User talk:WilliamH/Archive 12

Files missing description details

Dear uploader: The media files you uploaded as:

• File:Austrian Nazis and observers watching Jews scrub the pavement.jpg
• File:Germans walk by a Jewish business destroyed on Kristallnacht.jpg
• File:Jewish refugees aboard the SS St. Louis in Cuba.jpg

are missing a description and/or other details on their image description pages. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the images, and they will be more informative to readers.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 15:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Sock-puppet investigation

I neither created nor ordered the user who apparently now has the username Tiburon89 to edit that page. We are merely sharing an IP for a couple of days and he/she was unfamiliar with Wikipedia's editing policy. We'll both have completely different IP addresses in a couple of days. Astrohoundy (talk) 14:55, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

kauffner SPI

I see you did CU on kauffner, but as this user has had many socks, and many sleepers, did you do a sleeper check as requested by both the nominator, and the clerk? Gaijin42 (talk) 13:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• I did not see any other accounts between which I could draw a connection to Kauffner, no. WilliamH (talk) 11:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

An Award

A Barnstar!

Whack-a-Mole Stuffed Tiger Prize Awarded to WilliamH for your extraordinary efforts to protect Wikipedia during the Morning 277 Sockpuppet investigation. The Whack-a-Mole Stuffed Tiger Prize goes to sysops who tirelessly block returning sockpuppets at Carnival Wikipedia. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·cont) Join WER 00:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC) (First awarded by Durova in July 2007)

Thank you very much indeed, Doctree. I'm extremely glad to hear that my efforts have not gone unrecognised. WilliamH (talk) 11:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sravsandbobby

You have blocked this editor as being a sock of Morning227. I cannot find this user; Morning277 exists and is a prolific sockpuppeteer, but the user you have blocked is not on the list of confirmed (or suspected) socks. Could you please clarify the situation, as he has appealed the block.--Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 19:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Obviously that was a typo. Either way the request has since been declined, and there would be other SPI-related reasons to decline a future unblock request too. WilliamH (talk) 11:58, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I was not attempting to argue on behalf of the blocked user; just trying to clarify as his name did not appear, as I said, on the list of Morning277's confirmed socks. --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 21:38, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Morning227 Sockpuppet issue

I've been included in this somehow through no fault of my own. I've been using Wikipedia for more than seven years without any shenanigans of any kind. However, recent attempts to access Wikipedia through my account on my new tablet have resulted in messages that I've been blocked. I'm not sure why either has happened, but now that the SPI is evidently resolved, I'd appreciate having my username removed from any association with it. Thank you.PacificBoy 19:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Your name is not involved in the SPI case at all - it does not appear there. You just got caught up in a hard rangeblock meant for someone else. From the CheckUser side of things, it looks like it's been resolved now, but if it happens again, file a request for IP block exemption on your talk page. WilliamH (talk) 22:18, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

• Two of the networks that were blocked belong to Amazon. It may be that his tablet is an Amazon Kindle, and that it's connecting through Amazon's network. If that's what's happening, it may affect a fair number of other editors. —rybec 22:25, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

That may very well be case, however it would be pretty much the only collateral I saw. Kindle users must make up a fraction of editors; I imagine the abusers simply found a way to join the network for their own ends with different devices. WilliamH (talk) 23:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• I had noticed abuse coming from Amazon EC2/AWS addresses within the ranges you blocked. It's a hosting service that can be rented by the hour; no special device is needed, just an SSH or RDP client and some knowledge of Linux, FreeBSD or Windows. —rybec 04:41, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps changing the reason to {{webhostblock}} would be more appropriate? This way innocent users will get a message informing them that their method of accessing Wikipedia is not acceptable, rather than being accused of sockpuppetry. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:22, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. Seems like a reasonable compromise, and the real reason for blocking is already on record in the block log anyway, so that's fine. WilliamH (talk) 18:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Streamboxmarketing/Archive

Hi! Would you mind taking another look at this? I think you may have misread the request. --Rschen7754 21:14, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

•  Done, cheers. WilliamH (talk) 22:19, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Dave Benson Phillips

I'd like to ask you to reconsider the protection of this article. The only reason is because pending changes level 2, which is the option you chose, has been explicitly rejected by the community. Only pending changes level 1 is currently authorized by the community. See here for a curent discussion of this and several other PC2 protections. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:29, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify Beeblebrox's statement, PC2 may be accepted by the community at some point but the consensus is that people don't want to consider giving it the go ahead until there is a draft policy outlining appropriate uses of the protection. Such a draft policy doesn't exist at the moment. I am hopeful that we can come up with a draft if we put our heads together now, although others may think it is too soon. Yaris678 (talk) 09:59, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. The individual concerned has been subjected to a lengthy and serious online campaign involving death hoaxes and bad faith rumours, which had a detrimental affect to his career. If consensus would still opt for PC level 1, then I don't mind, but PC level 2 was the obvious and IAR-ish way to stop any further manifestation of this problem from happening again on Wikipedia (as it has done in the past) - raising the bar to keep above this sort of thing while still allowing good faith edits. It would be good if that policy were drafted sooner rather than later, as clearly there is remit for PC level 2, as at least one other PC level 2 protected page mentioned on that page indicates. WilliamH (talk) 16:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. This sounds like a good candidate for PC2 (assuming that campaign included the creation of autoconfirmed accounts). I'm going on holiday soon with questionable internet access but when I get back I might try to knock a draft policy together.

It is interesting that you don't mention the possibility of semi or full protection. Why do you think these are not appropriate? (I'm not trying to be a dick about this. This is the sort of thing that might help us draft a policy.)

Yaris678 (talk) 16:54, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, no doubt autoconfirmed accounts were involved on at least one occasion. There's an additional complication with such an incident, in that people can spread the rumour/hoax even in good faith - they simply believe they are reporting accepted facts. I did not consider semi-protection because of the seriousness of the issue, bearing in mind we tend to give BLP concerns a stricter threshold.

Probably the best outlook is that I was trying to strike the balance between:

1. solving a problem that I felt needed a guaranteed solution - which semi-protection doesn't offer - while
2. still allowing good faith edits - which full protection doesn't allow. --WilliamH (talk) 22:01, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I see. Thanks.

This is obviously a case where some people would argue for full protection, but others would disagree, depending on how hard-core they are about BLP violations. The article is also has a lowish edit rate. This makes perfect sense as a reason for PC2 protection.

Yaris678 (talk) 12:02, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Thomasfan5034 I amended

I amended this case that someone else opened to ask for a checkuser due to possible block ekvasion can you take a look? Hell In A Bucket (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

No, sorry. All of the accounts bar the most recent one are  Stale. There is nothing for CheckUser to do. WilliamH (talk) 22:02, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Username change

Can you please change my username? Link → Vijay ^[talk] 21:23, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Already  Done. WilliamH (talk) 13:01, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

IP rangeblock collateral damage

Hi, is there any reason why logged-in users cannot edit from the range 108.97.0.0/16, which you checkuser-blocked in June? I have an OTRS ticket from an autoconfirmed account RobertJaz (talk · contribs) wondering what's going on. Would it be OK to change this block to prevent account creation only?

For now, I have advised this editor to try editing from another location, or ask Sprint to assign him an address outside of that range. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:13, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The block is aimed at a chronic troublemaker and it's definitely better that it remains a hardblock. I've granted him IP block exemption on the basis of the information provided in the OTRS ticket. WilliamH (talk) 13:15, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

COI/N Backlog

Hi, I've noticed that you've resolved a few issues at WP:COI/N, and, while there isn't technically a backlog yet, I'd really appreciate if, when you have some free time, you could clean up some of the easy ones (with the intention of full disclosure: I reported a COI, there, that I consider an "easy one," but I am not trying to sway your or anyone else's opinion on it). It's hard to establish consensus or have action taken with no discussion. Thanks for all of your hard work! --Jackson Peebles (talk) 10:47, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks for your kind words! WilliamH (talk) 13:28, 26 August 2013 (UTC)