Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard
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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).
Do not list discussions where consensus is clear. If you feel the need to close them, do it yourself.
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Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.
On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.
There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.
When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.
Include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing easier. Move discussions go in the 'other types' section.
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Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this is not normally in itself a problem at reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would need tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.
Technical instructions for closers
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If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.
Other areas tracking old discussions
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Administrative discussions
ANI thread concerning Yasuke
(Initiated 18 days ago on 2 July 2024) Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § Talk: Yasuke has on-going issues has continued to grow, including significant portions of content discussion (especially since Talk:Yasuke was ec-protected) and accusations of BLP violations, among other problems. Could probably be handled one sub-discussion at a time. --JBL (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
Closure review of The Telegraph RfC
(Initiated 12 days ago on 9 July 2024) Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § RfC closure review request at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: The Telegraph on trans issues's discussion seems to have died down. Hopefully I've put this in the correct section. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
Place new administrative discussions above this line using a level 3 heading
Requests for comment
RFA2024, Phase II discussions
Hi! Closers are requested for the following three discussion:
- (Initiated 79 days ago on 2 May 2024) Administrator recall
- (Initiated 77 days ago on 5 May 2024) Designated RfA monitors
- (Initiated 77 days ago on 5 May 2024) Reminder of civility norms at RfA
Many thanks in advance! theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 04:27, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Doing... reminder of civility norms. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:24, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Partly done reminder of civility norms. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:40, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
If re-requesting closure at WP:AN isn't necessary, then how about different various closers for cerain section(s)? I don't mind one or two closers for one part or another or more. --George Ho (talk) 17:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
- During Phase I of RFA2024, we had ended up having multiple closers for different RFCs, even the non-obvious ones. I think different people closing subparts of this should be acceptable Soni (talk) 09:22, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 58 days ago on 23 May 2024) Last response was 50 days ago. --Super Goku V (talk) 06:43, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 49 days ago on 2 June 2024) Appears to be going nowhere. Personally, I think no consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kowal2701 (talk • contribs) 14:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 33 days ago on 17 June 2024) Discussion appears ready for a close. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 16 days ago on 4 July 2024) - Consensus appears to have been reached with a 6-to-1 WP:AVALANCHE. RfC has been open a little over a week and all participants but one are in agreement. BRMSF (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
- 6 !votes within 8 days is not in SNOW close territory. There's no rush to close this discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:07, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
- It has been over two weeks now, and a consensus seems to have been achieved; thus far only a single person objects to the proposed revised wording. BRMSF (talk) 15:46, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading
Deletion discussions
| V | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Total |
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| CfD | 0 | 0 | 4 | 34 | 38 |
| TfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| MfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| FfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| RfD | 0 | 0 | 4 | 30 | 34 |
| AfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
(Initiated 55 days ago on 26 May 2024) This RfD has been open for over a month. SevenSpheres (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading
Other types of closing requests
(Initiated 54 days ago on 28 May 2024) Latest comment: 3 days ago, 79 comments, 37 people in discussion. Closing statement may be helpful for future discussions. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:29, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
- Doing...— Frostly (talk) 22:35, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 49 days ago on 2 June 2024), Tom B (talk) 09:51, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 42 days ago on 8 June 2024) Since much of the discussion centers on the title of the article rather than its content, the closer should also take into account the requested move immediately below on the talk page. Smyth (talk) 15:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
- If the closer finds "no consensus", I have proposed this route in which a discussion on merger and RM can happen simultaneously to give clearer consensus.VR (Please ping on reply) 20:10, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 35 days ago on 16 June 2024), last comment was 24 June 2024. Is there consensus in this discussion (if any) on when the word "massacre" is appropriate in an article, especially from a WP:NPOv perspective.VR (Please ping on reply) 20:15, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 17 days ago on 4 July 2024) No new comments in a few days. May be ripe for closure. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 01:54, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading
Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection
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Per WP:SO, I am copying here unblock request made by blocked user User:Leugen9001 on their talk page, for community approval. Checkuser shows no recent socking, and the blocking admin agrees (See: User_talk:Leugen9001#Standard_Offer_Unblock_Request). Vanjagenije (talk) 18:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
I would like to request an unblock per the Standard Offer. It has been slightly more than six months since October 1st, 2017, and I would like to return to the encyclopedia. I promise that I shall no longer engage in the disruptive and rule-breaking behaviour that I have demonstrated in the past, and I do not dispute any of the reasons for which I have been banned. I understand that the Wikipedia community has a legitimate reason not to trust my promise and am willing to accept "2nd Chance" limits like topic-bans and requirements to propose changes to articles in order to prove that I can now be a productive member of the community. Leugen9001 (talk) 4:47 am, 12 April 2018, Thursday (15 days ago) (UTC+2)
- Oppose as is my standard unless a user demonstrates they will actually be an asset to the encyclopedia and discusses what they intend to do what they return. This is just a simple rote regurgitation of the SO procedure which does not demonstrate anything other than that they are able to read an essay and paraphrase it in an unblock request. Such requests should be declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:58, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- @TonyBallioni: The user has provided an answer on their talk page, see User_talk:Leugen9001#Standard_Offer_Unblock_Request. Vanjagenije (talk) 13:40, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm still opposed because I've had bad experiences unblocking people who just give rote explanations in their initial request, and I also don't think that with 61 edits we have anything to go off of (and no, I don't count power's reasoning below as a reason to unblock. Following the rules is required, it is not something that should be looked at as exceptional.) TonyBallioni (talk) 15:12, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- @TonyBallioni: The user has provided an answer on their talk page, see User_talk:Leugen9001#Standard_Offer_Unblock_Request. Vanjagenije (talk) 13:40, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Comment. Just to be clear, I don't support (or oppose) the unblock. I have not given the issue any thought. I agree only that the community should decide.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:01, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- @Leugen9001: As you have talked about proposing changes, I would like to know if there are there any particular articles in your mind that you would like to edit. If yes then what you would really like to change about those articles? D4iNa4 (talk) 19:07, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- Leugen9001 was more active as a contributor in WikiNews.[1] Their block log is clean there. D4iNa4 (talk) 19:21, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- WikiNews is also dead, so I'm not really sure its the best project to point out a track record on. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:25, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
- Support there appears to be minimal history, largely from 2016. If they're willing to go through this rigamarole rather than doing an (invalid) clean start, we should let them. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:34, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
- Support - user made a reasonably complete unblock request last September, acknowledging their past disruptive behaviour and swearing off it, though its sincerity is questionable seeing how they were still socking at the time. Although, perhaps that's a technicality if their sock didn't actually edit here, and WP:SO does encourage blocked users to edit other wikis. The timing wasn't good, anyway. Still, the user seems to be trying to do the right thing (h/t power~enwiki) and although I'm not terribly hopeful given their request to block their IP in case they "try to do something impulsive", I don't see a good reason not to give this user one last chance. I'd prefer no specific unblock conditions that might encourage "testing the limits", instead the user should realize that if they manage to get themselves blocked again, they can expect that to be more or less permanent. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:51, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Community ban and indefinite block for Lidiia Kondratieva
- Lidiia Kondratieva (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Edit count
This person is likely an undisclosed paid editor. Their competence in English and in WP is marginal at best.
The last straw for me was this response they just made, to a DS notice given to them by User:Ronz. It perfectly encapsulates what they do here. Perfectly pleasant on the surface, but either completely incompetent or completely bad faith.
Per their edit count, 8 of the top 9 articles they have worked on, are typical targets of paid editors. They also work on some historical figures as well (probably not paid?) and one of those is in the top 9 too:
- Corys TESS
- Christel Frese (athlete) here is the diff series - entirely unsourced.
- Greg Fischbach "entrepreneur"
- Thomas J. Falk CEO
- Rony Abovitz CEO
- Olivia Hime musician
- Brian Dyson retired CEO
- ? Not a typical target, but pretty clearly not notable and hard to understand outside paid editing
- Lucy Young here are their edits.
- historical figures
A bigger list is at this COIN case I filed, which somehow got no traction.
I encountered this person at Naveen Jain, where efforts to "control the message" on that page have been ongoing since 2007 per this note on its talk page from back then, and also per the extensive list of SPA/promo editors I just added at the top of Talk:Naveen_Jain. Ronz has been riding herd on that mess since the page was created.
The COIN case linked above, shows past COIN cases about the Jain page and related topics.
A lot of the promotional efforts over the past 11 years, have been directed to downplaying the Infospace debacle and trying to emphasize his more recent space efforts.
More recently the page was pending changes protected in this diff in November 2017 and the Lidiia Kondratieva account showed up after that. They have made baffling Talk contributions like this, and this and this....and done radical edits to the page like this, where they deleted all the Infospace stuff and tried to create a POV fork with it.
The DS notice was given just after Lidiia Kondratieva took yet another hack at the Infospace section.
This person is not improving WP and is a drain on everybody else. In my view they should be indefinitely blocked. Jytdog (talk) 00:29, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with Jytdog's assessment. I wish we could figure out who is behind the editing assignments that Lidiia Kondratieva is apparently getting (and the many other editors editing in a similar fashion). --Ronz (talk) 03:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse indef block There is something seriously amiss. @Lidiia Kondratieva: please respond here. We have grave concerns about your editing.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- I came across this editor a few days back and while the topics seem rather different, I believe this is part of one of the many South Asian UPE groups that I've blocked. There is some overlap with -- "Sudheer Telaprolu" group, but I can't be sure that it's part of that group, and per WP:BEANS I'm not commenting on a couple of other tell tale signs of being part of a UPE ring. If I hadn't seen this here, I'd have likely done some investigation into this account towards a resolution, but now that we're here, I think an indef block is in order (if not superseded by a CU block as part of a UPE ring). —SpacemanSpiff 03:29, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- Support: a clear behavioural pattern of UPE editing. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:13, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- just adding a comment to prevent this from being archived. This account is problematic and I hope folks look at this. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:54, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
AN / ANI boards under criticism
"Out of over one hundred questioned editors, only thirty-six (27%) are happy with the way reports of conflicts between editors are handled on the Administrators' Incident Noticeboard (AN/I), a recent survey by the Community health initiative on English Wikipedia found. The survey, which was undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation Support and Safety and Anti-harassment Tools teams, also found that dissatisfaction has varied reasons including 'defensive cliques' and biased administrators as well as fear of a 'boomerang effect' due to a lacking rule for scope on AN/I reports." Source: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-04-26/In focus --Guy Macon (talk) 17:23, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Not that it is in any way surprising.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Boomerangs are a feature, not a bug. It's not common for experienced editors to get themselves into hot water, without any kind of pushing involved. If we don't examine all aspects of a situation, we run the risk of rewarding those who stick a foot out and then go to ANI to report an editor has faceplanted into said hot water. --NeilN talk to me 17:51, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Boomerang/scope. I think that all aspects of a situation should be reviewed and that one should not automatically adopt the OP's pov. If the boomerang is keeping people from filing frivolous or misleading reports, then good. defensive cliques My concern is that there is a lack of input from uninvolved and disinterested editors, so the shrieking just moves here or that one or the other's friends pile on in a biased manner without looking objectively at the situation. We need more uninvolved user engagement, but I for one just avoid the drama.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Well, your last sentence is exactly why we don't have more uninvolved user engagement... I deal with ANI issues only when absolutely necessary (or I'm involved somehow). Primefac (talk) 18:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Boomerang/scope. I think that all aspects of a situation should be reviewed and that one should not automatically adopt the OP's pov. If the boomerang is keeping people from filing frivolous or misleading reports, then good. defensive cliques My concern is that there is a lack of input from uninvolved and disinterested editors, so the shrieking just moves here or that one or the other's friends pile on in a biased manner without looking objectively at the situation. We need more uninvolved user engagement, but I for one just avoid the drama.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- "Nobody has ever helped their own cause in any way by participating at ANI. Even non-controversial edits have a way of getting people into trouble." power~enwiki (π, ν) 18:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- That's a popular canard. I spent ~8 years as a regular editor bringing relevant issues to ANI and participating in discussions. Most were dealt with appropriately and never once did I get in "trouble". Just make sure your own hands are clean and you present evidence calmly and civilly. --NeilN talk to me 19:57, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- The easiest way of getting in "trouble" at ANI as a regular editor is by NAC-ing threads (which is strangely controversial). Starting "this is a bad editor but it's too complicated to be handled at AIV" threads is generally fine, and !voting on existing threads ... sometimes is fine. power~enwiki (π, ν) 07:11, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
Mostly off-topic sniping
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- Amen.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 20:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- I'm totally on board with changing the organizational culture so that if someone posts a response at ANI that contains a personal attack, the next uninvolved person simply removes it (rather than redact pieces of it) and they can try again. It'll piss off a lot of already pissed off people though. GMGtalk 18:52, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- I'd be on board with that. If you can't say anything nice... Primefac (talk) 19:01, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Of course there's always frivolous reports when the filing party doesn't really understand what they're complaining about, usually with a lot of hot air and noise. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:58, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- Not even going to comment on this. Doing so risks sanctions. Legacypac (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
- I think you just did.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 00:08, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
Is it not true that if anyone regularly participates in AN or ANI threads as an uninvolved editor -- no matter how helpful those contributions might be -- that fact will be held against them should they ever run for RfA, 'Crat, Arbcom, etc.?
- "I supported but I think the opposers have a valid point in objecting to the candidate's disproportionate focus on drama boards as opposed to content involvement and I would similarly oppose most candidates with that focus without hesitation."[2]
- "My one point of concern is that the candidate seems overly focused on the drama boards"[3]
- (From the candidate) "I have tended to avoid the 'drama boards' ".[4]
- "The only time I'm perturbed by a busy editor with a lower-than-usual percentage of mainspace contributions is when it's someone who spends all their time at drama boards"[5]
- (From the candidate)"I have generally not been an active participant on the 'drama boards' "[6]
- "There is a very large amount of opposition centered on lack of content contributions combined with spending time on drama boards."[7]
- (Advice to someone considering running for RfA) "9 months of solid article work, significantly less activity in drama boards, contribute to the BOT activities..."[8]
So we actively discourage veteran editors from getting involved and then we end up with a clique problem. What a shock. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:42, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- There's a current RfA which migh suggest not ;) —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 14:56, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- It isn't entirely clear to me what conclusion the Original Poster, User:Guy Macon, is recommending. Is he saying that there is something wrong with the drama boards, or that there is something wrong with many of the editors who file at the drama boards, or what? I agree that the handling of cases here can be unsatisfying. WP:ANI does a relatively good job of dealing with flamers, trolls, uncivil POV-pushers, and other editors who are not here. It is also true that WP:ANI attracts combative editors who seek to use it to pursue their objectives. For them, as noted above, the boomerang principle is a feature, not a bug. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- I personally think that some significant reform in the governance of the English Wikipedia would be appropriate. However, that isn't likely to happen, because it isn't about to be initiated within the current system, and the WMF, which could start the ball rolling, doesn't understand well enough to be able to help. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- What exactly is being proposed here, if anything? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
- Not everything has to be a proposal. Some things are informational. If this is a problem for you, you should bring it up at Meta:Research:Detox and Wikipedia:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/Research about Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents/Quantitative data analysis where the data was gathered and presented. I merely reported it in the obvious place. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:02, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
Letting people who are commenting in this thread know that I've been following it and I'm available to answer questions about the AN/I research. Also, I want to emphasis that Wikimedia Foundation Anti-Harassment Tools team and Support and Safety team are looking for your ideas and thoughts about the broader topic of how to make improvements to reporting of and workflows around harassment. This week we are opening a discussion on ENWP (and Meta) about problems that have been identified already from the surveys. We are also looking to update the problem list during the community discussion with the purpose of identifying areas our software developers could make improvement later in 2018. I'm adding recaps of community discussions like this one. But it would be better to participate in the discussion yourself! SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:37, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Ongoing IP vandalism. Rangeblock?
There is an ongoing problem of an IP vandal on Greg Holland and Felipe Vázquez daring me by name (well, sorta, since the user can't properly spell my user name) to block them for their vandalism. The vandal has been editing from 99.203.29.239 and 99.203.29.210, as well as IPv6 addresses. I've protected the pages temporarily and have blocked the IPv4 addresses, also temporarily. Is a range block warranted at this point? – Muboshgu (talk) 01:36, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
- Probably not, seeing how you've already protected the pages and blocked the offending IPs. Rangeblocks should only be used as a last resort given their potential to adversely affect legitimate editors. -FASTILY 03:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
- Both are sprint ranges - and very wide so a rangeblock would likely be impractical / have way too much collateral. Probably best to protect the pages as you did. SQLQuery me! 01:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for that. Just wondering then what is the most efficient way for dealing with this, other than protecting pages and blocking IPs, which feels like a game of Whac-A-Mole. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Spamming of Portal Pages
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
One editor User:The Transhumanist who is overly enthusiastic about Portals is now spamming portal talk pages [9] with glowing invites to their wikiproject. There are scores of users who want to delete all portals so automated spamming this needs to stop. Just imagine if WikiProject Biography posted a message like that to every bio! Legacypac (talk) 03:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Comment: Although I disagree with User:Legacypac on the issue of whether portals should be deleted, I agree that User:The Transhumanist is using AWB to spam pages, and he was also spamming user talk pages with his canvassing. On a related note, the discussion Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals started by User:Galobtter is completely out of control and needs to be ended immediately (close discussion as SNOW OPPOSE)! Brian Everlasting (talk) 05:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- The discussion has been very civil and under control. The closing of the discussion has already been arranged for at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals, and should run for the full 30 days for consensus to be formed. — The Transhumanist 07:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Maybe we should remove awb access?Spartaz Humbug! 06:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Seeing the endless spam of thousands of edits on portals, that might not be a bad idea. Isa (talk) 07:09, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Hi Spartaz, long time no see. Concerning the posts to the portal's talk pages, they are on-topic. I've changed them to a more informational tone to reflect this. They convey information on how the WikiProject supports portals, and what resources it has available to help with portals. The rest were invites to those who had expressed interest in portals - they were not sent randomly. As always, I'm here to help. I've ceased posting AWB'd invites and the notices to portal talk pages, pending the outcome of this discussion on how the portals should be notified of the Portals WikiProject's operations (news). For example, there are design discussions taking place on the WikiProject's talk page that affect all portals. I referred to them in the post as design initiatives. I've contacted about 350 of the portals with the notice so far — the other 1,200 need to be informed of what is going on with portals. How should I proceed? — The Transhumanist 07:27, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- @The Transhumanist: Just in case you weren't aware, the button captioned "Show preview" next to the blue one can show a preview of what the page will look like with your edits. It would have avoided most of the
1317 edits you've done so far. Isa (talk) 07:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)- I use the preview, most of the time. But no matter how many times I read a post before I post it, I almost always find
typos and suchways to improve it after I post it. Sorry for the inconvenience. — The Transhumanist 07:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)- Perhaps you should slow down a bit? Isa (talk) 07:45, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- As you wish. — The Transhumanist 07:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Perhaps you should slow down a bit? Isa (talk) 07:45, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- I use the preview, most of the time. But no matter how many times I read a post before I post it, I almost always find
- @The Transhumanist: Just in case you weren't aware, the button captioned "Show preview" next to the blue one can show a preview of what the page will look like with your edits. It would have avoided most of the
- I've been described as overly enthusiastic. Actually, I've become an acting curator for the Portals WikiProject, and I do what I can to recruit new members and facilitate communications between the WikiProject, its members, and others affected by it. For the record, a copy of the revised version of the notice at issue is posted below. Thank you. — The Transhumanist 08:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
(The discussion is continued below the following notice - please post replies there. Thank you.)
Condensed "Status report"
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Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals is back! The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018. Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, and design the portals of the future. As of April 29th, membership is at 56 editors, and growing. There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for each component of portals. Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways. And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list. From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject. — The Transhumanist 03:37, 30 April 2018 (UTC) |
Discussion
- Posting a pertinent message to multiple talk pages is not "spamming", it's good communication. I note that nobody who has actually received any of the messages has complained, and indeed the users who were contacted directly had expressed an interest in portals. To me, this thread reeks of gameplaying in order to disrupt the efforts to revitalise the work on portals, as opposed to any genuine concern.
- Having said that, I would suggest that no more than one message is posted on each portal talk page (the above sample is fine) and that any messages bulk-posted in User Talk are on an opt-in basis. WaggersTALK 07:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- One more thing to add: unless User talk:The Transhumanist has been asked to stop and refused to do so, and there's absolutely no evidence of that, this is not an issue that requires admin attention. WaggersTALK 07:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
What are we supposed to do about the other 1200 portals that have not been contacted yet? — The Transhumanist 08:34, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
STOP please! If you don't stop posting the same message to every page in the namespace as a minimum your AWB access should be removed. I'm talking about Portal talkpage spamming which showed up on my watch list which is when I realized he planned to spam all 1515 Portals talks with this long message! I came directly here because such automated editing by the self appointed "acting curator for the Portals WikiProject" is not appropriate in my opinion and prior efforts to get them to stop posting soliciting notices on the face of every single portal failed. Legacypac (talk) 08:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- What Legacypac seems to want is to censor the Portals WikiProject, to keep it from communicating with portal editors. The notices to the tops of the portals pages he referred to were those required to be posted to pages nominated for deletion. The discussion concerning Legacypac's objections to the proper notices is covered here. The notices are still at the tops of the portal pages for the duration of the RfC, and look like this:
A proposal has been made to delete all portals, including this one. Please share your thoughts on the matter at: |
- That Legacypac is still presenting that notice as some kind of wrongdoing, shows his bias. He adamantly dislikes portals and wants to get rid of them. So much so that he wishes to stop valid communications concerning them.
- He has warned me about what is not appropriate in his opinion, without actually looking up the rules first, or inquiring what the accepted practices are. He assumed he knew the Wikipedia definitions of spamming and canvassing, but he clearly does not. His warning about MfDs below is a case in point. — The Transhumanist 12:05, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
I warned this user about Canvassing [10] for MfDs and separately User:Brian Everlasting warned them about canvassing [11] with the Portal talk page messages I posted here about. He also sent out a bunch of messages that included this canvassing As you know, there's a proposal to delete all portals. It started out looking pretty dismal for portals, with primarily posts supporting their demise. It turned out that the proposer didn't post a deletion notice on the very pages being nominated for deletion (a requirement for all deletion discussions). Once that was done, a flood of opposition came in and has apparently turned the tide. RfCs generally run for 30 days. It started April 8th, and so it has about 14 more days to run its course. The more work we can do during that time on the portals, the stronger the reasons for keeping them will be. And the more prepared we will be for any MfDs that follow the closing of the RfC. while at the same time objecting on a procedural basis to the MfDing of any portals. That seems wrong to me. Legacypac (talk) 09:21, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Transhumanist is not spamming. He is not canvassing. Here are the important points:
- When an article is nominated for deletion a notice is placed on the page. Whether it's 1 article or 1500 portals doesn't matter Template:Afd_footer_(multiple). All 1500 portals have been nominated for deletion. All 1500 portals should be tagged.
- The WikiProject guideline #5 describes how to revive a wikiproject. It says "To try to gain new participants, individually invite active users who have been substantively involved with the topic to join the project." Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Revival In order to prove a charge of canvassing you have to prove that the editors contacted were not substantially involved with the topic. That evidence has not been submitted.
- In conclusion, we should be thanking Transhumanist for taking on a dirty job that noone else would do. And I mean noone. I see no reason to suspend AWB access.– Lionel(talk) 10:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Addendum: The portals fall under the scope of the newly revived WikiProject Portals. I propose that this discussion be closed and the complainants be offered the opportunity to raise grievances at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Portals and any resolutions be recorded there.– Lionel(talk) 11:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Would it be possible that it's placed below the talk template that explains the rules of the page?--Moxy (talk) 11:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- The supposed MfD canvassing Legacypac accused me of, was the creation of this section on the WikiProject page:
- For archives, see: Portals for deletion at MfD.
- 2018 April 24 - Portal:Baltimore - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Baltimore
- 2018 April 23 - Portal:Football - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Football
- 2018 April 22 - Portal:Quidditch - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Quidditch
- 2018 April 22 - Portal:Blu-ray - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Blu-ray
- 2018 April 22 - Portal:Muhammad - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Muhammad
- 2018 April 22 - Portal:Belemnoids - Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Belemnoids
- Article alert sections are a standard feature of WikiProjects. For some examples, see:
- I explained this to Legacypac in reply to his accusation on my talk page, but he never answered.
- The quote Legacypac posted above was part of a newsletter that was sent out to members of the Portals WikiProject, all of whom had already !voted in the RfC in favor of portals. Therefore, not canvassing.
- Legacypac has used the label "Canvassing", but has not presented an actual case by citing specific rules that have actually been broken.
- The Canvassing guideline states: "Canvassing is notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way, and is considered inappropriate. This is because it compromises the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore is generally considered disruptive behavior."
- The WikiProject status report (shown above) that was posted to the portal talk pages is about the Portals WikiProject, with links to its various sections such as the task list, a tools list, and its talk page, where we are designing new components for portals. The intention of the notice is to assist editors in 1) finding resources to use in building and maintaining portals, and 2) getting together with other editors with which to work with to build and maintain portals. This does not fall under the definition "notification done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion".
- There are 1200 portals that have not yet been notified about The WikiProject's operations. Please explain to me (cite the rules/provide links) why this WikiProject should not be allowed to post general notices pertaining to the improvement of portals on the talk pages of those portals. Thank you. — The Transhumanist 12:01, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- I agree that Transhumanist is not spamming. This thread should be closed with no action. Lepricavark (talk) 19:53, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- I would just like to comment on the technical implementation of the message. In the future, if anyone plans to repeat the same text over thousands of pages, a template should be created instead of directly using {{ambox}}. This would make it so that if we needed to make a change to the message box, we would only need to make the change once and have it reciprocate across all pages that transclude the template. We would not have to use AWB to edit all of the thousands of pages again every time a change is needed, which is what happened twice here. The very reason why the template namespace exists is for this purpose. Mz7 (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, exactly. I totally agree with Mz7! Brian Everlasting (talk) 20:31, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- The reason I chose to do the deletion discussion notice that way, was to preserve it as-is in the historical versions of the pages it was posted on. So that the message that will be displayed in the future will still be what was displayed when it was posted. If the hypothetical template were to be deleted because it was no longer being used, or converted to some other purpose, that wouldn't affect the historical postings. This event was out of the ordinary, and I thought it might be studied or referenced in the future, making a static record more important. Though, it is not completely static, as it uses ambox, but the message text is. — The Transhumanist 09:31, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, exactly. I totally agree with Mz7! Brian Everlasting (talk) 20:31, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Question
How does one remove AWB access, anyway? Is it as simple as removing someone's username from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage? I already voted in the aforementioned discussion, so there's no way I'd be touching The Transhumanist's user rights even if AWB should be removed. Nyttend (talk) 11:38, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Rangeblock question
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I'm assuming the range is too wide, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Dynamic IP here Enigmamsg 04:43, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- No, actually. See Special:Contributions/2401:7400:e800::/48. I've blocked 6 months. ansh666 06:12, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Cheers, Enigmamsg 17:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Anti-seminitic comments
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Would someone take a look at this user who has already been blocked for in appropriate use of the talk page. It looks like the behaviour has continued. -----Snowded TALK 05:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- User:SarekOfVulcan has blocked this IP. Nick-D (talk) 05:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Three minutes after this report! Impressive response or parallel monitoring. Either way resolved so thanks -----Snowded TALK 05:30, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Pure procrastination. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:32, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Three minutes after this report! Impressive response or parallel monitoring. Either way resolved so thanks -----Snowded TALK 05:30, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
if anyone has admin bit on commons
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this attack disparagement image needs deletion.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- *poof*. DMacks (talk) 06:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Heads up: No renaming
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Hello English Wikipedia Administrators:
Global renaming is experiencing technical problems, and we are processing NO renaming request after we found the renaming is malfunctioning. WP:CHUS and Special:GlobalRenameRequest shows the warning that request is halted, but you should not re-block "unblocked to allow post @ CHUS" people because they did not get renamed in short time: that's outside of their control. (Meanwhile: They can use "GlobalRenameRequest" while they're blocked without being unblocked.) — regards, Revi 07:59, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Fixed since then. — regards, Revi 21:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
John Donvan copyvio question
I have deleted the article John Donvan because the body of the article has been a copyright violation of an ABC News source since its first edit. In retrospect I'm not sure that this was the most appropriate course of action - on one hand, stripping the article of the copyvio would have left it nearly empty and with only one visible revision, but on the other hand the subject is a fairly prominent person, and an article with >1,000 pageviews this month. I don't have time to rewrite an article on an unfamiliar subject from scratch at the moment, but would another admin like to review? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:29, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Definitely big copyvios, but it looks like it's only the first paragraph of the Career section. I'll see about trimming it down to non-copyvios and see what's left before restoring. Primefac (talk) 13:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Restored and trimmed. If I've missed something obvious feel free to remove it and/or re-delete as appropriate. Primefac (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- The Awards section was also copyvio, though perhaps less so. The list of awards is verbatim to the same source. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Restored and trimmed. If I've missed something obvious feel free to remove it and/or re-delete as appropriate. Primefac (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- The edit was apparently made in 2006. The ABC news article was written in 2010. Unless I misread something, it seems more of an other-way around problem? Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:19, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- @Galobtter: I can see why you think that, but no. If you have a look at the last diff before the revdel, [12], it liks to the article. I don't know why the date shows it as it is (frankly, such a screwup might invalidate any copyright claims, but I'm not a lawyer, and certainly wiki-law is still violated). ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 01:22, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Interesting, seems to be a misconfiguration on ABC's part perhaps when they changed their site layout. The Internet Archive does have the article as far back as 2004, but at a slightly different URL. When the original editor contributed the article here ABC's article looked like this. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 04:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:40, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Interesting, seems to be a misconfiguration on ABC's part perhaps when they changed their site layout. The Internet Archive does have the article as far back as 2004, but at a slightly different URL. When the original editor contributed the article here ABC's article looked like this. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 04:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Galobtter: I can see why you think that, but no. If you have a look at the last diff before the revdel, [12], it liks to the article. I don't know why the date shows it as it is (frankly, such a screwup might invalidate any copyright claims, but I'm not a lawyer, and certainly wiki-law is still violated). ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 01:22, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
These two articles have been subjected to intermittent edit-warring to insert BLP-uncompliant allegations by anons for the past months. One of the anons tried to report the reversions at ANI and AIV (which is where I took note of the situation) on April 25, and were reverted since their report included potentially defamatory material.
After issuing an initial warning to the latest IP 118.200.76.63 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and placing EDreams under PC1, I was alerted on my talk pagethat some undisclosed COI editing may have taken place in support of the article by registered users, most of them stale. Internetguruspain (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) however is still active and may possibly be a connected contributor. His other edits include writing the bio of Javier Perez-Tenessa, the founder of the companies covered by the other two articles.
I have blocked the IP for inserting the BLP-sensitive material removed from EDreams for which I warned him on the 25th into EDreams ODIGEO today for two weeks, and added PC-1 to this article as well. Would appreciate more eyes on the situation as I'm both rarely online and probably quite a bit rusty. On top of reviewing, any egregious errors in tool usage can be undone without consulting me, but I'll be grateful if you let me know what I screwed up so that I learn from any mistakes. Thanks, MLauba (Talk) 18:55, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Item needs looking at
I don't know how long it will be until Materialscientist has a chance to see this so I thought I would bring it to this noticeboard in case it is something that needs attention sooner rather than later. If you deem that my post here is bringing undue attention to it please feel free to remove and even R/D this section. MarnetteD|Talk 21:30, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- I've removed the personal information, but this seems more like a content dispute. Primefac (talk) 12:15, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Autoconfirmation
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Why am I not autoconfirmed yet? I registered 5 days ago and have over 100 edits. When I click on one of my contributions, there is no "autoconfirmed users" tag, as there is for other Wikipedians. DangleSnipeCelly (talk) 21:45, 30 April 2018 (UTC)DangleSnipeCelly1
- Not sure what you're talking about by "click on one of my contributions," but you are indeed autoconfirmed. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:52, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Automatic community ban (User:Miccoliband)
Miccoliband (talk · contribs) was indefinitely hard-usernameblocked on 3 February 2018. On 7 February 2018 and 30 April 2018, the user was found to have engaged in sockpuppetry in accordance with publicly-documented CheckUser evidence. Per WP:3X, this user is automatically considered community-banned. I haven't found any other examples of these AN reports, which are suggested by the policy, so I'm guessing this will be good enough. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 22:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Oops, I suppose under the policy, we need an administrator to declare that the user is well and truly automatically community banned – misread that. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 22:34, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
Editors who are found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for any reason, are effectively site banned by the Wikipedia community. Publicly documented CheckUser evidence should typically be involved before a user is considered banned in this way. Users who have been banned in this way are subject to the same unban conditions as users banned by community discussion.[2]
Are you referring to Administrators should normally..., or is some other admin declaration needed? Nyttend (talk) 22:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)Administrators should normally place a notice at Wikipedia:Administrators' Noticeboard alerting the community of such a ban, place Template:Banned user on the master account's user page, and add the user to any relevant Arbitration Committee sanctions enforcement list.
- @Nyttend: Yeah, I was referring to the "Administrators should normally ..." sentence. Thanks, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:07, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- I think the point is having a trusted user do it, rather than just any autoconfirmed user; we don't want someone going around and inappropriately tagging a bunch of long-blocked users, either through malice or through misunderstanding. We also don't want someone going around tagging the user when the alleged sock is not blocked (that would either be getting ahead of a reviewing admin, or doing something in spite of a contrary review), but here the socks have been blocked. Probably the writer of this piece imagined that an admin would perform the block and then come here to announce it. Since that didn't happen, and since SPI clerks like you are quite trustworthy, I can't see a good reason to demand an admin do it. If an admin be needed, I'll have to revert or duplicate your notice here, and I'll have to revert or duplicate your edit that added the {{banned user}} to the userpage, since the policy says that the admin has to do those things. WP:BURO, let's be satisfied with what you did :-) Nyttend (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, works for me. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- The idea behind it was that it should be an admin so that accountability would apply. I don't think we've had much use of that part of the new policy since it was passed, because, well, most of the people who sock aren't longterm users and are mainly just trolls and spammers, who the policy wasn't really aimed as much at i.r.t. the unblock aspect. If you look at the discussion, there was some comment as to whether that part was needed, and given that I'm sure this is not the first THREESTRIKES ban, it might be worth tweaking that bit.I think the idea that we want community oversight when this is applied to a longterm user is important, but it doesn't make the ban any less operative in cases like this. The main part of the policy is that an indefinite block plus two incidences of socking is equivalent to a ban and requires the same conditions to unblock (namely, discussion). The bureaucracy part we can tweak as conditions requires. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- I pushed to have the bureaucracy of that part worded as weakly as reasonable: 'administrators should normally', not 'the blocking admin has to tag the master and announce it here'. For me, basically, an editor who is blocked under the conditions is plainly community banned, even if it is not announced. Announcing and tagging is sometimes good (awareness by broader community, overview), but sometimes also to be avoided (don't feed the troll). Also, the wording has to be so that we don't get a sockmaster with 20 checkuser confirmed and blocked socks coming with 'I am not community banned, because a) no-one announced it to WP:AN, and my master account has never been tagged.
- Q: do we have a special parameter on {{banned user}} or {{sockmaster}} for the three strikes to identify that the banned user is banned 'automatically' and not be individual discussion? I do think that that is informative. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Dirk Beetstra, what do you think of what I said, Probably the writer of this piece imagined that an admin would perform the block and then come here to announce it? Were you hoping for the blocking admin to do the tagging and announcing? Nyttend (talk) 11:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Nyttend: not hoping, I don't really care that the editor is tagged or not, nor whether the community has been explicitly notified. What Kevin did was fine, but, to me, superfluous. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:50, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- OK, thank you. Nyttend (talk) 13:02, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yeah, I agree with Dirk. The situations where I see this is needed is for cases where we have a user who had previously been an established member of the community, who gets blocked and then starts socking. For the tagging, it might be worth updating the sock template with a parameter. This is useful for unblocks. I might tweak the wording a bit since this hasn't caught on. I still think it's a good idea to place a notice here if say someone like DrStrauss were to be socking again, but we don't need it for trolls and people who never hit extended confirmed. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:37, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Alright, I misunderstood the consensus – the wording of the policy made it seem like the ban is automatic and mandatory. Got it now. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 14:35, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- The ban is automatic. The paperwork, etc. is a "normally" thing, and was worded as such, because like Dirk pointed out above, we don't want to feed the trolls, etc. Like I said, as there was some comments on the RfC that the paperwork wasn't always neccesary, and we haven't started posting the notice in every case, we should probably tweak it (and I'll work on that sometime later this week
) TonyBallioni (talk) 14:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- So, Tony, this sounds like it's for someone like Access Denied, whose name will be known to plenty of people who aren't sock-fighters. Is it supposed to be applied retroactively to everyone (minus those who got a community or Arbcom unblock, of course), or only to people who continue socking after the provision's created? On one hand, it might make sense to apply it to someone who was making a mess a few months ago, but on the other hand it would be a bit silly to apply it to User:WoW, the original incarnation of Willy on Wheels. Nyttend (talk) 23:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- The ban is automatic. The paperwork, etc. is a "normally" thing, and was worded as such, because like Dirk pointed out above, we don't want to feed the trolls, etc. Like I said, as there was some comments on the RfC that the paperwork wasn't always neccesary, and we haven't started posting the notice in every case, we should probably tweak it (and I'll work on that sometime later this week
- Alright, I misunderstood the consensus – the wording of the policy made it seem like the ban is automatic and mandatory. Got it now. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 14:35, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Nyttend: not hoping, I don't really care that the editor is tagged or not, nor whether the community has been explicitly notified. What Kevin did was fine, but, to me, superfluous. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:50, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Nyttend: LOL. WoW! That will certainly get the conversation moving-- on wheels!--Dlohcierekim (talk) 09:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Dirk Beetstra, what do you think of what I said, Probably the writer of this piece imagined that an admin would perform the block and then come here to announce it? Were you hoping for the blocking admin to do the tagging and announcing? Nyttend (talk) 11:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, works for me. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think the point is having a trusted user do it, rather than just any autoconfirmed user; we don't want someone going around and inappropriately tagging a bunch of long-blocked users, either through malice or through misunderstanding. We also don't want someone going around tagging the user when the alleged sock is not blocked (that would either be getting ahead of a reviewing admin, or doing something in spite of a contrary review), but here the socks have been blocked. Probably the writer of this piece imagined that an admin would perform the block and then come here to announce it. Since that didn't happen, and since SPI clerks like you are quite trustworthy, I can't see a good reason to demand an admin do it. If an admin be needed, I'll have to revert or duplicate your notice here, and I'll have to revert or duplicate your edit that added the {{banned user}} to the userpage, since the policy says that the admin has to do those things. WP:BURO, let's be satisfied with what you did :-) Nyttend (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- As an SPI clerk (this seems to fall in our purview) we add sock tags unless there's some reason not to, but sockmasters are tagged pretty consistently. We could modify the {{sockpuppeteer}} template with a switch something like
banned=yesorthreestrikes=yesorchecked=banthat would make the template say something like "This user is banned by the community because CheckUser evidence confirms the operator has repeatedly abused multiple accounts" in place of thechecked=yesmessaging. Also, as a clerk, if I find a tag that has been placed inappropriately I just fix it or remove it, and there are a few users I've asked not to do it because they've been making a lot of errors or using them abusively, but not that many. But if we are going to create or use a second template for this purpose, it's important that if there's a {{sockpuppeteer}} tag on the page already, it shouldn't be removed, just add {{banned user}} underneath if that's what we decide to do. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:49, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Ivanvector: I think the parameter option makes the most sense, and meant to start a conversation about that after the change went through. It might be worth updating the wording of the policy page to be something re: notification at AN to read something like
A notice should normally be placed at AN if the user had substantial good faith contributions before being blocked.
as this seems to get at the intent there. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Sharkslayer87 second chance
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→ Relates to User talk:Bishonen#I want the ban removed —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 13:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I was topic banned for editing the article Raju. The reason given to me was:
Hi, Sharkslayer87. I have not banned you for adding unsourced material, but for using poor sources, and/or making claims unsupported by your sources, despite warnings and advice. The place you can appeal is the administrators' noticeboard. But Serial Number 54129 gives you good advice: you'll have a better chance of a successful appeal if you edit uncontroversially in other areas for a few months first. Bishonen | talk 11:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC).
I don't agree with this. I didn't use poor sources that don't support my claims. Rajus have Kshatriya status and both the terms are synonymous. I used the below sources for that.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Kanumuri-Bapiraju-faces-uphill-task-in-Narsapuram/articleshow/33795850.cms https://books.google.com/books?id=oQOF7tkWXjIC&pg=PA98&dq=kshatriyas+rajus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD-s67t4PaAhWGxFkKHcyxBUY4FBDoAQhUMAk#v=onepage&q=kshatriyas%20rajus&f=false
The first source says "Rajus (Kshatriya)" and the second source clearly says "The rajus are a small, close-knit community of the Kshatriya caste"
I also used Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard who is considered by many as one of the greatest social anthropologists ever. He has more than a hundered thousand results at google scholar and he has been cited by thousands and thousands of scholars. “The Raju caste, classified as the Kshatriya or warriors among the Twice-born castes, is the second highest in the village. The Raju are descendants of former rulers of the area and though their wealth and influence has declined they still bestow patronage in the form of land, money and political connections. Several Raju families have Shudra and Harijan field laborers attached to them by yearly agreements”.
He states in no uncertain terms that Rajus are classified as Kshatriyas. The link for that is below
https://books.google.com/books?id=BZqBAAAAMAAJ&dq=raju+caste&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=kshatriya
A particular user called Sitush was not allowing me to contribute. He even targeted an entire community of people. The exact words he used were "except in the minds of self-glorifying southern communities such as the Raju and the Nair". These comments really pained me. I got a little aggressive and edited the article but even then I didn't source anything from poor sources. I made a little mistake. In my last edit I used https://books.google.com/books?id=gVNdhHtG134C&q=aravidu+kshatriya&dq for synonymity but it was just a silly mistake. In my previous edits I used the below two sources for proving synonymity for which I was reverted by sitush.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/Kanumuri-Bapiraju-faces-uphill-task-in-Narsapuram/articleshow/33795850.cms https://books.google.com/books?id=oQOF7tkWXjIC&pg=PA98&dq=kshatriyas+rajus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD-s67t4PaAhWGxFkKHcyxBUY4FBDoAQhUMAk#v=onepage&q=kshatriyas%20rajus&f=false
The difference is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Raju&diff=839049605&oldid=839047790
I apologize for any mistakes on my part and I promise I won't repeat them. I want to appeal for a revokation of my ban as I am a good wikipedia contributor and I want to continue with my contributions.
Thanks Sharkslayer87 (talk) 12:04, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline The fact you called the comment by Sitush "racist" in the section title alone shows a need to keep the ban in place. You've been warned by multiple editors about editing from a POV, and you continued. Filing an arbitration request before even going to the talk page (which is where the discussion SHOULD start) was another example of trying to WP:BLUDGEON your POV. As others have said, I would say you need to edit elsewhere for sometime before requesting a lifting of this topic ban. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:18, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline This editor is clearly here with a WP:AGENDA and is suffering from a bad case of WP:IDHT. Given their pattern of editing and their deportment in talk page discussions I endorse the topic ban and will go on record as opposing any further appeals for at least six months. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:17, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline Topic banning instead of an outright block was pretty generous. Ban needs to be in place for a minimum of six months before I'd even consider an appeal. Yunshui 雲水 13:20, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- For the record, I've blocked for 24 hours for continuing violations of the topic ban, all of which occurred after both the acknowledgement of the topic ban and the filing of the appeal here. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:38, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am suspecting that their next block will be an indefinite one. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Probably, but like I said on their talk page, I'd rather the first block be a short one, as a warning shot across the bow, so to speak. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:49, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- I am suspecting that their next block will be an indefinite one. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:47, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline as above. GiantSnowman 13:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline agree with everyone above. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline Much per above. I have altered the section title above just to explain why it no longer *states* sitush is being racist and so it doesnt appear in the archives as such when this gets closed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:57, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline The second chance was actually the generous TBAN, which has already been violated, and I think the next such violation or any further disruption would merit a NOTHERE block. —SpacemanSpiff 16:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Comment The problem is not that they are not providing sources but that they are providing cherry-picked sources, sometimes poor ones, and failing to adhere to NPOV. Their contention - which over the last couple of months they have taken to ANI, DRN and RFAR, as well as providing walls of text elsewhere - is already mentioned in the article in the sort of nuanced manner that is required when sources disagree. There is no doubt that the article could be generally improved but this person has an agenda relating to a specific point of "improvement", they've got it wrong, and they're clearly here just to glorify. FWIW, they've been trying to push this point at other articles in a less obvious way (eg: using the term Andhra Kshatriya where Raju would do) and they also have a problem with copyright violations. They've edit warred beyond 3RR and seem unwilling to accept the numerous comments from people experienced in the topic area, all of whom have been banging on about the NPOV/cherry-picking issue. - Sitush (talk) 07:34, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Geonotices
Would anyone be willing to help keep an eye on Wikipedia:Geonotice, or add their name as a backup contact for it? It's not a very burdensome task - there's a couple of requests a month and mostly they just need a javascript template to be filled out. A couple of minutes work in most cases.
At the moment there's only one or two admins who frequent it. I'm mostly active on Wikidata these days, so if I don't spot it on my watchlist when I drop in, things can go weeks unanswered. I've just dealt with one I missed almost a month back (!) - thankfully it was requested a month in advance - but of course it's very useful if we can post up requested notices promptly.
I used to do a lot of maintenance work here and the page still has me on as a "poke if nothing happens" contact. I don't really think it's a great idea to have someone semi-active as the suggested contact, but equally I don't want to remove my name when it's the only one there... Andrew Gray (talk) 12:53, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- I've watchlisted this and added my name to the list of people to poke. GoldenRing (talk) 13:32, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- @GoldenRing: Great - many thanks. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
Arbitration Committee seeking new clerks
Cross-posted from the ArbCom noticeboard: The arbitration clerks are currently looking for a few dependable and mature editors willing to serve as clerks. The responsibilities of clerks include opening and closing arbitration cases and motions; notifying parties of cases, decisions, and other committee actions; maintaining the requests for arbitration pages; preserving order and proper formatting on case pages; and other administrative and related tasks they may be requested to handle by the arbitrators. Clerks are the unsung heroes of the arbitration process, keeping track of details to ensure that requests are handled in a timely and efficient manner.
Past clerks have gone on to be (or already were) successful lawyers, naval officers, and Presidents of Wikimedia Chapters. The salary and retirement packages for clerks rival that of arbitrators, to boot. Best of all, you get a cool fez!
Please email clerks-l
lists.wikimedia.org if you are interested in becoming a clerk, and a clerk will reply with an acknowledgement of your message and any questions we want to put to you.
For the Clerks of the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 15:27, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration Committee seeking new clerks
Cleanup on Aisle G13
ResolvedWe have a motherload of pages listed in Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions that are eligible for G13 deletion. I'm not seeing it in Category:Administrative backlog yet, but I've gone through and tagged some of them and there's many more if someone wants to swing by and clean some of them out. Thanks. Home Lander (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Empty. Feel free to one-click this. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Not so fast - there's 307 pages listed at the moment. Home Lander (talk) 14:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- My apologies, I misread and thought you were talking about Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions. For what it's worth, G13-eligible pages are not necessarily summarily deleted, they still require someone to nominate them (usually User:HasteurBot). There are some users who find "diamonds" in these pages, and so there's no reason to summarily d-batch the entire cat (otherwise we'd just have it happen automatically). Primefac (talk) 14:19, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
In other words, it is not (and will never be) part of the administrative backlog. Primefac (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2018 (UTC)- @Primefac: Yeah, I bring up a batch of pages at a time and have a quick look to see if there's anything that looks really good. Unfortunately many of them simply consist of the unsubmitted draft template followed by an empty reference section. Incidentally, there's a tag at the top of the category page that I had overlooked stating that it will put the page in Category:Wikipedia backlog if more than 500 items are pending. Home Lander (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Huh. Colour me surprised. Primefac (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I almost commented to that effect, but you did say administrative backlog ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Which is still true, I suppose, but I probably shouldn't un-strike my text, since my I too missed the {{backlog}} at the top of the cat and that was more of the point. Primefac (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I almost commented to that effect, but you did say administrative backlog ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Huh. Colour me surprised. Primefac (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Yeah, I bring up a batch of pages at a time and have a quick look to see if there's anything that looks really good. Unfortunately many of them simply consist of the unsubmitted draft template followed by an empty reference section. Incidentally, there's a tag at the top of the category page that I had overlooked stating that it will put the page in Category:Wikipedia backlog if more than 500 items are pending. Home Lander (talk) 03:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Not so fast - there's 307 pages listed at the moment. Home Lander (talk) 14:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
Tue bot only nominates AfC pages. When I looked a few hours ago there were over 400 non-AfC pages to tag. User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report Legacypac (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
alan jackson vandal again
Special:Contributions/Ichabbie396. Do we have an LTA page for it?--Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:17, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- It's Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Angela Criss. No LTA page that I'm aware of, and I'd consider it a WP:DENY case. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – May 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018).
Administrator changes
None
Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060
Guideline and policy news
- The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
- A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.
Technical news
- AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new
equals_to_anyfunction can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash. - When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
- The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
- There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
- AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.
Obituaries
- Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.
Puzzling entries at CSD
I'm starting to see entries at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion that I don't understand why they're on there. There doesn't seem to be anything in the entry histories that indicate they were tagged for CSD
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2018 May 2
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/Today
- User:Wcquidditch/wikideletiontoday
There might be others. But these jumped out at me for not having been nominated for deletion, but appearing on the list. — Maile (talk) 20:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- They were transcluding one or more pages that were themselves nominated for deletion. It gets cleared once the transcluded page is handled one way or another, and the host page is recached. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:13, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- I see. Thank you for the clarification. — Maile (talk) 20:14, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- Just for completion's sake, it was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hugo (software) (2nd nomination), deleted under G7. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:36, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- By the way, Maile66, this is a function of the Job queue. If a page is added to a category indirectly because the category is part of a transclusion, the category does not get removed immediately when the template is removed: the page has to be edited first. Not an issue if someone edits the page to remove the transclusion, but if it's removed indirectly (say it's added by a template on a transcluded page, and the template's removed from the transcluded page), or when the transcluded page is deleted, you have to wait for the job queue to catch up. Nyttend (talk) 03:13, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Just for completion's sake, it was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hugo (software) (2nd nomination), deleted under G7. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:36, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- I see. Thank you for the clarification. — Maile (talk) 20:14, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
Template vandalism nested within Disambiguation
Probably thousands of pages are affected, every transclusion of {{Disambiguation}} is impacted by vandalism of nested {{Disambiguation page short description}}, which itself is a new thing. I've reverted the vandalism. I don't have my admin tools anymore but IMO at least a VOA-block of Delpmart and some protection of {{Disambiguation page short description}} seems warranted, and then y'all can discuss the need for this subtemplate and/or why this was left vulnerable (I thought template-protection was supposed to cascade down to transcluded subtemplates but maybe I'm wrong). Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm heading to bed so I've no time to continue edit-warring with some shitty vandal, hopefully some admin will attend to this regardless of the idiot deleting this thread. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I've protected {{Disambiguation page short description}}, and blocked the vandal. Someone more knowledgeable should take a look at the necessity of this newly-created template. utcursch | talk 05:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Relevant thread (which I haven't read yet): Template talk:Disambiguation#Related templates Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks utcursch, Salvidrim!. The template is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions campaign to populate mainspace pages with Wikipedia:short descriptions to avoid WMF using inappropriate or poor quality descriptions from Wikidata in search results. Precursory saga described at project page through links. Basically forced on us by WMF. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:40, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Relevant thread (which I haven't read yet): Template talk:Disambiguation#Related templates Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 05:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I've protected {{Disambiguation page short description}}, and blocked the vandal. Someone more knowledgeable should take a look at the necessity of this newly-created template. utcursch | talk 05:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
The image File:Asshole hat.jpg that was used in the vandalism above is still showing transclusions onto well over 500 pages. I've put in a request to have the image blacklisted but many pages may still need to be purged. I've loaded several but it's not showing on any so far. Home Lander (talk) 16:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Ban requested
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'd like to be banned to infinity. I am Grawp, the dead man walking. --Prüm (talk) 11:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- You've certainly been making some very odd comments elsewhere (eg: the arbcom case request and User_talk:Sharkslayer87) and I did wonder whether you were trolling. Just walk away. - Sitush (talk) 11:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Per Sitish, no one is making you log into this website, read it, or contribute to its mission. If you don't want to be here anymore, simply don't be. --Jayron32 12:38, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well, either this is Grawp, or someone pretending to be. Either of those rates an indefinite block. Done. Bishonen | talk 15:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC).
Please help- who tried to break into my account?
 | Please note that receiving one of these notifications does not mean your account was actually compromised or hacked. You may want to review WP:STRONGPASS and WP:SECURITY to ensure you are doing all you can to protect your account, but you do not necessarily need to reset your password. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC) |
Can you please find out who tried to break into my account? It worries me. I want to see if it was someone in my area or other. Alex of Canada (talk) 17:35, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Alex of Canada: Someone tried three times several hours ago to get into mine. It happens; as long as you have a secure password you should be fine. Home Lander (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- This just happened to me, too. It's not unusual, I get one or two a month, and about once a year, someone makes a whole lot of login attempts. Make sure you have a unique password for Wikipedia. Use a password manager if you don't already. Use multi-factor authentication. Consider changing your password if you are worried (or especially if it wasn't unique). I already have these set up on my account so I just ignore the warnings when they come in. You asked to find out who tried to break into your account. That information is not generally available, I'm afraid. --Yamla (talk) 17:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- My password is secure, but I'm worried it might be a hacker who will find out how to get into anyone eventually. Alex of Canada (talk) 17:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Best case is to use a unique password here (so if they figure out who you are, can't get into anything else, such as your email) and set up extra measures. A WP:Committed identity would be a good start. Home Lander (talk) 17:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- That might be a legitimate worry, but it existed before some person or bot tried to brute-force some Wikipedia accounts. Hacking without guessing the password is a whole different proposition. Related stuff at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#two-factor authorization and User talk:Winkelvi#Compromised account attempt. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:54, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- My password is secure, but I'm worried it might be a hacker who will find out how to get into anyone eventually. Alex of Canada (talk) 17:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Related discussion at VPT (permalink) with some more detailed information. Seems there's a rash of this today. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:04, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yep. Two threads at the teahouse on this same subject. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Just tried and failed with mine. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Recommend that all admins set up 2-factor auth. Andrevan@ 18:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Everyone reviewing WP:STRONGPASS and WP:SECURITY couldn’t hurt either. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me, too (in case anyone is keeping track of admin v non-admin attempts). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me too. I already asked a question at WP:Village pump (technical)#two-factor authorization. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:02, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I had this today as well, but I have break-in attempts on a regular basis, with a record of several hundreds per day (not today though).--Ymblanter (talk) 19:15, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- They must like you. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Got an attempt today as well. SQLQuery me! 19:20, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me as well. Question I should probably know the answer to: can a functionary look up the IP addresses behind these bogus login attempts and implement a technical restriction? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Technically, yes. Whether it is allowed by the policy I do not know.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well, if there's a way to determine that an IP is being used for abusive login attempts, autoblocking that IP for 24 hours is probably a good security practice. Wouldn't stop them hacking an account probably but then at least they wouldn't be able to edit. If our policies don't support that then we should change our policies. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Technically, yes. Whether it is allowed by the policy I do not know.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me too. Natureium (talk) 19:39, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
First Thursday of every May. Coincidence, perhaps. --NeilN talk to me 19:18, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm probably the only editor right now that hasn't had attempted account hacks ...... Not sure if that's a good sign or a bad one lol. –Davey2010Talk 19:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)Inevitable happened. –Davey2010Talk 22:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)- Me too, Davey! --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I readily admit I am not the most experienced CU, but I am unaware of how we could look up who attempted and failed at logging in. I’ll ask for further input though in case it’s just something I don’t know about. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Good point. So all we need to do is all simultaneously set our passwords to "password* for five minutes and simply track 'em down!!? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:56, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yeah, it would take far more access (database?) to determine where this is coming from. If that information is even stored. If this isn't a bot driven thing (which it probably is), then a limiter on logins per IP would be nice as well. Arkon (talk) 20:03, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I’ve gotten some response form the other functionaries about this, here’s what we’ve got:
- Currently, CU cannot do this
- There is a phabricator thread about notifying the user of the ip of whoever tried to log into their account. It is approved and being worked on but not functional yet
- There is some indication that this is a specifc banned user already familiar to some of the functionaries so it is possible some action will be forthcoming but I’m not sure wat it will be.
Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Beeblebrox: There is a way to check it, but it's on Toolforge. The people that have access to it aren't functionaries but more devs I think. There'sNoTime knows more about it. Dat GuyTalkContribs 09:00, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Apparently there have been tens of thousands of failed login attempts over the past few hours. Check this out for some idea of the scope. The back office is aware of this and we cn expect a statement from them in the near future. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:33, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for clarifying. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Interesting. I got one of those failed login attempt messages too. I changed my password to something stronger and thought nothing else of it until now. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I just got a notification that somebody get into mine too.--Crasstun (talk | contributions) 20:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me too, and User:SPECIFICO. We were also both targeted at Wikipedia yesterday by the same editor, but no idea if there's any connection. That editor also knows my anon Facebook and Twitter accounts. Strange. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:52, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- User:BullRangifer You posted it here on WP when you were talking with some IP who then posted it on my talk page because he saw me arguing with you. Someone tried to access my WP account too. Factchecker_atyourservice 02:05, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for clearing that up. Let's make sure it doesn't spread. I'll seek a revdel. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- User:BullRangifer You posted it here on WP when you were talking with some IP who then posted it on my talk page because he saw me arguing with you. Someone tried to access my WP account too. Factchecker_atyourservice 02:05, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Happened to me this morning. In a way i'm glad it is not an isolated incident.--SamHolt6 (talk) 21:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- It happened to me too at 14:12 UTC today too. L293D (☎ • ✎) 21:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- You may add me to the list of failed hack targets. I have 2FA enabled so I am not overly concerned about my account security. But I am very concerned about what looks like an orchestrated attack on the project. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:03, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, someone (the same person?) tried to break into my account just a few hours ago. Adam9007 (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
+1 - I felt like the odd one out so kinda glad someone attempted it 
, Jokes aside why is there a huge influx of password resettings ? ... It doesn't seem all that productive .... –Davey2010Talk 22:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Happened to me 7 hours ago. Silly culprit; if he was targetting editors with any care, Davey2010 and other big-name users here should have been higher on his priority list than me. No one's ever bothered to try to hack my account before. Sideways713 (talk) 22:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I got that notification as well, 2 hours ago. theinstantmatrix (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Same here, a few hours ago. GoodDay (talk) 23:26, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Could this be related to today being World Password Day? FallingGravity 23:39, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Read up above - I heavily doubt it, since the perpetrator is apparently known to the WMF. As an aside, they tried me as well, but my password's only been strengthened since I was an admin, so they didn't get far. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 23:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me too, although I'm pretty sure who tried doing it... Am i famous now?💵Money💵emoji💵Talk 23:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- For the first time ever, I received notification that someone had tried to log into my account today. I am not an admin. This needs to be investigated.Smeat75 (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Read the thread above. I'm fairly certain the WMF is already on it. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 00:11, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Russians? [FBDB] Atsme📞📧 02:11, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I was waiting for someone to say the Russians :) GoodDay (talk) 02:17, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Me too. (And yes, I have two-factor authentication.) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:41, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
According to this graph of the Wikimedia User Login Attempts, this account hacking attempt has resumed today and is still continuing, as of this writing. There are a lot more "Throttled logins" today than in yesterday's attacks, which now appears to comprise the vast majority of the latest attack wave. (And yes, this LTA/hacker took a swipe at my account yesterday and a couple more times today.) This is getting ridiculous. LightandDark2000 (talk) 23:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
I suspect this attack may have something to do with the recent Twitter password leak [13]. Is it possible that someone has got a copy of this "internal log" and has now got a botnet trying to find Wikipedia accounts that match the Twitter ones? (Yes, I got an attempt against my account too, and no, the other QuietOwl on Twitter is not me, I don't use this username anywhere else, or any social networking site, for that matter.) QuietOwl (talk) 02:48, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- Okay, this time, the next attack wave is longer than the first one, and it's still ongoing right now. This can't be a good sign. LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:34, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
I've added a picture of the graph depicting the mass-cyberattack attempts. I estimate that at least 400,000 accounts may have experienced some attempt to break in. It should be noted that this is the largest account-hacking attempt that Wikimedia has experienced at least in the last 5 years (possibly the largest such attack ever). I also noticed today that the attacks seemed to have stopped. I wonder what happened to the hacker. What's keeping him? ;) LightandDark2000 (talk) 06:22, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
PSA: Admins should enable two-factor authentication
As an additional security measure, admins and editors with similar permissions can (and should) use Special:Two-factor authentication to prevent account hijacking. Sandstein 21:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)I would gladly use 2FA (and I was also the subject of a hack attempt) if the code was emailed, in addition to (or instead of) being sent to a mobile number. We have a cell phone but it's usually off, but my email is generally available. I may not be the only admin in a similar situation. Miniapolis 22:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I really really do not agree, Sandstein. We've had several cases of admins, including technically savvy admins, who have been in despair because they lost their whatsits — I don't remember what they're called — some magic formulas that you need for your account when you have two-factor authentication — and apparently the magic gets lost every time you get a new phone. Ouch. Eventually, after much stress, these people have been rescued through being able to e-mail people who can vouch for them because they recognize the way they talk. (Hello, Jehochman, hope your account is OK these days.) People who habitually edit from internet cafes or library computers, or who have a mischievous twelve-year-old or a hard-drinking sister-in-law around the house, may possibly need the system, but everybody else had much better instead get a really strong password and not use that password anywhere else. In my opinion. Bishonen | talk 22:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC). (PS: And yes, I've had the attempts today and so has Bishzilla. Considering the numbers of people who have, I find it hard to believe WWII editors have been singled out.) Bishonen | talk 23:02, 3 May 2018 (UTC).
- You're both right, to some degree. Bish, the magic you're thinking of is a scratch code (I'm not sure if that's what our implementation calls it) and it is just a plain text code that you're supposed to keep somewhere safe, so that if you do lose your authentication device (i.e. get a new phone) then you can use that code to reset your 2FA and re-implement it on your new device. If you lose your password AND your device AND those codes AND nobody can vouch for you, then yeah, you're fucked, but that's a lot of concurrent failures. If I remember right, when you enable 2FA here the codes you need are all displayed on the screen (you scan a QR code and the scratch codes are plain text), not sent by text or emailed or whatever. Maybe that depends on what authenticator you use. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:07, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- <<ec>>What Bishonen said. Every time I read the instructions my blood runs cold. With the two factor authentication I have w/ my bank and emails, there is a backup and authentication involves sending a request to my phone. The process here sounds dangerously complicated, and the grater risk is that I lose my whatsit.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 23:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Is it true that once you do this there's no going back? I don't want to do something irrevocable. And I have a strong password.--Dlohcierekim (talk)
- No, not at all, you can turn it off any time as long as you have access to your account. I get that we're still calling it "beta", but I turned it on the day my RfA closed, and I've never had a problem. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Blood-chillingly complicated is right, Dlohcierekim. And it sounds to me like the whole log-in operation, otherwise so smooth, gets much more fiddly with 2FA, every time you do it. That's quite a problem for people with a lot of socks![14] Bishonen | talk 23:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC).
- Not by much, no, there's one extra step. The squirrel still gets in just fine. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I use Authy (authy dot com) for my 2FA here. It allows one to use multiple devices as well as back up the seed. There is a slight security hit since more than one device can be used but for me it is worth it to remove the single point of failure. Jbh Talk 23:45, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I have to say I was intimidated by it at first as I am not super technically minded but once it is set up it is remarkably easy to use, and I made sure I have those scratch codes in a safe place in case I ever need them. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:19, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I actually am a techie person, but I do agree that the instructions and setup appear intimidating. But once it is set up, 2FA really is easy to use. Enter your password as usual, then it asks for a number. Open the app on your phone/tablet/whatever, and it displays a number. Type in that number. And as long as you do remember to record the original scratch codes somewhere, the whole thing can always be reset in the event of a disaster. As for login attempts, I've had one rather than the multiple attempts that many are getting - presumably it stopped at the first 2FA challenge. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I use 2FA, but as someone who seems to drop or otherwise break their phone at least once per year, I agree with others that the way 2FA works is a royal pain in the neck. If I'm unable to access my old device, I have to (a) find where I wrote down the scratch codes (b) use one to login & disable 2FA (c) re-enable 2FA with the new device and (d - and this is the worst bit) write down a whole new set of scratch codes. If you've lost your scratch codes, you are basically screwed and are looking at registering a new account and convincing anyone who will listen that the two are connected. Committed identity helps with this - but of course you have to be able to find the file you used to create it. Things that would help with this situation are (a) only generate a new set of scratch codes when a user requests it or when the last one is used, not every time 2FA is enabled, so that at least you don't have to write down a whole new set every time you use one and (b) have some back up way of resetting authentication on the account. The latter would involve the WMF holding some way of getting in touch with you or proving your identity. I guess for people who have identified to the WMF this is already possible; otherwise, of all the websites I use, enwiki is the one where it is hardest to recover your account - and it seems it is often impossible. I thought there was a phab ticket to improve this situation, but I can't find it just now (fun diversion: try searching '2FA' on phab and you'll see how many people have difficulties with it - it seems that at least sometimes it is possible to convince the devs to twiddle bits). GoldenRing (talk) 11:20, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Two factor authentication, as implemented on Wikipedia, is farkakt. Jehochman Talk 18:12, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- gesundheit--Dlohcierekim (talk)
- Regarding losing scratch codes - does no one else use a cloud storage or cloud backup service? --NeilN talk to me 20:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- negative. I consider nothing in the cloud or otherwise online secure.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 20:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Dlohcierekim: Sigh. [citation needed]... --NeilN talk to me 20:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Psssst, Neil...be careful not to use too many *sighs* [FBDB] Atsme📞📧 20:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hidden Tempo? Is that like a Ford Tempo but with a quieter engine? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- Psssst, Neil...be careful not to use too many *sighs* [FBDB] Atsme📞📧 20:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
PSA: Admins might be better off with a long passphrase rather than two-factor authentication
Just so you know, not everyone agrees that 2FA is a magic bullet.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/09/economist-explains-9
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/nist_is_no_long.html
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/the-limits-of-sms-for-2-factor-authentication/
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/10/15946642/two-factor-authentication-online-security-mess
I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Just as a reminder, users with advanced permissions are required by WP:STRONGPASS to have a strong password anyway. 2FA is just another option to strengthen account security. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Beeblebrox: Personally, I don't understand why the (not particularly strict, IMHO) requirements for privileged users don't apply to all users. Nearly every insignificant forum on the web has stricter password requirements than Wikipedia, for heaven's sake! Gestumblindi (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Gestumblindi: The reason is simple: consensus was against it when the policy was developed. The reasoning was that it might discourage new users. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Beeblebrox: I remember, but consensus might change. Maybe it's now the time for proposing slightly stricter requirements more similar to those customary anywhere else on the web? I don't get the "it might discourage new users" reasoning - after all, people should be well accustomed to having to use reasonably strong passwords by now. As it is, the password requirements for regular users are extremely and most unusually low, and the requirements for admins are still rather below standard. Gestumblindi (talk) 18:31, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Gestumblindi: The reason is simple: consensus was against it when the policy was developed. The reasoning was that it might discourage new users. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- Hopefully 20 bytes is enough.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 00:58, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- It should be noted that most of those articles are about 2FA using SMS codes, or using such SMS codes as backups for the type of 2FA we have. Neither of which we do for that exact reason. Which is also the reason you are so screwed on this site if you loose your scratch codes AND your phone. However I agree that having a 20 character password that you only use on en.wp is probably more important than having 2FA. But I use 2FA on ALL my accounts wherever I can, and because i use it for so many services, it has stopped being bothersome. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:11, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yup. Make sure it passes the dictionary attack though. rhin0cer0usstransgal4cticdifferential is easier to remember and just as good as 25 characters of random gibberish. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 13:13, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- The passphrase Rhinoceros transgalactic differential. (with the initial capitalization and the ending period) is stronger still. Even better would be "My rhinoceros has a transgalactic differential." -- harder for a computer to crack and easier for a human to remember; just remember that it is a valid sentence using standard English spelling and grammar. Replacing o with 0, a with 4, etc. just makes it harder to remember without adding much in the way of difficulty for a password guessing program. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- Source on that. The few times I've had to turn my previous laptop into a wireless router (long story), the password was something like "screwoffyoucommiespybastardsthisismygoddamnwifi" or similar full sentences.
- Now, it still needs to be multiple words, because single words are not a problem for dictionary attacks. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:55, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
User:Guy Macon: Re A password that meets the requirements set forth in STRONGPASS (8 characters) will be broken by an offline password-guessing program in under a minute.
- Does WikiMedia not have, or could they not develop, a system where three (or so) failed attempts to log in to an account, lock the account? For a comparable example, if someone tries to use an ATM card and puts in an incorrect code three times, on the third try the ATM will eat the card. Couldn't WikiMedia have some way of locking an account after three (or X number to be decided) failed attempts at entering the password? --MelanieN (talk) 01:31, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- So you first lock all the admin accounts, then you go vandalize at will. This would work well. Remember, everything can be gamed, and this plan is game-able in two seconds flat. The reason teh ATM example works is because someone already has your card. Courcelles (talk) 01:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Actually, I am pretty sure the number of attempts per minute is limited (and not to 10^10), but I do not remember where I have seen this and what the number actually is.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Account hacking of World War II editors?
Hello all, something is definitely afoot at the Circle K. I am seeing some reports about people who edit World War II articles having attempts made by someone to access their accounts. User:LargelyRecyclable alerted two other World War II editors of this problem [20] and just this afternoon the Wikipedia system alerted me that someone had tried to log into my account multiple times from a new location. On top of it all, there was a strange occurrence a few weeks ago, where someone impersonating an administrator called my job and asked I be "investigated" for my World War II related work on Wikipedia. User:Kierzek and I are both well known WWII editors and I wonder if others are having these experiences too. I changed my password this afternoon, I would encourage others to do the same if they are being affected by this. The most troublesome thing is that the group making mention of this are all World War II history editors, which is why I brought it up here. If for no other reason, then just to alert the powers-that-be that something is going on. -O.R.Comms 21:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I can confirm an attempt was made on mine. As mentioned on the linked discussion above, I suspect that Prüm was successfully compromised. I'm not sure when exactly it happened but some of the implications of the comments the account left at ArbCom are very worrisome. That someone called your work is also a very serious issue. This seems to be targeted and possibly related to the ArbCom case. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- This is probably unrelated, as it has been almost five years since I edited anything related to WW II, but I received notice of someone trying to log into my account from another computer today, and someone left a comment on my user talk page in the Arabic Wikipedia, which I have never touched. Donald Albury 21:56, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- See this thread. I don't think is World War II-related, it's someone trying to hack into a great many unrelated accounts. -- Euryalus (talk) 21:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) There's a thread about these hijacking attempts about two sections up. It's been going on all over, all day. It doesn't appear to be targeted at any one group or subgroup that anyone can tell so far. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:00, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)I have not had any issues, so far, but given the current atmosphere, so to speak, I am not surprised. Kierzek (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) It may be a site-wide attempt and not targeted, I've seen similar concerns above. The additional facets of O.R. having his worked called specifically about WWII editing and comments made with the Prum account at ArbCom may be unrelated but I'd still advise additional caution for any editors who've done work in that area. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Just notified of a failed attempt on my account. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
I also had a failed attempt, as did another member of WP:Indigenous. Other user is not an admin, both attempts failed. Checking with other admins who did not have attempts made. There may be a pattern with targeting wikiprojects and those who edit in controversial areas. Or it could be random. I lean slightly to the former, but no hard evidence yet. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 22:20, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
It's random. I barely edit and I just got a failed attempt. Valeince (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Me too., and I'm not involved in any of the projects mentioned above. It seems to be some kind of wide-ranging attack. Coretheapple (talk) 23:15, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yep, I had an attempt about 9hours ago. I've changed my password, which was decent, to a much stronger one. Blackmane (talk) 23:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Likewise. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I just got notified there was a failed attempt to log into my account. — Maile (talk) 23:25, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm all buy quiescent these days in terms of editing and I got an alert as well. Obviously someone working through a list, though whether it's admins or something else... Tabercil (talk) 23:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Again, everyone, there were over 70,000 attempted logins per hour for several hours. Basically, they tried to reset the password of everyone. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- This also came up at the help desk (where I mentioned that an attempt had been made on my account too), although that discussion has apparently been closed to try to centralize discussion here. The attacks are on far more than just World War II editors. I don't know where Beeblebrox's 70,000 figure is coming from, but I wouldn't doubt it. Master of Time (talk) 00:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- The number comes from the WMF. I have been told they are releasing some sort of statement about this soon. [21] Beeblebrox (talk) 00:22, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement from WMF
Just noting here that the Wikimedia Foundation has sent a statement out to the wikimedia-l mailing list: [22]. Mz7 (talk) 00:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Full text of statement
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Hello, Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease the success of attacks like these. The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of accounts which we believe have been compromised. While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2] actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your system software up to date. My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we
notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact
the Support and Safety team (susa John Bennett Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation |
General Advice from a Non-Admin
My advice, both to non-admins who can't use two-factor authentication, and to admins, who can use it, is simply to check your User Contributions regularly and make sure that they are all your own. If so, your account has not been compromised, and if your password is strong, it is not likely to be compromised. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:21, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- This really seems more like a really elaborate troll than a genuine attempt at compromising tens of thousands of accounts. Just look at how much discussion, verging on panic, it has generated. I’m sure whoever made the bot tht did this is very pleased with themselves right now. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Should this all be rev-delled under DENY? L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:04, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Having a Wikipedia:Committed identity isn't a bad idea if you might ever have to recover your account. Additionally - I believe editors whom are admins on any wikimedia wiki can enable 2FA. SQLQuery me! 01:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- No, the attempt is likely a serious attempt at gaining credentials. If a hacker logs into User:Example's account, and User:Example reuses their username somewhere else (example@hotmail.com) with the same password, they can be royally screwed. The usurpation of Wikipedia identify is most likely not what they are after and the leaset of your worries if that happens. E.g. if it's a dummy email, no really consequence comes of it. But if you use that email to conduct every day business, your banking, have sensitive information, etc... well the people involved would now have access to that, and use that new information to further acquire other information and credentials. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- SQL is correct, an editor who is an admin on any wiki can enable/disable 2FA on their account. I've been experiencing attempts to access my account for over a week now and I have enabled 2FA through being an admin at test wiki. -- Dane talk 05:31, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- No, the attempt is likely a serious attempt at gaining credentials. If a hacker logs into User:Example's account, and User:Example reuses their username somewhere else (example@hotmail.com) with the same password, they can be royally screwed. The usurpation of Wikipedia identify is most likely not what they are after and the leaset of your worries if that happens. E.g. if it's a dummy email, no really consequence comes of it. But if you use that email to conduct every day business, your banking, have sensitive information, etc... well the people involved would now have access to that, and use that new information to further acquire other information and credentials. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- A strong password is the solution. If you are mostly editing from one place (say home) just write on a piece of paper a random combination of characters, 25 characters long (make sure you are not able to memorize it - otherwise make it longer) which contains small and large case letters, numbers and special characters - and possibly even letters of other alphabets if you can reproduce them with your keyboard. This will be your Wikimedia password. Have it written on the paper in a secure place (no chance to lose) and never use it elsewhere, on any other websites.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:47, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- "Mr. Owl—how many flops does it take to get to the Tootsie-Roll™ center of a Tootsie Pop™?" Factchecker_atyourservice 14:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I strongly suspect that whoever is doing this is using a list of passwords leaked from other sites, rather than trying to brute force their way into each account. I doubt they're even trying variations on the password that's on that list. That's why most of us are only getting one failed login attempt and that's it. While it's good to have a strong password anyway, if what I think they're doing is what they're doing, changing the password is the kicker. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- It looks indeed like yesterday they did not really attempt to break down any accounts, just let know that they exist to the largest possible amount of active user. However, this is not an isolated incident. We had recently two admin accounts broken, apparently because they re-used the passwords from other sites which were in the yahoo leak, or some other massive leak. I mentioned above that I regularly get attempts to break in to my account, sometimes up to several hundreds per day. It is obviously not possible to break a strong password which is not used on any other sites, however, it should be possible to break a weak password or to steal the existing password from elsewhere. 25 characters may be an overkill, but gives pretty much the guarantee - assuming they do not break in physically to one's house and there is no fire.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Don't know if anyone mentioned yesterday's twitter breach, but if you used the same password there as here, you should change both quickly.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 15:24, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- My user name and password are unique to this site. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 15:27, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- It looks indeed like yesterday they did not really attempt to break down any accounts, just let know that they exist to the largest possible amount of active user. However, this is not an isolated incident. We had recently two admin accounts broken, apparently because they re-used the passwords from other sites which were in the yahoo leak, or some other massive leak. I mentioned above that I regularly get attempts to break in to my account, sometimes up to several hundreds per day. It is obviously not possible to break a strong password which is not used on any other sites, however, it should be possible to break a weak password or to steal the existing password from elsewhere. 25 characters may be an overkill, but gives pretty much the guarantee - assuming they do not break in physically to one's house and there is no fire.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Here's some handy advice. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 17:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Since everyone is giving advice I may as well chime in. The main reason people don't use strong passwords unique to each account is that it's practically impossible to remember all those passwords. But you can use a password manager to keep track of them and to at least partially automate the process of entering passwords. I use something called KeePass but there are lots of alternatives -- see our List of password managers. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:18, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
It happened again, two more attempts. If you can find out who, please ban him. Do I have any reason to be nervous, if my password is safe? Alex of Canada (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- In a word, no. Primefac (talk) 17:38, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- User:Alex of Canada - I agree with User:Primefac. If your password was and is strong and it hasn't been compromised, you are all right. Just check your User Contributions from time to time. I will comment that the hacker or bot may be hoping to get people to panic and to change their strong passwords to new weaker passwords, but that is only my guess. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- I will also comment that password regimes that require frequent changes of passwords, and that prohibit the use of a previously used password, are well-meaning but actually make things worse, because they increase the likelihood that the user will need to write down the password. This comment applies both to Wikipedia and to employer or government systems. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- MeToo, earlier today. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:03, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#PSA: Admins might be better off with a long passphrase rather than two-factor authentication. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- A wise Owl indeed.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Cassianto
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.
To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
- Appealing user
- Cassianto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – CassiantoTalk 20:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Sanction being appealed
- A further topic-ban from infoboxes for three months. I have been instructed not to add, edit or remove infoboxes, and you may not edit discussions about anything related to infoboxes, either as regards their use in specific articles or in the abstract, imposed at [23]. Further discussion can be found here.
- Administrator imposing the sanction
- Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Notification of that administrator
- here
Statement by Cassianto
The actually wording of the sanction imposed by the committee is not to "make more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article". The diffs in question are
- 14:53, 1 May 2018 Mary Shelley, a comment I was entitled to make;
- 16:11, 1 May 2018 Mary Shelley, not fitting the wording of the above sanction;
- 08:08, 2 May 2018 Mary Shelley, not fitting the wording of the above sanction;
- 19:02, 30 April 2018 Stanley Kubrick, which I'm entitled to make;
- 20:04, 30 April 2018 Stanley Kubrick, not fitting the wording of the above sanction.
I appeal this further sanction for two reasons:
- Nowhere was I "discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox"
- The wording of the original sanction was/is too ambiguous as to work efficiently. I feel that owing to the bad and misleading prose, I was set up to fail. Even the drafting arbitrator admits his wording, sometimes, can by sub-standard, and now, so does the other one. No DS alert was issued; no friendly reminder; and I was left at the surrendor of the unintelligible and ambiguous wording at the case finding. I have tried to discuss this with Sandstein, here, which was ignored, and only heard from him when I reverted his closure at AE. I was advised to discuss this with him, as per his advice on my talk page, but to no avail.
As far as I can see, so long as I am not is not discussing the inclusion or exclusion, which the diffs prove I was not, then there is no need for any further sanctions. Sandstein's knee-jerk behaviour to enforce unclear or confusing restrictions, instead of simply improving or clarifying the restrictions, is indicative of the kind of bully-boy attitude he adopts at AE.
Finally, I apologise if the formatting is up the wall or badly laid out, I've never done this before. I won't have a problem with anyone wanting to adjust my layout. CassiantoTalk 20:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Banedon: "Cassainto's statement in this appeal doesn't focus on the wording either"...yes it does. But as the title suggests, together with my statement, this case is more about the heavy handed approach and action by an equally heavy handed admin. There are other places to appeal arbitration decisions, including the illiterate wording by Worm That Turned and Krakatoa Katie, and here is not it. Please do try to keep up. CassiantoTalk 21:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Robert McClenon "Cassianto essentially thumbed his nose at the whole arbitration process by requesting a block" -- oh I do apologise. I'll tell my close family members that next time they think about dying, they'll have to put it off as otherwise I may look bad in front of Mr Robert McLennon. Unlike you, clearly, sir, I have a private life away from this bollocks and that comes first before any of this. You, I've noticed, do very little for this project other than to hang around drama boards and suck up to ArbCom. There really is more to life than this. CassiantoTalk 06:40, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Sandstein
A WP:AE, a request was made to enforce the "infobox probation" sanction imposed by the Arbitration Committee on Cassianto at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions#Cassianto and infoboxes (II). The argument made in the request was that Cassianto violated that probation by making more than one comment in an infobox-related discussion on two occasions. Another admin and I agreed that this conduct by Cassianto violated the sanction. Cassianto's statement in response to the request indicated that they would not attempt to comply with the sanction and would not be deterred by a block. I therefore instead decided to impose a three-month infobox topic ban as an easier-to-follow discretionary sanction.
The arguments made by Cassianto here are mistaken or beside the point. At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Civility in infobox discussions: Arbitrator views and discussion, arbitrators so far agree that my understanding of the sanction is correct and that Cassianto did violate the sanction. As Cassianto was a sanctioned party in the original ArbCom decision, no particular alert was required in order to impose discretionary sanctions on Cassianto, see WP:AC/DS#Awareness points one and two. Contrary to what Cassianto writes, at User talk:Sandstein#Get your gear in order Cassianto did not attempt to "discuss" the sanction with me, but merely expressed their opinion about my competence and what they consider my lack of good faith. I do not think such statements require a response.
I therefore recommend that this appeal is declined. Sandstein 21:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Martinevans123
User:Goodforaweekend looks so very well-informed and skilful for an editor with such a new account? Almost as if you were big baited there. I'm sure your addition of a thread here is "out of process" so maybe you might expect to get "additional sanctions" dumped on you. But your edits don't look like those of an editor who is just being wilfully disruptive. More one that seems to be frustrated they can't be left alone to help add content. User:Sandstein's very rapid sanction looks bit harsh to me. Also the wording of the original arbitration enforcement sanction looks like it might be ambiguous, perhaps at least "open to interpretation"? Is there some middle ground to be won here? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
But it now seems, as per User:Euryalus below, that the ARCA thread may be "closed as withdrawn"? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC)Struck as per Euryalus below. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Banedon
If Cassianto had violated the sanction "in good faith" because he understood the wording differently, I would support the topic ban being lifted. However based on his responses at ARCA I don't see how this violation was in good faith. He didn't say "I understood the sanction to mean something else, if this is what is meant I won't do it again". Instead he called the people enacting the sanctions incompetent, corrupt, malicious, and biased. Cassainto's statement in this appeal doesn't focus on the wording either, but rather Sandstein's conduct.
I interpret this as a clear indication that Cassianto rejects the Arbcom sanctions on a fundamental level and is likely to break them again if given the opportunity. Accordingly lifting the topic ban is a step backwards, and I agree with Sandstein that the appeal be declined. Banedon (talk) 21:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Coretheapple
What exactly is being appealed here? The AE case went against Cassianto, but here at ARCA he says he is appealing "this rubbish" to AN. What rubbish is that? The AE or the ARCA effort to clarify the Arbcom decision (which he did not commence)? Or both?
What's clear is that Cassianto has contempt for the whole process, and made that clear at the AE here, when he made his case as follows:
Knock yourself out. I've made it my policy NEVER to plead for forgiveness as this is just a website and I'm just a volunteer, so it bothers me not about being blocked, especially as I'm more tan keen to sit out self-requested blocks. FWIW, and having said that, I wasn't aware of the "no more than one comment" bullshit, but knew of my restriction NOT to touch idiotboxes, which I haven't. Unlike some people on here, I have a private life to attend to so I didn't concern myself with the intricacies of the outcome.
The probation restriction, which was reasonable and mild, was as clear as day, and I agree with Banedon that Cassianto rejects the Arbcom sanctions. If his contempt for this "rubbish" isn't "clear" I don't know what is. If his statement is to be believed he didn't even read the arbcom decision, as he says he wasn't aware of the one-comment "bullshit." Coretheapple (talk) 22:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement by power~enwiki
@Euryalus: - The ARCA thread was started by GoldenRing, not Cassianto, and probably shouldn't be considered an "appeal". power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:34, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Mr Ernie
Support rescinding the topic ban and clarifying the restriction. Why does this need to be so hard? This is a volunteer website, not the HR department of a law school. user:Euryalus please see WP:NOTBURO. Mr Ernie (talk) 00:28, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Comment by Robert McClenon
Cassianto essentially thumbed his nose at the whole arbitration process by requesting a block, so that if he doesn't understand what the original sanction was, he has no one to blame but himself. Now apparently he doesn't understand that the community has lost patience with him. As far as I am concerned, he is still getting off easy, because I proposed to the ArbCom that he be banned. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Cassianto
- Where an infraction, if it be an infraction, is of a trivial nature, excessive penalties thereon seems less than wise. Sandstein should reasonably have elicited further opinions, as far as I can tell. Prudence would suggest he suspend the penalty until discussion thereon supports or does not support the penalty proposed. For myself, I fear I find the penalty to be substantially in excess of that previously in force on the editor. Collect (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- The action seems reasonable, given the purpose of the restriction was to bar more then one comment in discussions that have proved problematic in the past, so problematic there was an Arbcom case. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC) Decline - Continued commenting, where personal attacks may accrue [24] are to be avoided. There are many other conversations on the project to participate in, appropriately. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if I'm involved or uninvolved (this diff, posted by Cassianto was a direct reply to me, but I haven't been called out to comment); I stumbled upon this topic by mere accident. I don't know the history of the TBAN, and I don't have time to look into it. While that reply by the OP may have sounded a bit harsh, I guess I deserved that for thinking that I could get people to agree on something that's been an issue for a while. I'm not being sarcastic, I realized later that I was wrong in starting the discussion. So, as far as I'm concerned - that diff is a no-issue. Also, I remembered why I have the article on my watchlist - Apollo 11 conspiracy theorists. Nothing to do with the infobox. =) byteflush Talk 01:23, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm inclined to deny the appeal here; Cassianto is clearly intentionally testing the limits of the ban; this sort of breaching experiment is to be discouraged. The purpose is to minimize bludgeoning at discussions about infoboxes, and one cannot skirt the limits of that by simply avoiding using the word "infobox" in a comment. It is clear that both the letter and the spirit was intended to restrict Cassianto to one comment in any discussion about an infobox, and these violations were not incidental, but were substantive violations of the restriction. --Jayron32 01:26, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Clarify the Arbcom ruling & reverse the sanctions, please. GoodDay (talk) 02:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline--What Jayron says.Quasi-IDHT coupled with a bunch of PAs don't help either.~ Winged BladesGodric 04:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline - There's no actual basis presented for this appeal. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline this appeal. Wikilawyering over whether a specific comment in a discussion about an infobox constitutes discussing the infobox or not? Seriously? Enough already. Guy (Help!) 10:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline - Edits like these [25] [26] [27] are indefensible, and I don't believe that the letter or spirit of the sanction includes an exemption for profane rants and accusations of sockpuppetry. –dlthewave ☎ 12:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Decline - There was no clear intent to draw a distinction between "discussing" and "a discussion". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:42, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Result of the appeal by Cassianto
- Mildly, you can't appeal an ARCA review to AN. See the "Important Notes" section of [28] and specifically:
"While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred
. The clause has an exception, but it has a six-month waiting period.
I suppose it's marginally arguable that the committee has started its review at ARCA but hasn't finished it, therefore the committee hasn't finally "reviewed the request" yet. If so, to avoid forumshopping we should close the ARCA thread as withdrawn. -- Euryalus (talk) 22:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)Striking this because as pointed out, the ARCA wasn't opened by Cassianto so they have no responsibility for its continuation or withdrawal. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:13, 4 May 2018 (UTC)- @Power~enwiki: you're entirely correct. Per the above, if Cassianto wants this resolved here let's close the ARCA and have the debate all in one place. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Mr Ernie: not sure it's about excessive bureaucracy, though that's certainly a common failing of Arbcom. More about keeping the discussion on one place and not having competing outcomes. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The Rambling Man needs your attention on a pressing matter. I'm not familiar with ITN so I'm sitting this one out. Drmies (talk) 21:25, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- The ITN one is done. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:30, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Drmies Point of information, it's not "The Rambling Man" which needs attention, it's the issues on the main page which is viewed by 20 million people per day that needs the attention. Let's not personalise things unnecessarily, especially when you know it is simply going to inflame the situation. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Dude. Seriously? OK. Drmies (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, if you knew anything about anything, you'd know that I've already been cast as persona non grata around here, even with relation to my error reporting. You should know better. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well color me stupid then, and you're welcome for the DYK edits. I figured, the last couple of months, that I'd play nice with you and do what I can to support you on that Main page. TonyBallioni, thank you for your assistance. I'm going to sit and cry in a little corner over my needlessly inflammatory word choice. Drmies (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Why should I thank you for fixing the fuck ups on the main page? It's not my job, it used to be my job to ensure that we didn't have eight to ten fuck ups per day, but now we do. You're welcome for me posting the reports. Now go away until you remember that 90% of Wikipedia hates TRM so to start your post with "TRM needs your attention" is clearly a fail, epic. Your help is certainly not required in future if you don't even get that. Goodbye. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:00, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well color me stupid then, and you're welcome for the DYK edits. I figured, the last couple of months, that I'd play nice with you and do what I can to support you on that Main page. TonyBallioni, thank you for your assistance. I'm going to sit and cry in a little corner over my needlessly inflammatory word choice. Drmies (talk) 21:57, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, if you knew anything about anything, you'd know that I've already been cast as persona non grata around here, even with relation to my error reporting. You should know better. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Dude. Seriously? OK. Drmies (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
- Drmies Point of information, it's not "The Rambling Man" which needs attention, it's the issues on the main page which is viewed by 20 million people per day that needs the attention. Let's not personalise things unnecessarily, especially when you know it is simply going to inflame the situation. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:34, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
Repeated ban evasion by Kiko4564
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I have noticed that Kiko4564 has created more than 2 sockpuppet accounts since his indefinite ban in 2013, can an admin please do the honours in informing him that he is now banned by the community (under the three strike rule) for that reason and inform him of this discussion? I have not let him know as his TP is semi-protected. Jason Rodda (talk) 00:39, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
— Jason Rodda (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 00:45, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
Clarification of a block evasion situation (without intent of deception) by Terry Foote
A discussion about potential block evasion at User_talk:Terry Foote#Authorship_of_photo? was recently brought to my attention. It seems that Terry Foote had two accounts, his original account as User:Terry Foote and then a second account that was indefinitely blocked as User:Googie_man. Terry Foote has continued editing on the former account, contributing productively for a rather long period of time (ten years is my understanding). I let Jehochman know about the situation since he was the original blocking admin, and then pinged Alex Shih to weigh in on the situation. Despite the gravity of block evasion, it seems clear to me that since deception was not the intent in this case, we can just leave the Googie_man account blocked and let Terry Foote continue to contribute productively. Still, I wanted to bring the discussion to the community's attention nonetheless. ceranthor 14:21, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- While I agree block evasion is one of the worst offences here, and deserves the present summary block on sight system, I also believe this one stands out. A decade is a long time, Wikipedia has completely transformed within these years.Since there's no clear intent of disruption or any infraction all this while, I suggest this to be resolved with no action, and the user be left to continue editing. –Ammarpad (talk) 18:46, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- If the user isn’t causing a problem, let’s leave them be. Jehochman Talk 18:58, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- I concur with the thoughts above. "Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users." (taken from the lede of WP:BLOCK). --joe deckertalk 00:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Leave be = net positive. While I don't know how we know this, he has been editing constructively, and without repeating the problems from the other account, for a very long tme. Long past the time when he could have received the standard offer. But what for? He does not need that tainted account, and he is constructive with this one. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Request to an admin who has the power to delete pages that have over 3000 edits
- Please do this (ref discussion at User talk:Anthony Appleyard#Eminem albums discography):
- Delete Eminem discography and its talk page :: their edits are all redirects. But (see GeoffreyT2000 01:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC) below) do not delete Talk:Eminem discography/Archive 1 and Talk:Eminem discography/Archive 2.
- Move Talk:Eminem albums discography to Talk:Eminem discography, leave no redirect.
- This is the long delete: delete Eminem albums discography. (Warning: it is sitting over 2 old deleted redirect edits (01:10, 1 January 2015 by User:Chasewc91 and 00:57, 17 August 2014 by User:SNUGGUMS .)
- This is the long undelete: Undelete all edits of Eminem albums discography except (a) 16:36, 4 May 2018 by User:SNUGGUMS and all later edits, and (b) the 2 above-mentioned already-deleted redirect edits.
- Move Eminem albums discography to Eminem discography, do not leave a redirect.
- Redirect Eminem discography to Eminem#Discography.
- Undelete the remaining deleted edits at Eminem albums discography, but not the 2 old redirect edits.
- Thanks. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:47, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- Only people why can do this are the stewards. Courcelles (talk) 21:49, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
- If any stewards see this thread, then please be sure to help with the above ASAP. Snuggums (talk / edits) 00:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- I have moved both archives (Archive 1 and Archive 2) back. But the rest of the steps above still require a steward. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 01:11, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
You'll probably get a faster response if you post directly to steward requests page on meta. -FASTILY 05:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Anthony Appleyard: Not a steward here, but I highly doubt you'll be able to get this done because the history at "Eminem albums discography" contains over 9,000edits. The servers will probably have great trouble loading "Special:Undelete" because of the extremely high number of edits. When DerHexer and I tried to do a similar operation at the Madrid article (which then had over 7,600 edits), we had quite extreme difficulty with it, and in my experience the servers have only gotten more finicky about operations like that since then. They were never designed/optimised for this kind of work. Graham87 08:32, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
TBAN for Sbelknap
- Sbelknap (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- edit count
This person is a real world doctor of the same name; he confirmed his identity last spring, after I raised concerns that there was either impersonation or a few possible forms of COI editing going on. What I wrote then was
If you are not Belknap, there is an issue with regard to your Username, with respect to WP:IMPERSONATE which is policy.
If you are Belknap, your editing raises a host of issues, namely:
- WP:SELFCITE
- Wikipedia:Conflicts of interest (medicine) with regard to advocating for a medical theory that you embrace in the real world, here in WP
- possible financial WP:COI, if you are serving as an expert witness in any of the 5α-reductase inhibitor litigation that is going on.
The pattern of editing that concerned me was self-citing and a focus on the sexual side effects of finasteride and dutasteride, which are 5α-Reductase inhibitors that are used for hair loss and enlarged prostate. The content issues here are not easy. There is not great data on this, and on top of that a lot of men taking these drugs are older and have other problems (like being older) that cause sexual problems.
These drug articles, like our articles related to circumcision, have been plagued by advocates - men and their penises. There is an activist group called the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation that has been advocating for there to be a declared "syndrome" related to permanent sexual side effects of these drugs, supports litigation against the makers of these drugs, etc. Belknap is featured prominently on the foundation website.
We previously had an editor Doors22 plaguing these articles, who finally acknowledged a COI at COIN here and agreed to stop editing directly, and was finally indeffed with the rationale long-term SPA, advocacy, apparent COI, focuses unduly on one editor, was warned
.
That COI thread was closed 9 May 2016, and the indef was 5 March 2017. Sbelknap picked up Doors22's slack, unfortunately - you can see from the bar charts in their edit count that they did very little here before Doors was indeffed.
- self citing
From very early on, like this from 2008 (which he returned to defend/tweak several times and noted that on the talk page eg here in 2008, here and here in 2009, here in 2012, referring to himself in the third person, with corresponding edits to that bit of content and his self-cite eg here in 2012 etc.
Here, added promotional stuff about his institution to the article about Chicago in 2009 and made a similar edit to the article about the neighborhood here in 2013.
(to his credit, without selfciting he created the highly technical (but i think helpful in spirit) Optimal discriminant analysis in 2009. this is a kind of statistical analysis he uses.)
- sexual side effects
So none of that is horrible. Not great, but not horrible. As I noted above, things started to get ugly last year, which is what prompted my inquiry. If you look at their edit count, over half their edits have been in the last two years, and almost all of those have been on these two drugs ( my tally is about 180 edits to these topics or discussion about them). And the focus has been entirely on these specific side effects.
I want to call folks' attention to their first substantial edit to the Finasteride page, which is this. Do you see what they did there?
In the topmost bit (the main adverse effects section) they a) removed the well-sourced content that side effects are generally minimal; b) took away the well-sourced content that most sexual side effects vanish with time; c) did nothing about the insane thing, that we mention sexual side effects before the risk of high-grade prostate cancer, which will kill you. (we had agreed to that, trying to get Doors to calm down, but it remains a bad compromise that anybody looking at the page with fresh, objective eyes should wonder at, as User:Jfdwolff noted here).
In the bottom part, they ramped up the urgency and cited a primary source.
This is very characteristic of the rest of the approximately 180 edits they have made on this narrow topic. Right down to their very long talk page post today. (which they didn't bother signing. They almost never sign their posts, or thread them. This behavior too is characteristic of people who are not here, as we all know) and this series of diffs just an hour or so ago, where they prominently cited their own work, elevating that nearly to the top of the adverse effects section and further burying the warning about high grade prostate cancer. Ditto this edit from earlier this week, where they added bizarre content from a primary source from 1999, the intent of which was to make the drug seem less useful for hair loss (I think) and again ramped up the urgency around sexual side effects. You can look at any of their edits to finasteride (here) or Dutasteride (here) and that is what you will see.
See also this recent (and rejected) request for mediation they made, entitled: Finasteride Article; Adverse Effects of Finasteride; there has been a concerted effort over many years to downplay the adverse effects of finasteride, where the title says it all, and is basically the Post Finasteride Syndrome Foundation company line.
This is tragic, as this person is obviously very knowledgable, has access to many great sources, and could help make all of our articles much better. Instead they have chosen to edit about precisely one thing, with no regard for appropriate WEIGHT among other side effects or the article overall. I asked them to provide a draft of the section last year here, which they just ignored.
They have never responded on any of the inquiries about their relationship with the Post Finasteride Foundation or if they are serving as an expert witness. As you can see from the history of their Talk page they just remove things.
We should TBAN them from editing about sexual health, and should consider an indef. They are not here to build an encyclopedia, but instead cite themselves and pound on this one issue, and drain the time of the volunteer community. Which is a damn shame. Jytdog (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- I have proactively disclosed all potential COI. I have been transparent about my sources of research funding, which includes the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation. These funding sources are cited in my published research. My only connection to the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation is having been the recipient of funding from them. I have never and will never serve as an expert witness in any finasteride or dutasteride litigation.
- I have reviewed the self-citation policy, and I I am entirely compliant with this policy, as I do so transparently and appropriately. I have openly used sbelknap as my wikipedia ID from the beginning, and do not use any other wikipedia ID. I have no connection whatsoever to Doors22. I also extensively cite other high-quality sources.
- I feel threatened by jytdog, who exhibits extreme ownership behavior of the finasteride article, has harrassed me with wikilawyering, and has gotten me briefly banned from editing. jytdog summarily deletes my edits with comments that often suggest they have not bothered to read the cites I provide. jytdog misrepresents wikipedia policies. For example, they assert that primary sources can not be used in medical articles and that self-citation is impermissible. They also claim that a secondary source is unreliable on an issue where an author of the secondary source is also the author of a primary source on that same issue. I note that many authors of secondary literature are also authors of some primary literature cited in their secondary articles. When I consult the wikipedia policies that jytdog cites, I find that they the actual policies are much more nuanced (and reasonable) than cited by jytdog.
- Also, in the last few days when I had a chance to make some edits to the finasteride article, somebody tried to log into my wikipedia account and I received a threatening phone call. I don't know who did these things. jytdog is not the only obnoxious editor who works on the finasteride article. As jytdog is a pseudonym, there is no way to confirm that they are not being paid by a P.R. firm or legal firm to edit the finasteride article or that they are not using sockpuppets and meatpuppets to amplify their edits. Regarding COI, methinks they doth protest too much.
- In my view as an subject matter expert and researcher in this area, the finateride article does not provide a NPOV. According to policy, "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." The current finasteride article overstates the efficacy and understates the toxicity of finasteride. I am working to correct that. jytdog just issued a bizarre post on the wikipedia finasteride talk page that included this: "Men and their penises is way down on my list of urgent needs to address in WP. This page currently discusses these issues and does a decent job of it - not perfect, but nobody reading this now would fail to understand there is some issue here. I am utterly uninterested in wasting any further time on this specific issue which is trivial in the big picture of medicine and of medicine in Wikipedia. This is approaching the disruption that the anti-circumcision activists cause as they push and PUSH and PUSH. Men and their god damn penises."
- Such misanthropy is grossly inappropriate. If jytdog is so angry at men, perhaps they could find a less triggering wikipedia article to edit than finasteride, which is an antiandrogen (male hormone blocker).Sbelknap (talk) 01:52, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- You would do well to read WP:Casting aspersions, which you are very close to violating. In addition, you, because you are a "subject matter expert" with a specific point of view about the article's subject, are in the worst possible position to judge the neutrality of the article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm a little uncomfortable with that formulation. In a purely hypothetical example, suppose a Wikipedia editor was a climate researcher and their edits followed the (IPCC-ish) consensus in that field. Would they be subject to a topic ban from our climate articles as "a subject matter expert with a specific point of view about the article's subject"? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- As I noted at COIN, Shock Brigade Harvester Boris, medical experts coming here advocating their pet theories is a problem, such that we specifically mention it in WP:MEDCOI. There is no mainstream medical editor who has supported Sbelknap's (and Door's before him) efforts to "pump up" the sexual adverse effects. This is medical advocacy, not the medical mainstream.
- I had added the following to the Society and Culture section of the finasteride page last week about the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation:
A 2015 post in Health News Review noted that the foundation put out a press release timed to the publication of a review it had funded; the post said that the release "seems rather hyperbolic in admonishing physicians to be vigilantly looking out for 'symptoms in adverse drug reaction reports, suicide post-mortems, suicide-prevention services, and other patient records' and to alert the general population.... These appeals strike me as uncomfortably reminiscent of late-night TV and billboard pitches for malpractice attorneys." The release claimed that the NIH had "recognized" "post-finasteride syndrome"; in response to an inquiry an NIH spokeswoman said: "The statement by the Post Finasteride Foundation you referenced therefore is not accurate and was not determined by us."[1]
- I'm a little uncomfortable with that formulation. In a purely hypothetical example, suppose a Wikipedia editor was a climate researcher and their edits followed the (IPCC-ish) consensus in that field. Would they be subject to a topic ban from our climate articles as "a subject matter expert with a specific point of view about the article's subject"? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:06, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- You would do well to read WP:Casting aspersions, which you are very close to violating. In addition, you, because you are a "subject matter expert" with a specific point of view about the article's subject, are in the worst possible position to judge the neutrality of the article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
References
- ^ Hoffman, Richard (August 12, 2015). "Advocacy group spin may skew discussion on finasteride side effects". Health News Review.
- That is what advocacy groups do. Sound the alarm, and make aggressive claims. Sbelknap has aligned himself with them, allowing them to quote him and post his face on their mainpage. (I strongly recommend health news review btw - they are great at calling out hype in the media about medicine.)
- The mainstream view on this may change as more evidence comes in. Sbelknap wants to make WP part of his efforts to try to make that change out there in the medical arena. He wants to assemble primary sources here to build the argument. None of that, is what we do here, and not what editing privileges are for. Jytdog (talk) 05:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Please support or oppose below
- Support. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Support Long term disruption. Ongoing COI issues. Removing high quality sources they disagree with here as it appears to not fit their POV. Referring to oneself in the third person is not cool.[29] Funded by the advocacy group Post Finasteride Syndrome Foundation.[30] I am leaning towards an indef. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:53, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Support - I don't need the slightest knowledge about medicine to see what's been going on. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Note. Adding a subheader for ease of editing. Jytdog has mentioned both a topic ban from sexual health, and an indefinite block:
"We should TBAN them from editing about sexual health, and should consider an indef. They are not here to build an encyclopedia.."
Could everybody please say which alternative they support? Pinging @Ian.thomson, Doc James, and Kudpung:. For my part, I support an indef as first alternative, and secondly the proposed topic ban. Bishonen | talk 08:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC).
Site ban proposal: LovelyGirl7
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
User:LovelyGirl7 needs to be site banned from Wikipedia for the following reasons:
- Adding non-notable and biased current events to Portal:Current events, such as celebrities and other sports events that doesn’t belong there, such as Robert De Niro and Will Ferrell. ([31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36]
- Plagarism of other articles from websites, which were reverted by User:SlimVirgin and other editors ([37]). See Talk:K2-155d/GA1 for why she has violated Wikipedia’s policies
- Her in-the-news candidates for non nominations, such as WASP-104b and WASP-107b.
- She also created the non-notable Ed Krassenstein and added a lot of information fabricating him
- She has became a disruptive Wikipedia editor and needs to be blocked and banned permanently until she can show she knows how to edit constructively, not plagiarize, and add notable current events. I also propose all nominations she makes are closed and that she’s removed from each WikiProject she is part of. Given all this, I propose a full site ban on her account. 166qq (talk) 03:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Note: The OP has been editing here for one month, and has 29 edits, 17 of them to mainspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Re site ban: An indef block that gets violated precedes most site bans. A site ban without a prior indef block usually is a result of gross and reprehensible misconduct on the part of the user in question (such as openly advocating Nazism or pedophilia), combined with the user in question insisting that they're right and that we're all doing Satan's work. A site ban is not going to happen. Your suggestion for one reads (at best) as completely misguided.
- Re block: I'm not seeing how this is justified either. The diffs show LovelyGirl7 making some mistakes and not being 110% aware of how things work here (which you're guilty of as well). You've failed to demonstrate something truly problematic, like edit warring. As for the WP:COPYVIO problems, yes, that's serious, but has LovelyGirl7 continued to engage in this behavior after being given adequate warning and explanation? As for the "in-the-news" things, I'm having trouble figuring how you think that's a failed proposal counts as something blockable.
- Now, LovelyGirl7's version of Ed Krassenstein failed WP:NPOV in a several ridiculous ways. If those problems continue, maybe she needs to be topic banned from editing articles relating to American politics. But your request to have her treated the way we treat Nazi pedophiles, in the light of some of your other edits, suggest that this thread is politically motivated, leaving you just as at-risk for such a topic ban.
- TL;DR: NO U
- Ian.thomson (talk) 03:48, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Ian.thomson: She has disrupted this Wikipedia over and over repeatedly, not make mistakes. Adding celebrities to current events page is not acceptable and she has done it twice. She has plagiarized several articles over and over again, and has shown no intentions of stopping. Her edits on Nova Carinae 2018 were deleted because of this. That bigot of a editor needs to be banned from the project nuff said. --166qq (talk) 04:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
She has disrupted this Wikipedia over and over repeatedly, not make mistakes.
And you know that these deliberate and knowing actions (instead of mistakes) how, exactly?Adding celebrities to current events page is not acceptable and she has done it twice.
OMG, you're right, we'll report her to the police right now so she can be dragged off to the camps! For fuck's sake, that is not site ban worthy behavior or even block worthy behavior, that is a user making a mistake.She has plagiarized several articles over and over again
I'm seeing two episodes of plagiarism, one given a warning, another given a final warning. Do you have evidence of her plagiarizing after the final warning?That bigot of a editor needs to be banned from the project nuff said.
Look, I'm a socialist. Politically, we're probably closer than I am to LovelyGirl7. As I said earlier, I thought that her article on Ed Krassenstein was biased "in several ridiculous ways." But, speaking as an admin, you're the one who is being disruptive here. You've presented nothing from her that exempts you from WP:NPA in calling her a bigot. You've presented nothing that shows that she is such a fundamental threat to the site's order that she needs to be banned. You've failed to show her continued ability to edit has reached enough of a net negative to the site to justify blocking her. Now, are you here to work on the site (even with people of differing political views), or are you here to troll or persecute someone for being an obvious Republican? Because I'm telling you with over a decade of experience that a site ban is not going to happen, no matter how much her political views obviously anger you into blowing everything you can out of proportion. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Ian.thomson: She has disrupted this Wikipedia over and over repeatedly, not make mistakes. Adding celebrities to current events page is not acceptable and she has done it twice. She has plagiarized several articles over and over again, and has shown no intentions of stopping. Her edits on Nova Carinae 2018 were deleted because of this. That bigot of a editor needs to be banned from the project nuff said. --166qq (talk) 04:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'd strongly suggest an immediate boomerang be applied here. Calling another editor a bigot under an edit summary that accuses her of a criminal act, all without any evidence, is more than uncivil enough to earn a block. John from Idegon (talk) 04:17, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not going to call for a boomerang but i'd highly suggest 166qq drop it as this is without merit. Her behavior does not even reach a level where a topic ban is appropriate yet, let alone a site ban. -- Dane talk 04:28, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think the OP needs a TBAN from US politics. There's the Bush edit above and this on Cheney, where she says Cheney is a war criminal. (personally, I despise the man, but this is not a soapbox for my political views) She can hardly criticize others on WP:NPOV grounds when she politicizes articles this way.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- So yes, it would be better if OP drops this and apologizes and just agrees to leave editors she disagrees with alone. Maybe we should close this and ask OP to be more tolerant of others.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- LovelyGirl7 has two GA's more than I have.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:35, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- @Dlohcierekim: <<redact bizarre rant w/ PA and insults>> —LovelyGirl7 must be banned. I’m a male 05:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
<<ec>>:::OK. That's your POV editing. Again, she has been overall constructive and has not resumed the problem behavior. No idea while you are pushing this so hard. I'd hoped we could close this without further unpleasantness, but OK. --Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:54, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- This comment just got 166qq indeffed. Closing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:52, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Block Triggerhippie4
He keeps reverting my edits, using the argument that I'm a "sockpuppet" despite the fact that it hasn't been proven. [38] [39] [40] He's also vandalizing my user page. [41] [42] [43] Backarn (talk) 08:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
- Backarn - Your edits and reverts to the article keep adding back an image that's currently tagged for speedy deletion for being a copyright violation - please stop adding it back. Triggerhippie4, stop calling Backarn a sock puppet and let the SPI investigation process occur. You're only making things worse by calling other people this and it's uncivil behavior. Thank you both - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 09:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
@Oswah: He's the one who keeps adding the speedy deletion template, and he's obviously doing it on false grounds because of a personal vendetta against me. Backarn (talk) 09:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)