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Current issues

Google

AfDs, MfDs and some others are a part of our robots.txt file, but due to the file not being correctly formatted, no one noticed and they were still indexed by google. It's been fixed recently, and many of us have our "WTF" faces on. The original request is seen at [1]. No discussion? Because of this, a major tool in finding past discussions has been lost to us. How do we fix this? -- Ned Scott 07:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you put "Wikipedia:" in front of a search query, it searches only in the Wikipedia namespace. For example a search for "Wikipedia:deletion haiku" delivers the correct AfD debate. Graham87 07:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which works if you just want to do a title search, but nothing else. -- Ned Scott 07:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be taken out of the robots.txt - the stated reason for it being in there can be satisfied with courtesy blanking, without destroying the ability to search AFDs it does not apply to. —Random832 13:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts exactly. We have tons of non-controversial situations that have no reason to be hidden. -- Ned Scott 07:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blanked or not, no AFD discussion should ever be visible in the first couple of Google result pages for any search. Fixing this in robots.txt was a good move. You can still use Wikipedia's own search engine to search through AFDs if you need to. We'd need to courtesy blank a lot more if this is not in robots.txt, and that would bring a lot of other problems (Whatlinkshere would become a lot less meaningful in these contexts etc.) Kusma (talk) 13:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given that they were still searchable somewhat recently, I'm not convinced it was ever a problem. -- Ned Scott 07:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion this was a very good move. We have enough of a problem with abusive vandalistic edits showing up in the search engines without the vitriol that AfD can frequently be showing up as well. In my opinion the following should also be excluded if they are not: All user pages, User talk pages and article talk pages. I see little point in the first two being indexed, the first frequently associates "banned" templates with peoples real names or names that are traceable to them - and it is not our job to forever label them as someone that has been banned from wikipedia, no matter how disruptive they have been. The User talk pages frequently have the same problem as the user pages, with the added bonus of displaying every little dispute the person happens to be in at the time of the indexing. Finally the article talk pages, while somewhat more relevant to the encyclopaedia, frequently are the site of disputes that would be better left unindexed - disputes of notability of people for instance, or whether to include criticism of someone or something. None of those pages have encyclopedic value, so as unencyclopedic, potentially harmful meta pages I think they too should be excluded. Minor usability issues such as this shouldn't come ahead of potential harm to real people. Viridae ^Talk 13:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beware of unintended consequences. Our internal search feature isn't nearly as good as Google. If we exclude our pages from indexing, that makes it very hard to find things when we need to look them up. Who has that editor I asked about "red lederhosen"? Dagnabbit, the talk are no longer indexed by Google; I can't find that conversation. Am I making sense? If a user page is causing somebody problems, they can request deletion. - Jehochman ^Talk 13:59, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I agree. For practical purposes, we need a good internal search engine for our contributors which should include talk pages and project pages and the like, but outward search engines like google should ideally only see our encyclopedic content. It's not good to have our dirty laundry indexed externally. Of course, it's a shame we don't currently have a good enough internal search and we've had to rely on google instead, but the answer to that is we should try to get our own facilities improved. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the foundation can persuade Google to donate a box of our own? — Edokter • Talk • 14:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That would be heavenly :D -- Ned Scott 07:42, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, thinking more about this, I probably should have posted this to a VP page instead of here. If I understand correctly, a developer would have to make this change. -- Ned Scott 05:59, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I have to question the point of doing so. After all, if my memory serves correctly, Wikimedia developers added AFD to robots.txt on our request. They didn't do it just for lolz. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a quick 2 cents... I concur with the suggestion of adding User Pages, User Talk Pages, and Article Talk pages to robots.txt to remove them from Google searches - for all the reasons stated above. I've had no trouble finding pages using the internal search engine and have not had to resort to Google for that. Lots of users have templates on their User pages stating that they are not encyclopedia pages, so it's clear that there is at least a concern about this in general. Also, in searching for non-Wiki topics on Google, I've randomly run across a variety of user and talk pages, and seen some pretty funny stuff, right there in the top Google rankings, complete with excerpts of people arguing about all sorts of things. Anything Wikipedia comes up on the first Google page, so it seems to me this should be considered seriously. Thanks. --Parsifal _Hello 19:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thought OTRS we've gotten a lot of complaints about non-articles being in Google's cache. This will help a lot...hopefully. An AFD !vote viewed out of context looks bad to someone who dosn't know anything about how wikipedia works. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:22, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. Leaving it blocked from indexing does more good than anything. I would also support adding all of Wikipedia/User pages (and talks). ^demon^{[omg plz]} 18:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, only the main namespace and portal should be indexed. Everything else is utility/internal, and is not monitored for compliance with article content policies. Either we apply our content policies to all public-facing pages, or we hide those pages from the search engines. I favor the latter course. If the mediawiki search engine is junk then that's an argument for fixing the search engine. Mackensen (talk) 13:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indefinite block for silly reasons

Appeals of blocks of pro-pedophile activists is directly to the Arbitration Committee by email. It is inappropriate to discuss such blocks in a public forum. Fred Bauder 23:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's the statement I was looking for. Thanks, Fred. El_C 23:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please submit all questions and statements directly to the Arbitration Committee by email. Fred Bauder 00:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New descriptive essay on suicidal wikipedians

Following some email discussions, I have created an on-wiki essay describing preferred and historical processes used for handling apparently suicidal Wikipedia users. This essay is at: Wikipedia:Potentially Suicidal Users.

There have been prior attempts to impose a ground-up policy document on how to handle these situations, those both failed to achieve consensus. This essay describes what has been done in prior incidents and the rationales used by those who have done it (or, my viewpoint on those, as one of the people who has done so). Rather than being prescriptive policy it's descriptive of what has been done.

The link WP:SUICIDE was redirected to the new essay from prior failed policy pages.

Please note that this is NOT the place to re-fight arguments over prescriptive policy. This essay is intended to document existing informal procedures used and informal consensus used by those who have actually responded. If it is inaccurate or incomplete in areas, further expansion or correction is welcomed. Georgewilliamherbert 21:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, evidently I've missed some stuff- has there been a big issue regarding this? David Fuchs^(talk)

Yes, yesterday there was an incident - see the thread Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Potential_real_life_emergency for details. Neranei (talk) 22:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would it violate WP:BEANS to put an explicit warning: "Please don't make a fake suicide threat because it will be treated as a real one"? Sam Blacketer 22:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just to nitpick - not every single user that has said they may commit suicide has been preventively blocked. I know one user (who will remain anonymous) who did so. Will ^(talk) 22:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will make a note of that, but it seems to have been the predominant response. Georgewilliamherbert 22:41, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that it is the predominant response because it is good (and therefore recommended) practice. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right. There's been a fairly consistent response pattern which has been used; we talked about prior incidents, and people who responded more recently seem to have implicitly agreed with the response. I think that what's been done was good practice. But I don't want to phrase this essay as prescriptive policy, as we lack consensus for prescriptive policy. I want this document to cover what we've done and why it was done; if someone later wants to make it official policy later, that's fine, but for now just document what and why. Georgewilliamherbert 00:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some stuff to the talk page. One thing that might be good, if you want this to deter trolls as well, is to describe how this process has, in the past, led to hoaxers being given "a severe talking to" by the police. See here. But adding details like that might get messy, as you just know some people will then start linking to all the previous incidents... Carcharoth 00:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh... yes, it would absolutely violate BEANS to say that. I think that's the sort of thing that is too sensible to need to say. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IIRC there was a suicide notice two weeks ago as well, and one about a month ago. A ecis^Brievenbus 22:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. Then again, making the simple statement along the lines, "All suicide threats will be acted on" would be appropriate. It won't discourage take threats -- but it will signal that an appropriate response will be made to the posting, which pranksters may not like. -- llywrch 22:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Nevermind, I see it's already in the essay. Consider this point addressed. -- llywrch 22:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Minor technical edit--I've moved it to Wikipedia:Potentially suicidal users per the capitalization rules. --Masamage ♫ 21:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possible unblock of Moulton

Floating the possibility of a good faith unblock on this account. The user has contacted me with confirmable information that he is a visiting Ph.D. scientist at MIT and is willing to leave alone the James Tour and Rosalind Picard biographies where edit warring got him into trouble. I've offered to do some mentoring in Wiki dynamics for this editor. I'm willing to give this a trial run. Any objections? Durova^Charge! 01:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was only tangentially familiar with Moulton, but my reading of the AN/I thread that bore out the indefinite block and of the user conduct RfC suggests that the problems stemmed not from any bad faith or fundamental inability to collaborate, and it seems plain that Moulton has the capacity to contribute quite propitiously; I, for one, then, think unblocking to sound like quite a fine idea. Joe 04:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You guys are joking right? Moulton was an incredibly disruptive SPA, willing to team up with any internet crank who'd listen to his nonsense for more than five minutes.[2] He repeatedly expressed, not only a lack of willingness to work within the guidelines of the project, but a desire to undermine those guidelines. I don't know what he said in that email, but I suspect it's rather similar to the email he's sent to me, and I warn you, any similarity between what he says, and what he actually does, is usually trivial at best. Don't let him fool you. – ornis ⚙ 10:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regrettably, Moulton has shown himself to be extremely tendentious and repetitive in trying to get Wikipedia to conform to his own ideas of "journalistic ethics" in direct contravention of policies. Others have gone to considerable lengths to try to help to explain how to work with Wikipedia, and have found such mentoring to be a frustrating waste of time. Note that a lot of the problems arose at A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism as well as the biographies. .. dave souza, talk 11:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Durova, if you are willing to take responsibility for the actions of this editor, and block for disruption if you need to. I have faith, and confidence that you will. I see no reason you can not unblock. It is widely known that I feel editors should be given chances to come back and contribute constructively. If your volunteering your time, I say go for it. Do the unblock. Regards, Mercury 12:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was similarly taken in by Moulton. I was goaded into talking to him by telephone for several hours while he pleaded his case. Almost everything he told was a lie. He completely misrepresented the situation in a frantic attempt to manipulate and coerce.

He is an unpaid volunteer who attends group meetings of a friend at MIT. He does indeed have a PhD, but is far more interested in journalism than in science. He sees it as his mission to change NPOV and RS standards on Wikipedia. He has written and published negative material about Wikipedia and the way it conducts itself and sought to publicize what a horrible organization Wikipedia is and how awful its principles are in outside venues. He has tried to spread this information as aggressively as he can using his contacts in the media and academia.

He is not above threatening legal action and involving the police, which he did here previously. He contributed nothing of value at WP while he was here, but was involved in endless personal attacks and mounted vendettas against people he disagreed with. He was warned and warned and warned and counselled to reign himself in, which he all blatantly and gleefully ignored. He presumes that his age and degree allow him to dictate to us and lecture to us, when many of us have more illustrious academic and professional credentials than he does. He published personal emails containing personal identifying information on Wikipedia.

His only goal on being on Wikipedia is disruption and destruction. He has no interest in contributing in a positive way. His negatives far outway his positives, in my opinion.

I have had far more extensive contact with him than anyone else here. I know his background, having been both at Bell Labs and MIT and a PhD (and a few other graduate degrees). I had pity on him at first when I heard his tale of woe, and bent over backwards to help him. However, he figuratively spit in my face after. I recommend strongly against allowing him back on Wikipedia in any capacity. --Filll 13:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose the unblock per Filll. Moulton doesn't know how to play nice with others and doesn't care to learn. JoshuaZ 13:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Filll and Joshua. My experience with Moulton made it pretty clear that he had no interest in following Wikipedia rules. Despite having it explained to him several times, he expressed surprise (I believe in the talk page of his RfC) that Wikipedia was not the place to publish original opinions. I oppose the unblock. Guettarda 13:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly oppose the unblock per Fill, Ornis, JoshuaZ and Joe. Moulton is rude, tendentious, and has vilified numerous editors by email. It doesn't matter what articles he does or does not edit, he'll find himself a place to cause trouble. If he agrees to edit Looney Toons cartoon, then I'll change my vote. Otherwise, we do not need this type of editor in the project. Once again, I am reminded of the comments by JzG, who left this project because of people like Moulton and others. Good riddance to Moulton. We spend so much community time trying to prove Moulton is good for the project, when it's clear he won't be. It's not good faith to bring him back, it's insanity--let's repeat our beliefs over and over and over again in the hope of getting a different result. Oh, let's not forget Moulton's attacks of Wikipedia. Meh. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 13:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From Moulton's comments on his RfC, I think he would be better suited to another project - possibly Everything2. If he is going to be unblocked, then I would recommend a much wider article ban - possibly anything related to evolution. Addhoc 14:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As the one who blocked him, I can only repeat that if anyone else wishes to waste time on him they are welcome to do so. I wish I shared Durova's optimism that Moulton will make any worthwhile contributions to the project; I have not seen him do so. I feel better about Durova giving it a shot than most other mentors; but I cannot help but think there are much more valuable uses of her time than to attempt to mentor this person, who so far has been a complete negative in his actions here. His "expertise" has been of zero benefit thus far and I have no reason to believe it will be in the future, per Filll and my own observations. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Having been harrassed by Moulton both on Wikipedia and in e-mail there is absolutely no way I can support his unblocking. Even outside the harrassment, I have seen absolutely no redeeming factors to warrant an unblock of Moulton. His complete lack of comprehension regarding Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, or perhaps it is really an utter unwillingness to abide by same, and his ridiculous obsession with a few subjects seems to mark him as someone who should never be allowed on Wikipedia again. Hell, even in his contact with Durova he lied about his actual involvement at MIT. Sadly, much of the proof of his disingenuousness is in private e-mails, but nonetheless, he is quite clearly lying. In fact, as he was being booted of WP, Moulton engaged in a smear campaign of Wikipedia, with the aid of internet blogger Larry Farfarman, going so far as to accuse the Foundation of violating IRC 501(c)(3) in relation to attempting to influence legislation by propaganda (what legislation, or what propaganda remains a mystery.

Durova, think long and hard before you unblock him. Jim62sch 17:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm strongly opposed to un-banning Moulton. Not only is he a colossal time-waster pushing his personal POV on articles and their talk pages, he's been waging an anti-Wikipedia campagain at his blogs, and is outing the IPs of anyone who mentions his ban at Wikipedia. Not to mention his joining forces with Larry Fafarman, another banned anti-Wikipedia nutter, at his blog. Is this the sort of editor Wikipedia needs? No. A million times, no. Odd nature 18:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just as at the end of an episode of any good soap opera, I am somewhat interested in seeing what happens next. If Durova can steer Moulton towards productive contributions, I will be very impressed. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 20:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good example of why I like to discuss bans before lifting them, unless I was the sysop who originally implemented the indef. Moulton expressed some concerns to me about a couple of biography articles and the concerns themselves may well be legitimate. Unfortunately those concerns exist at a peculiar juncture of policies: I can't invoke WP:BLP because the information is actually sourced to The New York Times, although there's reason to suppose a spin job occurred along the route to publication. Per WP:NOR Wikipedia can't be the first point of publication for doubts of that article's accuracy, but this site could be the second point of publication. I've informed Moulton of a couple of legitimate options for generating material elsewhere that could be cited at Wikipedia in rebuttal, and also informed him that I would support a merge/redirect of one biography that interests him if the subject of that biography sends a confirmable request to that effect. If Moulton's representations are even approximately true then he is in a good position to pursue any of these avenues. Per the feedback to this thread I won't be unblocking at this time, but I'll gladly assist in these other solutions if he pursues them. Durova^Charge! 01:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are travelling down the same path I already explored. I suggested avenues to correct the articles. I volunteered to approach people to generate sources we could quote, based on his representations. With his approval, I did approach them in fact, and then all his lies started to become clear. And I was made a fool of since I trusted him. And there were threats and accusations against me, even though he had encouraged and approved of all this, based on his misrepresentations. I have a huge horde of emails I could share with you if you are interested.--Filll 02:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not offering to contact these people. It's up to any editor who wants an article to change to provide appropriate sources. If those are forthcoming I'll support a change. I haven't personally encountered conduct problems here, but if such emerge I have the experience to handle them. Thanks to everyone who responded at this thread for the input. Durova^Charge! 03:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most blocks

Okay, this is silly. I happened to notice that [edited - Tintin] has been blocked 16 times under his previous user name and once under his current account. What is the record for most blocks faced by one person ? Tintin 09:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly one of the users listed at WP:LTA, and one who was removed (JB196). x42bn6 Talk Mess 09:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Counting the number of lines which say 'blocked' isn't always a very reliable indicator. Those '16' block log entries actually relate to seven incidents of the user being blocked for behaviour (edit warring and incivility). The other nine entries are alterations of block durations, attempts to unblock by blocking for one or zero seconds, user requested blocks for testing purposes, user requested blocks for 'forced vacation' (which shouldn't be granted), et cetera.

That said... what positive purpose could this thread possibly have? If you want to discuss some sort of limit on number of blocks... do that. Leave the 'name your favorite blockee' bit out of it. --CBD 11:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If someone actually had 16 blocks, all for separate incidents, they probably need a good hard looking at for an indef block. Rlevse 15:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I could point out someone who was getting close but they invoked m:Right to vanish and changed usernames in the middle so the blocks are across two usernames. (Don't ask me how that's allowed...) —Wknight94 (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You also need to consider that White Cat has over 41,000 edits. We do tend to show leniency to editors who provide content. I can remember at least one user with over 100 entries in their block log, but they had over 75,000 edits so we were wary to indef block. RyanGerbil10(C-Town) 15:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh? Why do you care so much? Pilotguy 15:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just interested in random silly trivia :) Tintin 02:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the way the question is worded to be a violation of Wikipedia:Civility. There was no need to bring up the name of any particular editor in the question. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, perhaps I shouldn't have. Have edited the first post in the thread. Thanks. Tintin 02:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There certainly is, however, the issue of shedding a block log by changing names. I noticed that on another username the other day, an admin had blocked the new user name for 1 second with a comment of "see block log for {previous username}". This, I think, is an excellent idea and should be required for non-right-to-vanish username changes. ELIMINATORJR 17:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Until block logs move with username changes, that's the general policy. Warofdreams talk 00:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most block stats

Time for ridiculously inane trivia. Dragons flight 01:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Busiest block log (overall)

Overall Rank	User	Block entries
1	202.156.6.54	237
2	207.200.116.0/24	172
3	217.33.207.195	171
4	217.33.74.20	124
5	152.163.100.0/24	122

Busiest single IP

Overall Rank	User	Block entries
1	202.156.6.54	237
3	217.33.207.195	171
4	217.33.74.20	124
6	194.80.20.10	119
10	169.244.143.115	89

Busiest IP range

Overall Rank	User	Block entries
2	207.200.116.0/24	172
5	152.163.100.0/24	122
8	64.12.116.0/24	96
9	63.19.128.0/17	96
11	205.188.0.0/16	80

Busiest user accounts

Overall Rank	User	Block entries
7	SPUI	111
13	Freaksock	77
14	Misza	76
22	Curps	57
26	Mistress_Selina_Kyle	55
35	Naconkantari	49
39	Nixer	47
41	Netoholic	45
48	Tobias_Conradi	44

Note: Freaksock, Misza, Curps, and Naconkantari accounts where all used in testing blocking scripts/bots and so they don't really count. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dragons flight (talk • contribs) 01:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Dragon's Flight :-) Tintin 02:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Community Sanction Noticeboard

Heads up, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard (second nomination) is nearing a closing point, discussion may wrap up in the next couple of days, if not in the next few hours, judging by contributions. I'd close it, however, I am biased. Mercury 12:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The traditional five day period ends at 3 AM tomorrow - if I'm around tomorrow morning (about 9 AM local time) I'll have a go at closing the MfD. Sam Blacketer 14:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As long as you don't try to apply WP:ATA, I don't see why not. Odd nature 19:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Closing of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human chemistry

Hi there, consensus on this discussion is delete and the original author has now agreed that deletion is the best option. However, when he tried to tag these as speedys somebody reverted the tags because he used the wrong rationale. Could somebody just close the discussion and delete the pages? Tim Vickers 19:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Y Done Caknuck 20:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Out-of process non-admin AfD close

Resolved

Could someone please go explain to Porcupine that there are issues with closing an AfD 2 days early when they are the original nominator and consensus has not been clearly established? I don't like being ridiculed for no good reason.--SarekOfVulcan 20:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have left a comment to the user. Hopefully this issue is resolved. Either party is welcome to contact me or comment here if there are further issues.-Andrew c ^[talk] 23:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people (4th nomination)

Resolved

– AfD Closed

Would an administrator please close the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people (4th nomination) discussion? It is pretty clear that the keep !votes have it, and the discussion has degraded into some really weird campaign against those who have voted to delete. Please put an end to this, the discussion has run its five-day course, and nothing productive will come from leaving this open any longer. Burntsauce 21:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ELIMINATORJR 21:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Burntsauce 22:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the discussion degenerated into an outraged discussion between some LGBT editors and a single user who claims the list needs to be destroyed but he's not homophobic because even though he thinks gay is wrong he had a cousin that was gay. The other deleters were left quite untouched. Keep up, Burntsauce. :) Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 10:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Newt Rayburn

Been open for 8, soon to be 9 days. Anyone interested in closing. Your call on the outcome. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 22:14, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a re-list to me. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 23:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment

Because of concerns over how I acted in semi-protecting the William Shakespeare article while it was linked by the main page, I have opened a discussion on my use of my admin powers at User_talk:Alabamaboy#Request_for_comment_on_my_use_of_admin_powers. Based on how the comments go, I am prepared to give up my admin powers or accept other sanctions. I hope people will comment.--Alabamaboy 01:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial DRVs - independent input requested

Resolved

– DRVs Closed

I recently closed as deletions two overrunning AfDs concerning Psychiatric abuse and Denial of Soviet occupation, which had been the subject of political controversy among editors. Perhaps not surprisingly, two editors who had advocated keeping the articles have taken the closures to DRV. As some editors (especially on the psychiatric article) have raised the issue of the proper role of admins in determining a policy-based consensus, it would be useful if the DRVs could have some independent input from editors who have had previous experience of AfD closures. The DRVs are at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 October 5#Psychiatric abuse and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 October 5#Denial of Soviet occupation. -- ChrisO 01:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These DRVs are ripe for closure. Indeed, I closed one earlier, but don't have time to read the other in sufficient detail tonight. The issues in the one that remains open did appear to me to be more likely to be of interest to the denizens of this board. Unless there is a massive wave of new discussion, it will probably be closed in the next 12 hours. GRBerry 05:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

I've contacted FCW and asked for a more correct logo and permission for more photo's I'll keep everyone updated.--Monnitewars ^(talk) 03:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure you wanted to post that here? I don't think this needs admin attention. - Caribbean~H.Q. 03:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was told it would be a good idea.--Monnitewars ^(talk) 03:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I told him to, since the images would be copyrighted, yet given permission to be used in BLPs. Since I've seen problems with copyrighted images that Wikipedia has a license to use in BLPs, I figured this should be brought up here. The Hybrid T/C 03:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The correct action is to request that the copyright owner send an email to permissions-en AT wikimedia DOT org confirming that we can use the image under an appropriate license. Someone from the communications committee will then note the permission on the image description page. Note however, that only a Free content license is acceptable. Limited permission such as, "may be used on Wikipedia only" are not acceptable. Thatcher131 14:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to wait till I hear from them but I'll let them know.--Monnitewars ^(talk) 16:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a user, Robertlbeukema that has uploaded several FCW free images to Wikipedia, he may be able to help you. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CSN

Hello, just so everyone is aware, the MfD for WP:CSN was just closed, with the result to tag as historical, temporarily merge function into ANI and keep the archives. More detail can be found in the debate. Neranei (talk) 03:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well that made for an interesting experiment. It lasted what, a year? Ah well, I agree with the closure. It diffracted discussion. Keegan^talk 04:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Open proxies

This recent edit [3] on meta says that our policy is now that proxies are softblocked only and that existing hardblocks should be overturned. The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Open proxies also seems to be leaning in that direction. Can we have some sort of definitive statement on this policy?

Both at meta and here, a recent policy change stated explicitly that legitimate editors may use proxies that are not blocked. Thus, they should not be punished or regarded as suspicious merely for using or having used a proxy.

While I have never yet used a proxy (knowingly), this affects many people and there really should be a consistent policy. The way, the truth, and the light 05:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are a couple points to address here.

Those edits were made by an IP, and do not necessarily reflect policy.

As far as "legitimate editors" using open proxies, it is allowed without the user account being blocked. The user just may have to deal with jumping proxies once an exit node is found and blocked. There may be "consequences" as far as things as requests for adminship might go for personal reasons of editors participating.

In other words, if you have an account you aren't seriously affected by the ordeal. Keegan^talk 05:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't softblocks still harmful? A softblock used to make the IP immune to autoblocks, making it impossible to deal with multiple account abuse coming through that IP address. I would prefer not to block the IP at all to softblocking (at least unregistered edits through the proxy will tell me they're using a proxy). Kusma (talk) 05:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is that still true? I seem to remember it being fixed. The way, the truth, and the light 02:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tor is generally hardblocked because of the enormous amount of abuse we get from that network (and other open proxies). No one will block your account just because you have used an open proxy. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What discussion on Wikipedia talk:Open proxies? There has been almost no discussion there since the end of August. Softblocking open proxies almost defeats the purpose of blocking them. It will stop vandals but not sockpuppetry. In fact, if we change all the blocks to soft, we'll just have a great big list of verified proxies for sockpuppeteers to use with the category of blocked open proxies. With the exception of Chinese users, there is no real reason to edit using an open proxy (and there is an extension to make users IP-block-exempt that could take care of that if it is ever installed). If you are blocked for using one, ask for an unblock review and someone will check your IP. If it is open, you may want to contact your ISP or school and tell them that their proxy is open. Mr.Z-man 18:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's true the discussion was in August, but, as I said, there seemed to be more argument for softblocking. If there is such a consensus for hardblocking, why didn't it show up there? The way, the truth, and the light 02:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Revert warring

Currently some revert warring going on at America's Next Top Model, Cycle 9; whilst there are 3RR breaches on two editors, I have no idea (I don't live in the US, let alone watch the show...) which - if either - of them is a vandal in order to make the other exempt... Short-term full protection may be worth it for a short period, but if one is a vandal and to be 3RR blocked that would make it unneeded. Hmm. AllynJ (talk | contribs) 05:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CSN decision evading

comment by Jaakobou - i apologize for "forum shopping" both here and here. my only defense is that the editor i've complained about continued breaching policy, and my actions helped provide for a volunteer (User:Zscout370) for mentorship. regardless of the advancement caused by my action, i will be more careful not to over-expand any complaint i may raise in the future. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

I'm closing this as forum shopping. Please read/participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Recent editing by PalestineRemembered Pascal.Tesson 21:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:PalestineRemembered has breached the last chance leeway he was assigned by a CSN.

he's knowingly made some very disruptive contributions/deletions [4],[5] and repeatedly attacks me not only if i made a note to him about a problematic edit, but also if i just notify him of something his mentor told me[6] or even in conversations he was not even involved.[7]

i request this case be addressed until the CSN issue is resolved. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Talk to his mentor, stop creating new threads wasting everyone's time. We don't need two threads on AN/I and another here. At this point, your editing has become disruptive, and you need to rein it back. Other users are invited to read Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Recent editing by PalestineRemembered (with it's 13 sub-sections), which is where the real discussion is. GRBerry 14:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

his mentor, User:Geni noted me only recently that she's not an admin, and has excused herself from actual mentoring. for the meantime, as the CSN decision is breached, i'm not sure i've went overboard with this notice. i do think that you have been somewhat overprotective of him even as he has accused me of being a war criminal [8] and made legal threats you said, "PR is clearly imperfect in his interactions in this topic area; so are most of the admins that have blocked him. PR also is not an intentional troll; he does try to make Wikipedia better.".."I care about whether both sets of editors abide by user conduct policy and whether the uninvolved community believes the editors are trying to improve Wikipedia or not"^[9] Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 15:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll mentor PR. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 15:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Best wishes Zscout. GRBerry 16:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:Zscout370, care to make a mission statement such as "what sanctions would you implement for which breaches" and how do you perceive each of the violations mentioned on the open ANIs?

this is no joke, two mentors already allowed repeated violations and I see no statement by you to suggest you take this issue seriously. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 19:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

Backlog at AfD

There is a large backlog of AfDs that need to be closed. Some date back as far as October 1. JoshuaZ 15:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Templates for C:CSD "mis"reporting

This may well exist, but if so I've not seen it. Is there a boilerplate template to advise the nominator of an article that the speedy deletion they requested has been declined, and their various options e.g prod, afd. Anyone seen such a thing? Pedro : Chat 15:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's {{speedy-decline}}, {{speedy-Warn}}, {{speedytag1a}}, {{speedytag1b}}, and {{speedytag2}}. —Cryptic 16:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Cryptic. Pedro : Chat 07:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And there is a related template: {{SD warn-needed}} DGG (talk) 12:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. That's needed too. Which is a shame. As a new admin I'm, well, staggered at the amount of users who don't advise that they've tagged an article, particularly for attack page stuff. I'm also amazed at stuff that gets tagged which is clearly not suitable. But I did find {{speedy-decline}} to be a bit overly agressive as I think probably >99% of CSD taggin is good faith. Thanks all. Pedro : Chat 12:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop AlleborgoBot breaking templates

Resolved

Italian bot AlleborgoBot (talk · contribs) is breaking templates, often adding Italian interwikis outside the <noinclude> zone and thus transcluding the template's interwiki on all pages using those templates (and resulting in a whole column of "Italian - Italian - ..." in the iw column when the template is used multiple times on a page).

Exemples of recently broken templates demonstrating bot bad code and justifying block [10][11]
Bot's contribs to template namespace [12]

Please block it temporarily from his stop button on User:AlleborgoBot, I'm trying to contact the bot owner on his Italian page. Thanks.

— Komusou ^talk @ 16:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked as an out-of-control bot; its operator can request its unblock here when the problem is fixed. --ais523 16:24, 11 October 2007 (U T C)

I've rolled back all the bot's misplaced interwikis, too. (I haven't rolled back correctly placed interwikis; and presumably other bots or users will re-add the rolled back interwikis correctly noincluded). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ais523 (talk • contribs) 16:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. I've notified the bot owner and given him a crash course in the WP:DOC system on his Italian talk page, hopefully he'll be able to resume operation in a debugged way. — Komusou ^talk @ 17:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem will not be again, now you can remove the block. Thanks. --Alleborgo 18:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the block. --ais523 18:25, 11 October 2007 (U T C)

Thank you for the rapidity. Regards --Alleborgo 18:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking vandals

I am a new sysop, and would like a review of the first two vandals I blocked:

User talk:Phony12345 on 10/10/07, 1 hour
User talk:Adloph on 10/10/07, 48 hours

Both are SPA's. One attacked Moose, and the other a BLP and my userpage. Should I have blocked these? What specific notice should I use on their talk pages? Should the blocks be extended? Bearian 16:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, first of all, I don't see how SPA applies to either of them; they're just garden-variety infantile vandals. I usually just flip a coin and decide whether to indef them immediately as vandalism-only accounts or warn 'em. But once the "don't do that again" notice is up, then it's proper to give them shorter and then longer blocks. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Category:User block templates for a (probably nonexhaustive) selection of block templates. I don't bother with any of them except {{test5}} and {{test5i}} myself. —Cryptic 17:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for the useful information. I have placed the template-5 on both users' talk pages. Bearian 17:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Accounts used only for vandalism can be blocked on sight without warning. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I block on sight after they have recieved their first Level 4 warning, unless their usernames cry out SPA, like these. "Phony" and "Adloph" wouldn't be chosen by someone who's trying to help. · AndonicO ^Talk 17:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it's an obvious vandalism-only account I'll usually just block and give no notice on their talk page, per WP:DENY. Raymond Arritt 21:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrighted userpage

User:777anton has, as her user page, an article which states that it is copyrighted ("copyright held by Vampire High Priestess Libby Hodges and House of Sheol Vampire Coven"), and that "Permission granted to Wikipedia for the use and reproduction of this article". Is that OK? Can copyrighted material appear on a user page, even if permission is granted to Wikipedia for "use and reproduction" of the article? Should this be blanked with a note left to the user, or should the user be asked to remove it, or am I fussing over nothing? 84.13.240.149 17:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll leave a note on the user's talk page noting that they have already agreed to license the user page under the terms of the GFDL. --Yamla 17:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the copyright issue, it's also an issue with that being an abuse of userspace. We're not a webhost for their little vampire club. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This group has been around and doing the same thing for a very long time (over a year). the previous cases ended up in blocks and userpage deletions. β^_command 18:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Having just finished reading some of the xfDs on some of these, I can say they were ... interesting reading. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This user has not made an edit outside of userspace in nearly two years. Seems like a good case for an MfD, as the only purpose for this user seems to be to use the page as a personal website. Reso lute 21:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I saw this thread and sent it to MFD. Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:777anton. SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 22:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reporting User_talk:JTBXJTBX for disruption of PlayStation_2 (see history)

Resolved

– Contributor blocked for abusing multiple accounts and violating Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. — madman bum and angel 18:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- I have put warnings on his page that he should not post NON-neutral viewpoints. - He just keeps erasing the warnings. - In addition, he keeps trying to add "most successful console" WITHOUT any citations. - .... even though he's been asked by the other editors to stop doing that & stop adding non-neutral viewpoints. - Thus his additions have gone from merely "non-neutral" to annoying & repetitive. - i.e. Vandalism.

I've had enough of his refusing to listen. - Theaveng 17:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have unblocked JTBX (talk · contribs) and warned both disruptive editors that they need to seek dispute resolution before touching on this subject again. — madman bum and angel 02:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Policy question

I'm sure that's it's there in one of the policy pages and I'm just not seeing the forest for the trees...

But what's the policy concerning indef blocked users who return to edit Wikipedia under another username? - jc37 20:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SOCK? WP:BAN? —Wknight94 (talk) 20:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He means Wikipedia:Sock puppetry and Wikipedia:Banning policy. --Ali'i 20:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So from what I'm reading, reincarnations are to be blocked, as block evasion?

I'm asking because atm, I'm looking at what appears to be a duck test failure, and I think RFCU is my next step...

And thank you, btw : ) - jc37 21:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Further insight

I'm hesitant, though I think it's likely. So I'll directly ask for others to view:

Is User:Sox207, User:PatPeter?

I find him creating sub-pages of PatPeter's userpages. He's setting up the same "rules" (and using the same wording) in userboxes. He seems to have the same tone, and uses similar phrasing ("Seriously"). And he's editing inactive userpages based on his "rules".

I ran into him changing userboxes against concensus at Wikipedia:Userboxes, and WP:UCFD. Though the more I talked with him, and the more I looked into his edit history, the more I think he is. He even started editing when PatPeter stopped.

~~However, I don't think I can request a CU, as this might fall under "just curious".~~ (It looks like it would fall under "F".)

I'd appreciate it if others would check this out and offer insight. - jc37 00:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/PatPeter - jc37 19:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AIV

Resolved

Hello, all. Just a quick heads up :) AIV is a bit backlogged, and help clearing it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, and happy editing, ( ar ky ) 21:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reporting it- now cleared, GDonato (talk) 21:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem :) ( ar ky ) 21:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SOCKS, external links lists

Hi, I'd like to request help with SOCKS article cleanup. Specifically - a cleanup of the external links list. When I first looked at the article, the list was in a complete disarray, so I have reordered it alphabetically. This was meant to help mitigate commercial/promotional bias (top items being more visible, etc). I have also tagged it for the spam cleanup. Since then someone at address 203.87.209.110 repeatedly re-sorted the list by some artificial criteria (presumably to push specific items closer to the top of the list). Trying to reason with the editor yielded a response with a personal attack that neither addressed an issue of bias nor general unsuitability of the list for WP. I am aware that external link lists are generally against WP policy, but I would much prefer to keep the content if there is a reasonable way of resolving the dispute. Please advise. Thanks, Alex Pankratov 02:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The SOCKS page is way too technical. There is no lead explaining what all the numbers, acronyms, etc give. The page should give the average person a decent idea of what socks is and what it does. On top of that, Wikipedia is not a software directory, there is no need for that many links. Maybe a link or two to the top proxy software, not 10+. Spigot Map 02:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New Account Users list

Is there a place to see new accounts as they are created? To aid in catching sockpuppets? IP4240207xx 06:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Log/newusers. --Carnildo 07:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of House1090

I just blocked PlazaBlue (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log) as a sockpuppet of House1090 (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log) based on the now deleted copyvio Fox Theatre of San Bernardino and Fox Theatre (San Bernardino). They both also have a habit of uploading unsourced images and make the same spelling errors but WP:BEANS covers that. Just putting this here so it can be reviewed. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article declared as incorrect

I am not sure what to do about Dale Hample, an article on which the notice has been placed: "As a sidenote: Professor Hample states that something within this Wikipedia entry is incorrect in order to show that Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. He will not, however, identify the error in this article thereby making it impossible to correct the problem and resolve the issue. This could also mean that the article is not incorrect." I found it on speedy listed as A7, but if the basics are true, he is possibly notable, so I removed the tag-- and moved the above sidenote to the top of the page for visibility. But If anyone wanted to speedy as the equivalent to vandalism, I would have no objection. Alternatively, we could try to verify. I have not yet tried --some of the publications are listed as "in press" or are merely book reviews or conference presentations, so they probably should be removed in any case, which would narrow things down. DGG (talk) 12:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the above sidenote, as such editorial comments are handled by our standard templates (the disputed tag, which was already there). Adding an unverifiable statement that the article is incorrect according to the subject of the article is not the way to handle this. Such sidenotes can go to the talk page, if needed. I have done a minor cleanup of the article, but it needs a major cleanup and verification to be any good. Fram 12:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've cleaned it up further, reshuffled the text, removed the laundry-list of publications (I've no problem with significant wiritings, but not a list of 100+ papers) and the POV "greatest ever" statements. The image should probably go as well. I agree that what little there is needs verification, and I'm not 100% convinced he warrants an article - is "argumentation" an important enough field that it automatically makes him noteworthy? — iridescent (talk to me!) 12:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW on a skim I think the "deliberate mistake" is "he coached the debate team until 1980", as his resume says he was assistant coach until 1975. Oh, how I laughed. — iridescent (talk to me!) 12:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, you could always fix it and cite the source... --ais523 12:44, 12 October 2007 (U T C)

I deliberately haven't as I'm not certain that is the mistake - it may be that he went on to be the coach - and he's (to say the least) not of enough interest to me for me to go rooting through looking for evidence. It's strongly possible that this was an elaborate joke and "there is a lie on this page" was the lie. — iridescent (talk to me!) 13:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Template:SA-mastereditor

Isn't the award counter to everything that Wikipedia stands for? I've put it up for deletion. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about all the rest under Category:Service award templates? —Wknight94 (talk) 12:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I could, I would. Welcome to the world of Esperanza. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I don't have an issue with Wikipedia:Service awards, but I think that rather than an MFD on one template you should probably just MFD WP:SERVICE and all related sub-pages if you are serious about a deletion discussion on this idea.--Isotope23 ^talk 13:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will... unfortunately, I didn't actually realise at the time that this was part of a whole category of awards. It's worse than I thought. I don't want to be accused of WP:POINT by listing the whole category while I've got one MFD up. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I said this on the MfD, but I'm going to repeat it here: Awards have a long tradition at WP. The main issue raised against this award is that it considers edit count and years of service, which many editors rightly say are not as important as an editor's contributions. However, this award isn't about an editor's contributions--there are already a number of awards which honor contributions. Nor is this award a request for admin discussion, where there are valid reasons why one shouldn't merely consider an editor's edit count or years of service. Instead, this is an award which carries no added powers or official credibility and is merely a way to honor those editors who stick around and contribute year after year. Seems silly to get bent out of shape over something like this award, which is merely a way of honoring hard-working editors.--Alabamaboy 16:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use images lacking copyright

Hello, can anyone tell me what the correct template to use on Fair Use images that are lacking specific copyright information is (criterion 10a of the NFC policy, I am not talking about missing license)? An example : Image:Forbidden quest.jpg (uploaded by me). Note: I am not looking for a solution for this image in particular, just using this as an general example, to see how it can be deleted, so I can use the same process for other users' images. I asked on the policy talk page, but nobody seemed to know which template I should use in particular, and twinkle does not appear to have one. If none exists can I create one, and a new sub-category in the images for deletion ? Jackaranga 15:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Status-Quo related vandalism

I'm still not sure if I've reported this in the right place - Wikipedia is so labyrinthine. Here goes. From the latest b3ta newsletter:

>> Quopedia vandalism << "Hello b3ta Towers," blurps danbull45, "We would like to divulge to you the following very sinister secret. Using a variety of aliases and cunning page edits, we have now subtly shopped Status Quo into nearly 200 different photos on Wikipedia. Our aim is for every image in Wikipedia to have Teh Quo hidden somewhere within it. We'd like to show you the fruits of our labour, but for obvious reasons can't reveal the location of each image - so here is a taster of our handiwork. Perhaps your newsletter's readers could aid us in our glorious mission?"

There is a weblink in the original newsletter to a photo: the same photo is in the Notting Hill carnival (photo of the crowd) and is vandalised. At the left side of the pic, at about 4 o'clock beneath the 'Kebabs Fish and Chips' sign, there's Francis Rossi and the other one (the pretty one who lost his looks) - very small, infront of a blue ?curtain/screen. They're very small - you'll need eagle eyes. In the original newsletter there's a link to the image which you can enlarge so that they're easily visible, but I couldn't link to as it's a banned site.

To see the original newsletter, go to http://b3ta.com/ then click ' read newsletter 298' just below where it says 'Cadburies take them and cover them in chocolate'. Go down the page a little bit and at the end of the section I've quoted above there's a blue link to the pic. 86.134.10.119 15:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is the right place. Image has been deleted & Statusquorn (talk · contribs) has been blocked, though given that message I suspect much more has been done with throwaway accounts.--Isotope23 ^talk 16:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think Checkusers will accept to look into it? Circeus 18:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sock query

Could someone take a look at the actions of Lafarge Dodger (talk · contribs), please? According to this checkuser case he's likely a sock of Arthur Ellis (talk · contribs), but nothing has been done since then. He's posted to Jimbo's talk page regarding continued efforts to remove a name from archived checkuser cases. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked. Circeus 17:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Debate camp

Please check out Wikipedia:Debate camp. Thank you very much. WAS 4.250 17:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How does this relate to administrative tasks? Leebo ^T/C 17:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, discussion skills are kind of important for admin work ;) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 18:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is Zappos.com spam?

I'm not sure whether this article is considered as an advert. Specifically the "Sales model" section which includes promotional-sounding text like Zappos has a stated goal to be "the online service leader", call center is never closed, improving the customer experience, etc. Also the "Company culture and core values" looks out of place in a Wikipedia article. I looked at the edit history and someone removed that section before, but it was re-added soon after. Coincidentally, an editor added an "advertisment" tag to the article, but it was removed today, so it appears there are some editors who want to keep the promotional sections. Could editors with a better idea of what is allowed check this article? 172.142.213.124 18:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Spoiler

Can we get some attention on Wikipedia:Spoiler. There appears to be a rather strange edit war going on over whether it should be assumed that section headings accurately reflect their contents or if it should be assumed that they don't because section headings are exempt from Wikipedia:Verifiability. --Farix (Talk) 19:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please undelete a page

Resolved

Could someone please undelete Creighton process? It was deleted by PROD, as a suspected hoax without references, but I found a solid reference here. This should not require a formal deletion review or anything like that. I'll clean up the article once I see it. Thank you. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 19:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. And I also deleted it. What a coincidence. Maxim_{(talk) (contributions)} 19:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What should I do about SpewSpewNet?

This looks like an attack page, but it has some useful cited information about a Usenet death penalty against UUNet. What should be done about this page? Jesse Viviano 19:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've proposed a merge with UUNET. That should probably go into a 'critisism' section, but it certainly does not warrant it's own page. — Edokter • Talk • 19:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Missing diff

I have already mentioned this on the recently created users' noticeboard, but, as that is a new noticeboard, nobody would see it if I didn't mention it elsewhere. A.Z. 21:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since someone just deleted the users' noticeboard, I'll post the link here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch#Missing sections. A.Z. 21:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. They had just deleted the users' noticeboard that I had accidentaly created on the mainspace. A.Z. 21:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What you said there, A.Z is "It looks as if a diff is missing. See here. A.Z. 21:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)" SqueakBox 21:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any administrators that take responsibility for their mistakes?

I seek an answer to future use, not for any past misdeeds. I have no intention to drag anything out from the past. As such, those who comment should refrain from searching edit histories, make snide comments, etc.

In business and life, there is often some form of compensation scheme. If you hit a parked car, you have to pay for the damage or have your insurance company pay. If you buy something from the store and it is defective, returns are accepted. In Wikipedia, if an administrator acts improperly, there is no recourse. ArbCom hears only a few cases and refuses to hear quite a few cases.

Are there any administrator who will take responsibility for their actions? If so, list your name. This list would be a good reference to have if I ever want to consult with an administrator For example, if one makes an improper block, will they be blocked themselves for an equivalent period? I presume that the majority of administrators will not commit themselves to giving compensation or receiving penalties themselves for incorrect actions.

Note that this is a serious discussion. Any form of reverting, deleting, or placing a block with the excuse of "trolling" is just proof that the offending administrator is acting improperly. If the answer is "I, as an administrator, try my best but if I make a mistake or act improperly, tough luck because I am the boss and ArbCom will discipline me only in the worst cases" is certainly a plausible answer and is a better alternative than just blocking to prove that you know how to act improperly. AS 001 22:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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