directory entry with a contact address. The usual advice applies: try a rewrite in user space with references and some context. Actually I started a new stub, there are tens of thousands of ghits and many hits on Scholar, Factiva and the like - I can't get access to the IET library right now but there is no doubt in my mind that this one would pass WP:N as it is cited as an authority in briefing papers by IEEE and other institutions. Guy (Help!) 19:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to restrict editing to those who sign up to an account

Resolved

 – Not an AN issue. –xeno (talk) 21:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Where can we start a community discussion to end once and for all the torrent of IP vandalism that we face? The ongoing discussion on flagged changes is a side issue. I want to end this once and for all, and say 'sign up, or no editing'. The number of good faith edits we'd lose through that change would be too small to register on any measure. But we'd gain the obvious. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 20:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:Village pump (proposals). It's listed at WP:PEREN though. –xeno (talk) 20:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

With some very good points, too, especially the fact that being able to track vandals by their IPs is really a good thing. --Masamage ♫ 20:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't think you'll get much support for that. Loads of amazing contributions come from Ip editors, and requiring account registration would simply move the vandalism to come from accounts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 21:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope, we don't get that many great contributions from IP editors. That is absolutely, completely, demonstrably untrue. What we get from IP editors is trouble, hassle, POV, revert wars and general shit. You can give me a few examples of good IP editors, but if we required them to sign up the committed would do so anyway, so I see no need for us to carry on like this. We would lose absolutely nothing by this. So let's start a formal process. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I completely disagree with that assessment. Yes a lot of trouble comes from Ips, and if you're just looking at filtered recent changes then it may seem like that's all that comes from them, but a vast amount of good editing also comes from Ips - IMO more than enough to justify the risk of open editing. The implicit assumption that an editor's worth can be determined by an account is simply not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 21:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As I said, the correct venue is thataway. –xeno (talk) 21:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, not good enough. Nobody goes there. Let's find somewhere better, with a big vote, that we then take forward as the will of the community. In the meantime, we will never be taken seriously as an encyclopedia if any 8-year-old can do anything to us.AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Calm down, that kind of soapboxing isn't really going to convert anyone. If you genuinely have a solid argument, propose it at the village pump. If you manage to gather any particular support, move it to a subpage and file a RfC. Whatever, maybe there's a better way to do it. In any case, it doesn't belong here. J Milburn (talk) 21:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

These discussions usually take place at /dev/null. For a practical suggestion, take a look at flagged revisions, which allows sorting the wheat from the chaff, and doesn't require us to change the m:Foundation issues, which is probably a non starter.

Honestly, the fact that Wikipedia is one of the top hits on almost any google search you can imagine suggests that we are already taken very seriously. The entire point of the project is to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Forcing vandals to register throwaway accounts won't resolve anything. I will add that from my perspective, IP editors do do a lot of good in areas, especially pages that involve frequent statistical updates. Resolute 22:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

In the future, questions like this are much better suited for the help desk. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Alasdair,in regard to the quality of anonymous edits, you are wrong. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=prev&oldid=115731955 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Opabinia_regalis/Article_statistics#Recent_mainspace_changes_survey and other surveys that indicate that the majority of IP edits are not vandalism. John Reaves 22:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

IPs make more vandalism than other editors, but the majority of IP edits are not vandalism. Dragons flight (talk) 22:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. And everyone knows it. 95% of IP edits are vandalism, whether reverted or not. There are just too many to check. The point is that having an account ties you to responsibility. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

hahaha!! That's a good one — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk • contribs) 22:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

You are delusional and probably shouldn't be editing here if you think that. John Reaves 23:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

While you're there could you also propose that new accounts are also prohibited, because they are nothing but trouble. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

So Wikipedia becomes "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit (provided you have registered)"? – ukexpat (talk) 02:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I love the made up "95%" figure. There have been some studies on this listed on Village Pump and the Signpost that give a different view. - Peripitus (Talk) 03:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If we require a registered account then the vandals will just make throwaway accounts. These are the same people regardless of if they have a username or an IP. I for one am glad that most vandals are IPs as IPs are less anonymous than accounts. I am also glad for the great amount of benefit that IPs give to Wikipedia. Chillum 03:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The Technodrome's Toilet community ban proposal

For reasons involving uncontroversial disruption in the past, I am proposing that this user be marked as banned:

• The Technodrome's Toilet (talk · contribs)

From April 2007 to October 2007, this user disrupted Wikipedia by adding blatantly unverifiable and/or false information and original research [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12], placed a blatantly unjustified and disruptive deletion proposal [13] [14].

Since this user doesn't even have a vandals chance of being unblocked, I am asking that the community consider this user banned. While I do know that this user is a suspected sockpuppet, I feel that this user should be marked as banned anyway. I do recall reading a WP:ANI thread a few months ago. If someone has the link to that thread, I would appreciate it if someone provided a link to help others better understand this issue. The reason I know about this users disruption is because I found a post made by this user on another users talk page. I don't know if the user is continuing the disruption with sockpuppets, but regardless, I feel the need to propose this ban. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 22:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

WhatLinksHere is your friend. – iridescent 22:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have just the the checkuser relating to this very user. Here is the link to that checkuser. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 23:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

"Inconclusive, open proxy"? Doesn't sound very ban-waiting-to-happen to me. Why the fuss now over events that happened in 2007, anyway? – iridescent 23:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Because there is no evidence, justification, indication, suggestion, implication, belief, or even a thought of a belief that this user will ever be unblocked. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 23:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

In which case a de facto ban is already in place and no further action is needed. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying he/she is banned without the title?. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Effectively. If a user is in a situation where no admin with the sense of the average garden gnome will unblock him he can be considered "banned" without consensus. Ironholds (talk) 03:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but I'm keeping this discussion open to ask the community to confirm the ban. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 04:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

What purpose would that serve? If he's blocked and he's socking, just take it to SPI as a "block avoidance." If you are looking for cover to revert their edits per WP:BAN, I'd say that you shouldn't bother; it is the least important and most spottily enforced provision in that policy. If you are looking for confirmation alone, I would point out that the provision in BAN that says editors are effectively banned if no admin would reasonably reverse their indefinite block is written specifically to obviate that discussion. Protonk (talk) 05:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested Block on User: Standforder

User: Standforder has many policy violations and sucpicious edits on a wide variety of pages. His user page has been deleted; I'd suggest a long or indefinite block.JakeH07 (talk) 04:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Read WP:BAN for what a ban really is. —Mythdon (talk • contribs) 04:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to write block.JakeH07 (talk) 04:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This is not the place to request blocks. Depending on the issue, there are violation-specific places to do so. For example, WP:AIV is for reporting vandalism.

Swoopo

I thought about putting this on the Spam noticeboard, but it doesn't fit that format. For the uninitiated, go to Swoopo's website and marvel at the money-making glory that you can only wish you thought of. Just don't be fooled into playing their game.

Swoopo's WP article read almost like their press release earlier tonight[15], so I had a go at it[16]. It's still rough, but the main issue is I'm sure their employees will be back at some point soon to "fix it up".

I'd guess that Swoopouk (talk · contribs), Asdf25 (talk · contribs), and Arjun G. Menon (talk · contribs) are employees, and there are several IPs that are SPAs there as well. CU might be hard since they have offices in 3 countries.

Have a look, poke around, maybe block some socks/meats. And while I know we shouldn't use blogs for sources (they were all already there!), it's too late for me to dig up proper refs right now. NJGW (talk) 08:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a high risk article worth semi-protecting, which will address IPs anyway. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Done - Sorta like a no-frills flagged revision really :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Frazer McBride

Resolved

 – deleted already

Another vanity article? --Túrelio (talk) 09:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Please note that this is not the correct venue for this. See WP:SPEEDY. -- lucasbfr ^talk 11:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Northwestgnome

Hello Administrators,

You may already know this, but I was curious when I saw this on the user page of the user known as Northwestgnome.

Northwestgnome enjoys spending his time patrolling the newly added wikipedia pages and trying to attack other editors who do not agree with him. He/She has shown incredible depth in being able to talk out of both sides of their mouth while totally being full of more sewage than a treatment plant.

Figured i'd pass it along, I was concerned that this person wants to attack other editors. A quick glance at the talk page seems to confirm the user page statement. Spinach Monster (talk) 14:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

looks more like an attempt at a joke to me. I believe it is intended as humor. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think it's two bits of vandalism (here and here) that they've clearly decide to retain on their userpage. _Gb^T/c 15:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)