Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Welcome – post issues of interest to administrators.

For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead use Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over three days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

Tasks

The following backlogs require the attention of one or more administrators.
Transwiki to WikiBooks, WikiQuote, and WikiSource.
Requested moves, Vandalism in progress and VfD cleanup.

Template:NoncommercialProvided

This template needs to be updated to reflect the current ban on noncommercial images. [1] Could an admin please update this please? Perhaps a warning like the one on Template:Noncommercial? Thank you. 青い(Aoi) 10:04, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Bots

Other administrators should keep an eye out on requesting bots at Wikipedia talk:Bots. Thank you. --AllyUnion (talk) 07:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

General

User:Newbies

Do administrators have the power of "deleting" a user account? User:Newbies is not an active account (as stated in the talk page), and its creator, User:Fvw, seems to have left Wikipedia (last edit in April). The account of User:Newbies is preventing anyone from viewing both Special:Contributions/Newbies and Special:Contributions/newbies, which used to show contributions of newly registered users. This is quite odd, because the special contributions of newly registered people was working fine approximately a month ago, and now whenever I click on it, it takes me to the contributions of User:Newbies. Thank you for taking a look at this issue! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 9 July 2005 16:16 (UTC)

Administrators cannot delete user accounts- they can only block them. Although a developer should be able to, Wikipedia:Account deletion says that "It is not possible for your edits to be removed entirely." It is also against policy to do so. I'd say it's much easier to just fix the bug than delete the account. Is there anything to stop somebody from creating the account again? -Frazzydee|✍ 9 July 2005 16:40 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for the info! I really don't mind the account being there, but the Special contributions for newbies used to be a great tool for leaving welcome messages to new users. Is there any way I can still access that? Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 9 July 2005 16:56 (UTC)

P.S. What if the user page of User:Newbies and the anon IP page that he edited was deleted? Those are his only edits (2 to his user page, one to an anon IP page). Would admins be able to remove the account, or would the link to Special:Contributions/newbies return to the "right" one?

I deleted both, and no dice. It does not seem the "cascade through" to do a real listing of newbies' contributions. We may have to report this bug to developers. Fuzheado | Talk 21:59, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 01:39, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Trouble with the English "Contact Us"

The English "Contact Us" seems to have a bug of sorts. For some reason, apparently random snippets seem to pop up in the Improving articles portion of the page. I've tried to remove the "static" and rewrite the section a little, but it has reverted to buggy version.

Could someone have a look at this?

It looks to me like you've fixed it just fine - thanks for doing that! If you were seeing the old bad version showing up even after your edits, perhaps it was an issue with your browser cache or something? But it certainly looks good now. —Stormie 03:41, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Is wikipedia going to be as "fair and objective" as Zionist-controlled Western Media?

This discussion has been purged into the page history (see diff). As it clearly says at the top of this page, this page is not for content disputes. If someone wants to recover the dispute from the page history and move it to the appropriate discussion page, it is allowable to provde a link to the discussion here. Rossami (talk) 16:14, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

There is a proposal (by SimonP) to move templates such as "AID" and "Expansion" to talk pages instead of articles. This is discussed at Template talk:Expansion. SimonP is currently unilaterally moving the templates on random articles. ~~~~ 12:24, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

See also: Wikipedia:Template locations. --cesarb 15:46, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Status of warnings

Recently (very recently, I think) the status of the 3RR warning seems to have changed. It used to be that one would expect a warning to be given if the offender was a new and inexperienced editor, or if other circumstances suggested that a warning was necessary. Now it seems to be being treated as a condition for applying a block whatever the situation — however experienced the editor. If this is something that people are happy with, then that's fine, but shouldn't it be made clear that the policy has changed in this regard?

• Pro: it would probably cut down on requests to this page.
• Con: it would vastly increase the number of 3RR warnings on user pages. After all, one normally assumes that an experienced editor will stop after three reverts (I've recently been savaged by an editor for daring to place a 3RR warning on his Talk page).

There are doubtless many other pros and cons; perhaps other editors would care to add them above? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we should need to warn editors.

1. it is only a short time.
2. we might offend users who have reverted three times, and have no intention of doing so four times.

I got blocked half a year ago, without warning, and sure learnt about the rule (which I did not know about). I have no hard feelings for not being warned.--Wiglaf 19:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I have the oppostie view. I do think warnings, at least for a first offense, are a good idea. It is simply a matter of basic courtesy to give people some warning before they are blocked. A warning is often as effective as a block in stopping a revert war, especially for experienced users. - SimonP 19:04, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

I think that for the most part a warning is a good idea. Sometimes in the heat of an edit war people forget themselves and act stupidly. A firm warning "hey you just broke the 3RR, don't do it again" is better IMO than a block. Of course some people are habitual edit warriors. In that case block 'em straight away. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 19:11, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I think that demanding a warning for a first offence has been pretty standard practice for a while, and there are other circumstances, as Theresa Knott says, in which an admin would draw back from applying a block when no warning was given. My question, though, concerns the blanket demand for a warning, whatever the circumstances, however experienced the User, however many times they've offended before. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:14, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I fully agree that persistent edit warriors, especially those who have ignored warnings in the past, should be blocked as quickly as possible. - SimonP 19:25, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Well in that case no. We don't need a warning everytime. Admins should just use their best judgement about issuing a warning first. If there is any doubt, discussing with other admins first is the best way to come to a good decision. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 19:27, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Quite—if we insist on a warning every time the 3RR is violated, then we've essentially converted it into the Four Revert Rule: you get a fourth revert for free (or possibly more) until you're warned. If an editor has been engaging in regular revert warring–particularly if it involves gaming the system in other ways–a block is quite appropriate.

On the other hand, if it's a new user or other individual unfamiliar with our policies and behaviour standards, often a warning is sufficient to make them 'fly straight'. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:30, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

indeed. imho, new users should be made aware of the 3RR after their third revert (i.e. before they break the 3RR). Failing that, they should still get a warning before they are blocked, but that only goes for people who may be unaware of the rule. Repeat offenders need not be warned. dab (ᛏ) 20:47, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

In a recent situation, I noticed a new user (who didn't know of the rule) had hit the 3RR, and gave him three more reverts: every time he did one revert, I slapped the next template of the {{3RR}} series on his talk page, and if he hit the last one, I would block him. He stopped after {{3RR2}}, and started using the article talk page instead. As a result, the article in question was improved. (It was Ashida Kim (talk · contribs) on Ashida Kim (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views).) --cesarb 00:18, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Requests for rollback

Hiya, I'd be grateful if admins could take a look at Wikipedia:Requests for rollback and offer some feedback. The proposal is basically a toned-down version of RfA, granting just the rollback feature to people who request it and receive 5 support votes. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Viewing an article's deletion history

When an article has been deleted, the admin can look at the full history showing all edits, deletions and restores by following the "undelete" button. When an article has been deleted and re-created, I can still click on the "view or restore X deleted edits" link and see the same thing. When an article has been deleted and restored, however, the pagehistory only shows the edits. The deletions and restores (and accompanying edit summaries) are not visible. Is there a way to see the same deletion log when the article has been deleted and restored? Rossami (talk) 17:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Special:Log/delete. --cesarb 17:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Question about genocidal death threats

A user using the IP 24.203.49.123 keeps adding sections calling for genocide in the "Arab" article [2]. He has done this twice so far. I'm wondering if this guy can be blocked because the stuff he's saying is far beyond NPOV and is basically a genocidal death threat.Heraclius 21:39, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

• So far, the anon has made exactly two edits, both to the same section of that article and both immediately reverted. The two edits were made 4 days apart. You and Func both left comments on the Talk page - one for each time. The IP address traces back to a Quebec-based ISP. (I can't tell yet whether this IP is assigned statically or dynamically.) Blocking of anonymous IPs is usually time-limited and intended only to break a cycle of rapid vandalism. It doesn't look like that would be effective in this case. The block would expire before the vandal returns. I don't think there is nearly a strong enough pattern to justify a perma-block yet. I think you've done the right thing by keeping the article on your watchlist and warning the user on the anon talk page. Rossami (talk) 22:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Do image uploads show up on user contributions lists?

In answer to my own question it would appear not. See image:Zscout370_ribbar.png] and JacksonBrown's contribution list. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 14:35, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Edits to the image description page show on Special:Contributions; edits to the image itself (uploads and reverts) show on the upload log. --cesarb 16:28, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

More surprisingly, if someone uploads another image on top of yours, it won't show up in your watch list unless they also modify the image description page. I've also noticed that now you can fill out a reasonably complete description in the Summary box of the upload page, you are quite likely to avoid making an edit that would put the image description page on your watchlist (at least on Commons, I haven't uploaded to En for a while). There is a good chance that many new images aren't being watched by anyone. - Solipsist 17:19, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

This is bad, A vandal could probably do quite a bit of damage by only changing images. We need to be alert and check the logs as well as the user contributions of anyone we catch in the act. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Archive time

I'm not sure who usually does this or what the criteria are for what gets put on the archive and what gets thrown out, but both this page and AN/I could use some snipping of outdated threads. Radiant_>|< 21:47, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

I would ask TBSDY. I have a hunch he knows how to do it. --cesarb 23:46, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I've done it a couple of time I just cut and paste the lot.Geni 01:41, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I used to do all the archiving, but I recently hit the wall and found myself unable to force myself to do it any more. It was using up so much time I didn't have time to work on articles, and I really wanted to be able to do that. I've just posted a request on the Talk: page for someone else to take over. Noel (talk) 02:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Need help dealing with copyvio removal request

I have been trying to handle a request for immidate removal posted by a certain Tex Rexin. I have contacted him and have removed another section of the shoe size article per his request. He has stated that he is "considering legal action" and that is is angry over this. I replied that Wikipedia does not welcome posting of copyrighted material. I suggested that he contact Jimbo Wales. He also wants to know who posted the material.

I fear I have gotten a tad out of my depth. Any assistance is welcome. Gwk 19:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I can see nothing but the posting on Wikipedia:Request for immediate removal of copyright violation and the reply, and the removal itself, and it looks fine. The only edits by the anon were to that page and the article itself. Was the discussion via email? --cesarb 19:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes it was. I can send it to you, if you like. Gwk 19:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I think then it would be better take the issue to the mailing lists or even to the board. I think it has gone beyone normal administrator responsabilities. --cesarb 19:46, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

edit conflict - adding the comment anyway
Other than the assertion placed in the article and the complaint left on Wikipedia:Request for immediate removal of copyright violation, both by an anonymous editor, what evidence do you have that this is, in fact, a copyright violation? Looking at the version added to the article on 6 May 2005 and the external site named by the anon, I see quite a few differences in content, format, layout, etc. Many of those changes are quite minor but some seem significant. This was clearly not a simple cut-and-paste addition of copyrighted material into Wikipedia.

The information itself is a compilation of material in the public domain. I find the anon's assertion that "The chart and other materials is the result of extensive and difficult research" to be of low credibility. I can look in any number of publicly available places for shoe sizes and how they match up to alternative measures. A google search for 'shoe size conversion' returned many hits, almost all relevant and very few derivative of his website. From our copyright article, "Compilations of facts or data may also be copyrighted, but such a copyright is thin; it only applies to the particular selection and arrangement of the facts, not to the particular facts themselves."

I'm not a copyright lawyer but it doesn't look like this guy has a very strong claim. I'd recommend reversing the edit and tell him to contact Wikipedia's designated agent. If Jimbo or his team find that a real copyvio was committed, they can pull it and also clean up the article history. Rossami (talk) 20:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Jayjg - Tshilo12

This discussion has been purged into the page history (see diff). As it clearly says at the top of this page, this page is not for content disputes. If someone wants to recover the dispute from the page history and move it to the appropriate discussion page, it is allowable to provde a link to the discussion here. Rossami (talk) 04:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

As an aside, If you click on the link to this section in the edit history then it gives a dodgy URL. Anyone else noticed this? - Ta bu shi da yu 04:22, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

This whole crapfest has been reproduced at Talk:HKT, where it is almost equally inappropriate, and where it was immediately used as a platform for trollishly attempting to start another poopchute "conversation". Tomer ^TALK 06:18, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me? I did what Rossami suggested. Please refine your Wikipedia:Wikiquette. TheUnforgiven 06:46, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

( this section is refered at bugzilla:02831 – 21:05, 15 July 2005 (UTC) )

Geography category page

Category:Geography has been locked for over two months due to petty vandalism back then. However, I think it's time it is unlocked because no other main category pages are locked (they don't need to be) and us geography people need to do some work on the page and update it with the new services for geographers and writers. We have been planning to revamp this entry page somewhat and make it more interesting on the discussion page but not admin has come by to unlock it. We hope somebody here can help us! --komencanto 02:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Done. It was protected since May 11, so I think the vandalism has ceased. Bratsche^{talk 5 pillars} 02:34, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

User pages that should be locked permanently

The GNAA have found a new way of causing disruption in Wikipedia. Any pages that look like this must be editted to remove the HTML that is causing display problems and permanently locked. Please do not forget to add the {{vprotected}} tag to the page, add a note to the talk page and list the page on WP:PROT. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:21, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying there is nothing that can be done about this kind of vandalism? That makes no sense to me...couldn't they then vandalize every user page, and indeed every article, and we'd be helpless? Surely there must be a way it can be removed. Everyking 06:52, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It is very difficult to remove. Rollback cannot be done because the text is positioned over the rollback button. The text will just be put straight back again, and I'll have to spend more time reverting senseless vandalism. Not to mention that it violates WP:POINT. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:26, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Uh, is it just me or does this sound incredibly dangerous? Vandalism that you can't get rid of? What's stopping these guys from trashing the entire encyclopedia? Everyking 08:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit of an exaggeration - you have to modify the URL you get to to view the history, then you can do a manual revert, or you can view the history and get the user contributions for the user/ip who added the text, then do rollback that way. Talrias (t | e | c) 10:07, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Or you could modify the URL to edit directly by amending &action=edit on the end of the URL. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 13:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Uh, just hit alt-E. --SPUI (talk) 10:12, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

So why do the affected pages have to be protected indefinitely? Everyking 10:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Maybe tbsdy didn't realise that it was possible to do it this way. Talrias (t | e | c) 10:18, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

This is correct, I did not know this. However, it is not the reason I believe the page should be locked indefinitely. These are clearly the pages of trolls, if we do not block them indefinitely they at least should not be able to add that HTML code to their user page. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:32, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

<scouse accent>calm down calm down! </scouse accent> (apologies to non british, who wont get that) What harm does it do? It's not as if they vandalised articles. I've modified the css so that it doesn't break the page. I haven't unprotected it , but I recommend that we do. Otherwise getting user pages protected will become a new troll game. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 12:59, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

If consensus is to unlock, I will not oppose. However, if they keep on doing it... then I'm not sure if I have the time to revert back these edits... it's all a bit of a pain really. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Uh-oh! It sounds like somebody has been assigning duties to themselves! That's a step on the road to Wikistress, my friends. Ta bu, if you don't have the time, then just don't do it. Somebody else will. Problem solved. Wiki is simple. JRM · Talk 19:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Or you can use the Opera web browser, which makes it very, very, very, very easy to turn off the offending CSS style: you just click the button that switches from "author mode" to "user mode", turning things back into regular, unformatted text. --Carnildo 20:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I have a better solution to the problem. As I understand it, mediawiki blocks all but a (small) whitelisted set of html tags. Why not just have a dev remove the offending tag(s) from the whitelist? →Raul654 19:48, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Because this particular vandalism uses cascading style sheets to effect the style changes. There's no way to check for "appropriate" use of stylesheets, barring some very complex analysis. Conceivably some contorted scheme could be implemented to sanction only "proper" style (e.g. style only allowed on protected templates, or something silly like that) but I doubt the devs want to go to the trouble just for some vandalism.
There may be some merit to seeing whether the UI templates can't be made more robust, though. Ideally no user-supplied style should be allowed to override anything outside the page boundaries. Maybe someone into CSS wizardry can try their hand. JRM · Talk 19:54, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Just to let you know, there is some CSS wizardry going on - you can't use the url attribute to use images, for example. Using it means the style="" attribute is completely ignored. I think these annoying templates rely on absolute positioning; that could be disabled. Talrias (t | e | c) 20:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I looked at the diff url listed at the top of this discussion with w3m without any trouble. The changes mostly consitsed of adding text in a font container with inline style sheets containing font-size:1000px position: absolute; It seems to me that it should be easy to prohibit font size changes beyond, say, 30pt, and prohibit absolute positioning completely. These kinds of things IMHO should never be allowed in any wiki page. Absolute positioning should only be in an actual css file, not inline. --ssd 15:04, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Coordinated abuse of Wikipedia

Hello all. Can some admins please look into this? I claim that a number of Wikipedia users (some admins, some not) work in concert toward forcing their POV into certain articles. This cooperation includes banning of users who stands up to their abuse. I am not saying this just because I am one of their (probably many) victims, I say this because based on examining their history I see a pattern. I will not bother you with too many links, I believe whoever bothers to look into this can simply start with the following and investigate it further as necessary: User:Jayjg, User:HKT. And the history logs of these articles for example: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Who has been banned? You? And by whom? Everyking 06:43, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

• The author of the above, User:194.57.138.99, has no edits other than here. On the block log, I see no recent improper blocks by Jayjg. I'm not sure what the anon above is getting at. Radiant_>|< 07:46, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Mansour

and ...... Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Jayjg

Large claims require large evidence to back them up. You've made claims, but choose to ignore the part about providing the evidence. After reviewing the above two links, it looks like Hadal was a little slow in blocking Jayjg, but did so anyway. It also looks like Jayjg did not stoop to the level of personal attacks that Mansour did, so there wasn't quite the need. So if you would like to provide evidence, that will be acted upon. If you don't want to, don't bother complaining. Also notice that the place for gathering and presenting the evidence is the link you were given on the 3RR page: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Use_of_administrator_privileges - Taxman ^Talk 19:19, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

GNAA - again

OK, I'd like to know whether I should remove the comments I've sprinkled through the article. I haven't done it to be a megalomaniac (an increasingly common accusation of my good self it seems these days), but only to warn GNAA/etc members not to modify the article to make it more likely it will be listed on VfD. I think we should keep the comments, but will defer to other admins if there is a consensus to remove them. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:00, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The Ayyavazhi empire of Wikipedia...

Almost single-handedly Raj2004 (talk · contribs) (sometimes working without logging in) has created an amazing number of articles concerning this minor offshoot of Hinduism. His Wikiskills (and English) aren't too hot, so much of what he does needs considerable cleaning up (page moves, disambiguations, merges & redirects, copy-editing, etc.). He seems to be speeding up, if anything, and though a couple of other editors have started pitching in, the project could do with more (especially admins, for some aspects). Among other tasks: he's created a poorly-named category (Category:Ayyavazhi Related Topics; I've asked about this at the category pages, but received no response yet); he creates duplicate articles under slight variants of names; he adds his Ayyavazhi-related text to the top of articles sharing their names (I've just corrected Nathan, for example; see also Sivan), including disambiguation pages (I've just corrected Mayon). I don't want to discourage him from contributing, I just need help cleaning up after him (and if he got a word or two of advice from a variety of editors, that might help too). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:09, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

oh dear... now if we could convince him to keep working on a few articles, trying to get them to FA level, rather than stub-spamming all over the namespace. My experience is that with every ten minutes he spends on WP, about half an hour of cleanup work and reference checking is required. But that's how WP evolves, I suppose. dab (ᛏ) 08:24, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm entirely fed up with this.

I need help on the talk page of List of warez groups. There are a whole bunch of opinionated idiots running around there , and vandalizing my talk page. The actual page is protected. We need a lot of people to come and help out. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:07, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Personally I don't see the encyclopediac value of that article, and I see it as an essentially POV listing. There's no sources, for one thing. Perhaps you could remove any warez group which has not been mentioned in a news article as a source? Then you would kill two metaphorical birds with one stone. Talrias (t | e | c) 01:10, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

The way I see it we have two options...:

1. Delete the article
2. Start over from scratch with only notable groups (what you said)

either way, I'm just about to snap. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:12, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I listed it on VFD. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 01:17, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I saw that, thanks. I voted delete. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I voted delete as well. I got your back, man. :) --Woohookitty 02:24, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I voted a conditional keep, and noted something that Ilyanep might find interesting... - Ta bu shi da yu 03:02, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I hope they like prison food. --Deathphoenix 12:09, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

;). A news article does not necessarily tell us where a certain warez group is, but it is an interesting comment. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:47, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

FlaBot

User:Flacus would like his bot account reactivated. I don't know if he has enough understanding of English to run an interwiki bot. The last time he ran it, it caused problems by changing interwiki links that it should have not been touching at all. Furthermore, it caused problems by removing interwiki links. I have clearly pointed out to him that he must have community support from well-established users posted at Wikipedia talk:Bots before his bot account can be reactivated. (See 1.) But again, he does not seem to understand English well enough to comprehend that. Furthermore, he or someone else attempted to falsify that his bot account was wrongly blocked by creating another user account of User:FIaBot (with an i [as in Igloo]) and running the same program under that user account. He soliciated the help of Administrator Mindspillage who believed his story about a vandal impersonating his bot account and that the bot account was accidently blocked. See User_talk:Mindspillage#Re:FlaBot as well as AN archives. Personally, I no longer wish to deal with this user who either:

1. Is not listening to what I'm trying to say
2. Misunderstanding what I am saying due to a language barrier
3. Just really wants his bot account on the English Wikipedia no matter what

There is a proposal that accepted some small approval by users that no person, with minor exceptions (proven trusted users such as Andre Engels or Angela), should run a bot account between the English Wikipedia and some other language Wikipedia without having a good understanding of English and the other language. There was approval, but not any opposition against it. One thing is that if an interwiki language bot is run, it is presumed that the user is the one responsible for making certain the bot is running correctly. Something that Flacus has not proven in the past, and something I'm not entirely wanting to trust now due to the tactic he seemed to have pulled off with User:FIaBot leaving me with a vote of no confidence in this user. However, I have expressed that someone else may put their trust in this user and let this user run his bot. Should anyone wish to vouch for this user, please do so at Wikipedia talk:Bots, and/or my user talk page. Thank you for your time.

--AllyUnion (talk) 06:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

WP:RFPP reworking

In order to try and speed up and clean up the Requests for page protection page I've added an "old requests" section to it. I've detialed this on the talk page but a summary of what is now required is below:

• When actioning or rejecting a request, comment that the article is protected/unprotect or why you don't think it should be.
• Move the request to the old section at the bottom of the page so that only new requests and requests needing more information should be in the current section.
• If a request is in the old section and has had no new comments in the past three days then any editor can remove it from the page. Any administrator can remove a request earlier than that at their discretion.

If this doesn't work we can try a different method or revert back to what we had.

Separate from that I've removed a large number of requests that had been actioned or had (apparently) lain dormant for nearly a month in some cases. Thryduulf 15:01, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Signpost article on the GNAA vfd

If anyone is interested in assisting with a copyedit, it is in draft form on User:Ta bu shi da yu/GNAA. I figure that admins would be interested because several of us were involved on this, and after 6 votes we need to start getting involved. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:25, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

• It strikes me as ironic that after all the VFDs, GNAA now has three additional pages in Wikipedia... :) Radiant_>|< 08:23, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • LOL! - Ta bu shi da yu 08:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Maybe we should put the VFDs up for VFD then? ~~~~ 21:09, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Ha! I say we move this to BJAODN :-) Ta bu shi da yu 23:41, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
        • Definitely. Radiant_>|< 09:50, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Someone else needs to take over archiving/maintainence here

As I mentioned above I was about to do, I have called it a day on doing the maintainence/archiving on this and the subboards (/I and /3RR). It's been a pleasure doing it, but I just got tired of keeping up with it, and I really wanted to be able devote more of my energy to working on articles (there are a ton of areas I want to seriously improve); doing the archiving really cut into the amount of work I could put into content. I'm really looking forward to working on articles! (I've installed big bookcases near my computers so the needed reference works will be close at hand! :-)

Anyway, y'all should discuss here, on the Talk: page, how the archiving going to get done now. Noel (talk) 01:18, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

10 pages everyone should have on their watchlist?

Following the request at WP:RFPP to protect Wikipedia beacuse it is a high profile target for vandals (I haven't protected and given a lengthy explanation why not), I had an idea to create a list of very high profile pages or pages that get a lot of vandalism, but which we don't really want protected as default. The aim would be to encourage as many people as possible to put the pages on their watchlist so vandalism is spotted early. The articles that immediately come to my mind are:

• Wikipedia
• Hello

It doesn't really matter if we get more than 10 pages, but I do think the list should be kept pretty tight. Do others think this is a good idea? What other pages would you put on this list? Thryduulf 00:41, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

A list like that could be usefull. Though I don't think Hello belongs there, it's not a high profile page, and doesn't get that much vandalism either from what I can see. A few high profile pages that do get vandalised a lot are: George W. Bush, Wikipedia:Community Portal, Adolf Hitler. And, of course, the article being Todays Featured Article will always be vandalised a lot that day. Shanes 01:18, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd add Penis and Vagina to the list. Now that I'm thinking, there's a Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages list. Joyous (talk) 01:25, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

For some reason that perplexes me, Antarctic krill has been subjected to a great deal of vandalism lately. Kelly Martin 03:59, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

It was the featured article of the day yesterday. Evil Monkey∴Hello 04:14, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Disruption

[3]. It appears that our ineffectuality in dealing with disruptive users has cost us another good editor. Radiant_>|< 13:28, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

I bet you could sort it all out, if only we'd let you. Everyking 13:45, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

• What the flip is that supposed to mean? In case you didn't read up on what's happening, I'm arguing for a better RFC or RFM process (in place of the five systems we have now). Radiant_>|< 14:24, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

3RR page

Someone needs to go through the WP:AN/3 page and clear out all the old reports. I would do it but I'm off to bed now (2¼ hours later than I planned) as I can't keep my eyes open any longer. Thryduulf 01:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Suspended ban

As the Netoholic (talk · contribs)'s attempted mentorship with Grunt, Kim and Raul has now ended, the suspended ban on all pages in the wikipedia and template namespaces is now in force. This ban will run for twelve months from 4 May 2005. Netoholic is also now restricted to one revert per day per page. These restrictions can be enforced by any admin with blocks at their discretion. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic 2 -- sannse (talk) 13:20, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous users blanking their talk pages

There was a question at the Village Pump about whether or not anonymous users could blank their talk pages or erase criticism and vandalism warnings.

I've proposed a short addition to Wikipedia:Talk page specifying that non-vandalism additions to anonymous IP talk pages should remain for at least a minimum period of time (say, seven days). This would help to keep the channels of communication open, and also help admins with keeping track of warnings issued to possible vandals. The proposal is at Wikipedia:Talk page/Anonymous talk pages proposal. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:42, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

How about just "protecting" their user page? Then they can't blank it. And only admins would be commenting anyway, if they're "that bad". Uncle Ed 21:08, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I often see instances where non-admins leave "please don't vandalize" messages on talk pages. Joyous (talk) 21:18, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

This was one of the problems when they decided to let blocked anon users to edit their talk page. I think that it would be simple to just revert blankings. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:15, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

It's very helpful if non-admins leave "test" warnings, so let's try to keep those talk pages open. Maybe just use short protections to bring the point home to vandals who remove the warnings. Bishonen | talk 21:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Blanking their talk pages serves no purpose. If it's a vandal and if I see the link is blue I routinely check the history to see if warnings have been given. The fact that the user blanked those warnings confirms that they have actually red them. So I block 'em. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

GNAA article - yet again

I refuse to edit this article any further, and not because of the GNAA. See the talk page, and I think it will be made manifestly clear why I am not editing it. I would suggest that admins keep an eye on this, because there has been a slow revert war brewing. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and you all might want to check out this. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I will watchlist the page. That's one of those vfd votes that I wish had been for delete. Articles like that cause nothing but trouble. --Woohookitty 08:09, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Protection of Star Wars articles

I think the two Star Wars pages, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back can be unprotected now as the dispute has been resolved, see the corresponding talk pagesfor evidence. Sasquatch′↔Talk↔Contributions 07:01, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Sanity appears to have prevailed, well done Sasquatch for pointing them in the right direction. I've unprotected the articles. Thryduulf 07:35, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Just glad to help =). Sasquatch′↔Talk↔Contributions 20:17, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Page moves and capitalization

I've noticed that page moves to correct capitalization problems in the name do not work. For ex, I need to move Theory of Decreasing responsibility to Theory of Decreasing Responsibility, but the page move says they are the same and can't be moved. I know I can work around it by moving to an intermediate page, but didn't want to make a mess. I didn't know if this was a bug or intended, so I thought I would ask here. Thanks - Taxman ^Talk 15:02, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Works for me. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 15:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Well :P. I got an error saying can't be moved over itself. I've gotten it before. Any ideas? - Taxman ^Talk 15:08, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

No ideas, but I know other people have had this problem before. I did a move for someone who couldn't fix capitalisation for the same reason as you (see User_talk:Talrias#Akwid_move). At this time he was an admin and I was not leading me to suspect that there might a bug preventing admins from doing capitalisation page moves, but I'm an admin now, which means that theory is invalid. I would suggest a bug report. Talrias (t | e | c) 15:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I have heard somewhere that some people confuse the new "reason" field with the "new title" field. Perhaps that is the cause? --cesarb 16:21, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah yes, that must have been it. The software fills in the current name and leaves a blank for the reason. I wasn't looking close enough, sorry. If you don't change the move to, it will give the error. - Taxman ^Talk 16:36, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Unblocking Kim Brunning

I seem to be permanently in the midst of controversy these days... anyway, there is some discussion of whether I did the right thing in unblocking Kim Bruning, who had tried to stop an escalating problem with GNAA pages. He got blocked for 3RR violation on WP:VFU, but I felt he had gotten the message soon after and unblocked him - mainly cause he wanted to help copyedit Microsoft Jet Database Engine, an article I am steadily working with the view to making is an FA (please vote! on FAC!)

Anyway, here it is: the issue on my talk page in all it's g(l)ory. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:22, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

---

(to User:Lifeisunfair, who wanted to know why I unblocked Kim) This is to stop revert wars. The revert wars had ceased, I wanted some help to contribute to Wikipedia. I unblocked Kim after securing a promise not to continue the edit war. Based on their previous actions, I accepted this. Any admin can do this, if they feel that the problem is resolved. This is all I have to say. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Any admin can do this, but it's widely considered inappropriate for admins who are directly involved in the relevant conflict (or any other conflict with the user) to do so.

You seldom remove intentionally imposed blocks for substantiated infractions, so it certainly appears as though you gave Kim special treatment. Perhaps this isn't the case, but the appearance of impropriety is precisely why involved admins should recuse themselves from such decisions (even if otherwise 100% legitimate). —Lifeisunfair 00:08, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Hey... didn't know you could restrict the search like that... Anyway, I realise what it looks like, but in the case of Kim B, we know that he is not an intentional vandal and we also know that it was just a misguided attempt at sorting out a "ForestFire". I don't see any real need to penalise them for the full 24 hours. Especially when they could be contributing to this site in a productive manner, and also he is now fully aware that we want him to continue reverting and will no longer be doing this! - Ta bu shi da yu 00:15, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

It's absolutely true that Kim is not a vandal, but the same can be said of most other users who are blocked for violating the 3RR. As in Kim's case, the usual cause is an overzealous (but well-intentioned) desire to leave a page in a particular state — one that the user honestly believes is superior. —Lifeisunfair 00:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I concur with TBSDY's decision, Lifeisunfair, 3RR is not meant as punitive measure. I was attempting to cool down a heated situation; TSDBY decision to overide my block was undertaken in accordance with that sentiment. I take no issue with it myself, and did not at the time of seeing it in the block log (I trust him). I also wanted to avoid the charges you bring forth against admin immunity from the rules, but only for the time being as per that heated situation (to avoid it being compounded further from that end). The fact is, non-admins get the same treatment as Kim did, the 3RR is not applied monolithically and legalistically, so your initial premise is false. El_C 00:21, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that Kim definitely should have retained the full 24-hour block, but any decision to unblock him should have been made by you or another uninvolved admin. —Lifeisunfair 00:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

TBSDY was involved, yes, which is precisely the reason as to why he was able to feel the situation better than myself at that point in time. Sure, he could have explained everything in great detail (details I am still largely claiming ignorance over, and would like to keep it that way now) to me and had me lift the block, but I don't see toward what end, except some abstract notion of justice. Myself, I'm concerned with the spirit of the rule rather than its letter, especially for something so minor. El_C 02:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Toward what end? No appearance of impropriety. TBSDY claims not to have intentionally provided Kim with special treatment, but openly acknowledges that this is not readily apparent to outsiders (especially considering the fact that TBSDY has rarely, if ever, handled a similar situation in this manner). And assuming that TBSDY's account is honest (which I believe it to be), it's very difficult to rule out the possibility (perhaps even probability) that personal bias played a subconscious role in the decision to unblock Kim (despite not having extended the same courtesy to other users).

Are you expressing a belief that it's good for an admin to preside over the resolution of a conflict in which they've played a direct role? If so, does this apply only to unblocking, or would it also be appropriate for an admin to block other users with whom they're involved in a relevant dispute (which Kim actually was threatening to do, incidentally)? It's likely that such an individual would be able to "feel the situation better" than an uninvolved admin, but isn't there something to be said for impartiality? —Lifeisunfair 04:07, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I'm pleased that it was TBSDY who unblocked Kim, as another goodfaith gesture between them, in that sense. "Subconscious role," or good intuition? I say the latter as enhanced by the former. This isn't a court room, it's a community; a community geared toward writing an encyclopedia, wasting further time and energy on this works against that. So, by virtue of consensus, it means sinking into proceduralism and useless moralistic generalizations, which I wish to avoid — though I was accused (elsewhere) of having blocked Kim on purely procedural grounds, this is false (and insulting), and in contradiction with the facts. I doubt I will make any further statement beyond this. El_C 05:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

You didn't address all of my questions, but okay; we'll just have to agree to disagree. :-) —Lifeisunfair 05:44, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I went to unblock Kim the next morning, but saw that you had already done it. Those inclined to cast blame can feel free to do it at me, therefore, since, well, I'm used to it. Snowspinner 04:37, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

You were an uninvolved admin (which is why your page protection was appropriate), so such an act would've been entirely aboveboard (assuming that Kim's admin status played no role).

And to be clear, my intention isn't to "blame" anyone, as I don't believe that any of the involved admins (including Kim and TBSDY) intended to commit any inappropriate acts. I believe that honest mistakes were made, and I hope that all of us can learn from them and become better Wikipedians. —Lifeisunfair 04:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I was involved? I left one talk page note saying that I generally agreed with Kim. And Kim's admin status played no role. The fact that he was putting his ass on the line to try to stop a forestfire of trolling played a major role. Kim was dead right. He did what he had to do to fix an immediate and bad problem, and it was inappropriate to punish him for it. Snowspinner 05:10, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I said that you were "uninvolved." —Lifeisunfair 05:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, OK then. :)

Anyhow, Kim is one of our finest wikipedians. Whatever X policy may have been written for, it probably was not written to ban Kim from editing Microsoft Jet Database Engine w the intent of it reaching FA status.

¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 05:19, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, it certainly seems like favoritism to me. Basically, we have a tendency where people will go back to policy and genuine wiki-philosophy when it comes to people they like—he or she recognizes his errors, promises not to get involved again, deserves a second chance, is not a vandal or troll, good faith should be assumed, etc.—but they forget all about that stuff if they aren't interested in helping you out. So when you hear somebody making these arguments, well, it all seems reasonable and good, and it's easy to fall for it, until you remember that they wouldn't do the same for most of us, myself included, in a million years. So we ought to even it out, either we all get the easy treatment or we all get the punitive treatment. Obviously there are some people you have to be tougher with, but I mean within the general category of people who are obviously good faith contributors. Everyking 05:28, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll tell you what - break policy in the name of doing something that sincerely helps Wikipedia, and I'll be the first one to unblock you. Snowspinner 05:39, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that we frequently (usually?) disagree on which things sincerely help Wikipedia, and which things hurt. Clearly one of us has bad common sense. Everyking 06:12, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• In the absence of Calton -- Drink! Radiant_>|< 08:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

• I love the way some people will show their true colors after an admin vote. While the vote is on, of course, you try to woo me into changing my vote, but I hold fast because I know good and well what you're really like, and then afterwards I get proven right, because then you don't have to campaign and kiss babies anymore. Everyking 04:18, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• For the benefit of the rest of us, can you please explain what is meant by this comment? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:06, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• Or maybe both of you have common sense issues. Look, the fact that the two of you frequently disagree may have absolutely nothing to do with common sense; you might (indeed, do) have philosophical differences about how Wikipedia should operate. Differences of opinion do not always have to signal an absence of common sense, and we should WP:AGF instead of leaping to the negative conclusion. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• OK, so say Snowspinner blocks someone outside of policy on the grounds of common sense, as happens every other day or so, and I happen to disagree with that, because I happen to feel that adhering to policy is common sense and acting outside of it is harmful. It seems to me that either the block was common sense, and I'm wrong, or it wasn't common sense, and I'm right. Or, to take a really radical approach, we could say that "common sense" is a fundamentally unworkable notion because nobody agrees on what common sense is. In that case, the block (if it was wrong) was not wrong because it lacked common sense, but because common sense is totally subjective and therefore not a legitimate factor to consider. Freed from that constraint, we can then say that debating and pondering whether one of Snowspinner's blocks is in line with common sense is useless, and the block is wrong no matter which way we interpret "common sense". So I would say A) according to my common sense, Snowspinner's blocks outside policy are wrong, but B) neither my common sense nor his should even be an issue, so you can't justify a block on those lines no matter what kind of common sense you have. So actually I think the question of which of us has common sense is irrelevant; the real question is which of us is concerned with existing policy. Everyking 04:34, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree that the word "common-sense" is misleading. It's hardly common. Out of interest, are you using Snowspinner as an illustration, or are you referring to a specific incident? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:06, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
• Er, I think you're both concerned with existing policy. I think you're also both intelligent enough to realize that blind application of policy is not healthy, because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Our rules are meant to be neither truncheons nor straitjackets; we are here to build an encyclopedia, and our rules exist and should be followed only as far as they help us to achieve that end.

At this point, Everyking, your argument no longer seems to be specifically regarding Kim Bruning's unblocking. If you want Snowspinner desysopped, please gather up all your evidence against him and post an RFC. Otherwise, please limit yourself to polite and constructive criticism, and try to address the specific issue at hand. Set a good example of how you think an admin should behave. This perpetual sniping is utterly poisonous, and I imagine that it disgusts most of the other editors here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:54, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Kim's record is spotless on that front though, that should not be discounted. I knew it was an unusual move, but at the time I still felt that, situationally, a cool down period was in order (a bit more comprehensive explanation can be read here). El_C 05:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

As a policy note, the 3RR says we may block violators for "up to 24 hours" (my emphasis added). We are not required to impose the maximum block in all circumstances, though for some admins this has become the default. (It may even be appropriate, given the usual problems that give rise to 3RR violations.) A first offense by an otherwise exemplary editor who was attempting to act in Wikipedia's best interests and showed genuine remorse...would seem to deserve a reduction in sentence. If Kim Bruning were to show signs of making a habit of this sort of thing, then we would need to bring out the big guns. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:30, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The question is not whether it was appropriate for Kim's block to be abbreviated; it's whether it was appropriate for a directly involved admin to make the decision. —Lifeisunfair 20:19, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Er, I'm confused. Was Kim Bruning involved in an edit war with TBSDY? Or siding with him? I'm not seeing clearly how TBSDY was directly involved with Kim Bruning's behaviour, or how it reflects on Kim Bruning's 3RR violation.... TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:56, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

TBSDY was directly involved in the edit war that led to Kim's 3RR violation and the greater conflict that led to the edit war.

TBSDY proposed a new policy to deal with the greater conflict. The page ended up backfiring (in Kim's assessment) by generating heated, troll-infested discussion, so Kim deleted it (along with some other pages), despite the fact that it didn't meet any of the criteria for speedy deletion (which Kim has acknowledged). As a result, DESiegel listed it on the votes for undeletion page, and Kim removed this entry two minutes later (revert #1). TBSDY then restored the entry, and Kim removed it again (revert #2). This was followed by two restorations by Knowledge Seeker and two removals by Kim (reverts #3 and #4).

Apart from the edit war, TBSDY has sided with Kim throughout the greater conflict (which is why the deleted page was created in the first place). And to be clear, I side with both of them in principle, but disagree with these particular actions. —Lifeisunfair 01:04, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah. So this is a GNAA thing, then? Argh. I think any editor who goes near that mess gets muck on them, no matter how well-behaved and well-intentioned they are. I figure if Kim was repentent, only made one extra revert (and stopped after being warned), was unblocked by one of the parties on the other side of the revert war, and the original blocking admin doesn't object, then all we're doing here now is navel gazing.

Ya did a reasonable thing by bringing the matter to admin attention, Lifeisunfair. The short block ended any prospect of further reverts, I don't think Kim will do it again, and the matter's been thoroughly discussed here, so I think it's a fair outcome. You're right that TBSDY unblocking Kim might represent a potential conflict of interest. However, since we all seem to be agreed that no harm was done (and, in fact, continuing the block would have hindered productive work at Microsoft Jet Database Engine) TBSDY's judgement seems to have been sound.

The point of blocking for a 3RR violation is to stop edit warring, not to dispense punishment or mete out retribution. Since the edit war stopped and all the parties were back on good terms, I don't see what the benefit of leaving the block in place for the maximum permissible time would have been. My two cents. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I find this talk about conflict of interest strange, considering I am the one who strenuously objected to Kim's actions! Yet I am the one who unblocked so we can all get along with our lives. I do agree with El's block, I just knew that Kim had gotten the message. I also don't have a problem with Lifeisunfair querying this unblocking move: all admin decisions should potentially be questioned. I only brought this to AN because a full blown discussion was happening on my talk page, with at least 4 parties involved. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:15, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Ehehehe, Um, sorry to complicate matters, but...

Well, I typically have this list of personal procedures I use while editing wikipedia. This way if something goes wrong, I can "blame the procedure" as inspired by CMM levels 2-3 or better. (I'm not suggesting we should apply CMM to the entire wiki - yet :-P).

One of these is my own personal revert procedure (invented before 3RR, if that's relevant): It's basically just WP:HEC, with a single additional exception:

• If someone comes by and has apparently missed the discussion, it's ok to revert them with a nice summary politely pointing them to said discussion.

Check the actual reverts I did on that page, and you'll see I followed the procedure pretty well.

Would you agree that if someone follows that procedure, they're not edit-warring?

And yet sometimes on a high volume page, (and people simply not watching their step maybe) as it now turns out, it can run afoul of the 3RR. Knowing that, any ideas on what can be done? I can temporarily change the personal procedure of course, but what else?

Kim Bruning 01:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, reading the above, I'd like to point out that the block didn't exactly have an effect. At the time of the block I was in bed, and Angela & several others had taken over dealing with the forestfire! Kim Bruning 23:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

And note that dealing with a Forest fire was also my aim in issuing the block, as misguided as Kim and other might have found it to be, I maintain that it rested on rational considerations, and I hope there are not hard feelings leftover as a result. El_C 23:16, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

No harm, no foul. :) Kim Bruning 23:31, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Exactly; hopefuly my involvement proved helpful, to boot. :) El_C 23:50, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Your action had no effect whatsoever (I couldn't even use it to escape from helping TBSDY later in the day :-P ). That's why there was no harm. Kim Bruning 17:26, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The Electric Universe model article

Help! I am an admin. I have a user named Joshuaschroeder who circumvented a vfd vote at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Electric_Universe_model. It was a long, involved vote that I ruled as a no consensus. The vote as I counted it was 17 for delete and 13 for keep. That is a no consensus by most of our methods of tracking. However, within 6 hours of the vote, joshua (who had wanted the article deleted), made the article a redirect to an article he wrote. To me, a no consensus is the same as a keep vote. One user deciding to make the article a redirect seems to me to be a way to circumvent a vfd vote. If I am wrong, say so. Otherwise, someone please back me up on the talk page. Joshua wants a specific policy. I do not know of any, but this seems to me to be an attempt to circumvent a consensus or lack thereof. What he essentially did was delete the article. --Woohookitty 05:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd say Joshua's argument on the talk page is reasonable, as is a revert of his edit on the basis on content. IMO his action may be unwise, but not against policy as per VFD. Guettarda 05:06, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

What he did was circumvent the will of the people who voted. They did not vote for what was essentially a delete and redirect. --Woohookitty 05:09, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

VfD, if I am not mistaken, is not an exercise in voting. I was under the impression that the number of people who vote for a deletion was not as important as how well the arguments are made. I think that this particular VfD was stymied by its own starter who began the VfD under false pretenses. Nevertheless, I admit that the no consensus is a pretty reasonable opinion of the discussion. Joshuaschroeder 05:23, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

A redirect is just another edit. Revert him if you don't agree. Get a couple of the voters who wanted the article kept on board and demonstrate the consensus in action. VfD votes are to keep or delete, not to fix forever an article's form, or to disallow redirection if an editor judges it best. -- Grace Note

Also, a redirect is an action that doesn't require a VfD: people bringing articles to VfD are supposed to do so in the belief that such an article should be deleted. A redirect is not as serious, because it can easily be undone by any user (admin or not), so therefore can be done without a delete. --Deathphoenix 05:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I can not say this strongly enough. A "redirect" is not a "delete"! The only exception is when a user explicitly argues that the contents must be deleted from page history and that the article should be recreated as a redirect. Redirect is just another edit. As Grace Note said above, if you don't like it, you or any other editor can be bold and revert it. Deletions get extra scrutiny because they destroy the article's history. Converting an article to a revert does not destroy article history. Once an article has been deleted, it requires admin powers to see the old versions. Any editor/reader can review the edit history of an article that has been merely reverted. Undoing a deletion requires admin powers. Undoing a revert does not. A "redirect" vote may be an opinion that Wikipedia should not have an independent article at that title but it is not a "delete" vote.

If you or anyone else considers the decision to redirect to be controversial, the place to thrash out that decision is on the respective Talk pages, not through the VfD process. VfD decisions are binding on whether or not the article is deleted and that's all. We can make a recommendation to "keep as redirect". The VfD recommendation should generally be given a degree of deference just because of the visibility and the breadth of participation that VfD discussions typically draw. For all their failings, they can be a good indicator of the community will. But the final decision whether or not to make the page into a redirect belongs on the article Talk pages. Rossami (talk) 13:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• In my opinion, I don't think Josh has done anything wrong. 17d-13k is clearly not a consensus to delete; however, it is also an indication that something may be wrong with the article (at least the majority of voters thought so). That means that rewording, merging and/or redirecting may well be appropriate - indeed they may be appropriate in any case, per WP:BOLD, as none of the three normally requires a vote of any sort. Of course if people disagree with Josh there they should discuss it, but that should be a discussion on opinion, not on whether procedure was correctly followed. If necessary, get a 3PO. Radiant_>|< 13:47, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

A couple comments. First, given the number of sockish keep votes on that VFD, I believe the closer would have been well within rights to read it as a delete consensus. That he or she did not is a matter of judgment, of course. That said, in most cases where a VFD ends in a keep or no consensus result, I generally agree with Woohookitty that removing the content and replacing it with a redirect is an inappropriate action. In the typical case, a failed VFD indicates that a significant number of people believe the content of the article should be preserved, and circumventing that is generally rude and leads to further, largely unneccesary fights. At the least, it should have been discussed on the talk page in advance. Acting boldly to improve articles is a good thing, but it does not mean one should act unilaterally in the face of known opposition. This VFD established that at least a few people want to preserve the material and so deciding whether or not the page should be redirected should be a matter of building a new talk page consensus. Given the weakness of the keep side of this VFD, there may actually be a lot of support for redirecting this, but unilaterally replacing the page with a redirect because the VFD failed is a recipe for revert warring and should be avoided. Dragons flight 15:06, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Request that an admin edit the protected Ted Kennedy article

Could someone please look into Talk:Ted_Kennedy#Request_that_an_admin_edit_protected_article? I think the article's history makes it clear what happened here. I'd also add that the link in dispute has a misleading summary, that does not indicate in any way that it links to an attack site. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:01, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Backlog!

There are a number of process backlogs in Wikipedia that need cleaning up. If you have some spare time, please look over Category:Wikipedia backlog. Radiant_>|< 09:02, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone have some time on their hands?

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses needs closing. The results are fairly clear. According to -Ril-, who passionately favours deletion, it is 30 keep vs. 21 merge and only a handful of delete or transwiki votes. The main difficulty is that closing requires an admin to remove VfD headers from all 130 pages in Category:New Testament verses. - SimonP 13:10, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Actually the voting seems considerably more complex than that; RIL has made an extensive summary and concludes with "Keep as individual articles x 34, Don't have as individual articles x 43", which seems to indicate majority to merge, then writes that this counts some votes twice, which seems to indicate that he isn't so sure about the results either. Californian election, anyone? I hope someone has a bot handy. Radiant_>|< 13:42, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Right then. Adding a hundred "no consensus" notices is a decidedly unsatisfying task, but that seems to be about what we've been able to come up with. Perhaps this should be a policy discussion or a request for comment? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:49, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses. Here you go. Radiant_>|< 15:02, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • Those totals are not the results of this debate, they are -Ril-'s attempt to combine this vote with the results of last month's Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses. If we are going to combined votes we should also include those cast at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20:16, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/John 20, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 2:16, and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Genesis 1:1. Also -Ril- is incorrect to count delete and transwiki votes as merge votes. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses explicitly states that you should "vote merge rather than delete if you do not feel the verses deserve individual articles." - SimonP 15:11, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • That is quite simply a lie. The votes are counted from the one VFD alone. Try it yourself. There are 2 sets of totals, the first is the raw vote - 34 don't keep individually, 32 keep individually - and the second counts votes such as "delete OR merge" as 2 seperate votes, one to delete, and one to merge, the purpose of this second vote being to determine which of the options - delete/merge/transwiki - is the most favoured, if any, since "delete or merge" is not a possible simultaneous outcome, it can only be one or the other or neither. Merge votes and delete votes both count as "dont have as seperate articles" votes, which is the real issue on the VFD. 32 vs. 34 is no majority for the 32, and neither is it consensus. ~~~~ 17:30, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Exactly. And, as several keep-voters in Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses have pointed out, gathering consensus on a merge is improper use of VFD. Therefore, gathering consensus on a merge may be proper in some other spot, such as Wikipedia:Merge/Bible verses. This is unrelated to the fact that the VFDs should all be closed as no-consensus-thus-default-to-keep. Like I said, I hope someone has a bot handy. Radiant_>|< 15:24, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • If gathering consensus on a merge is not appropriate for VFD, then why are merge votes, and merge outcomes, allowed? ~~~~ 17:30, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

How to make a bomb

On 30 April 2005 the article on Acetone peroxide was edited by IP 85.206.83.143 (in Lithuania) to add detailed instructions on how to make this substance - the explosive material that was used in the 21 July 2005 London explosions, as was another explosives article. Deleted not long after, it made a re-appearance as a separate article (deleted a few hours later) and a number of times as an external link, which I have deleted. I believe that, whilst Wikipedia is not paper, it is incumbent on us to behave responsibly, and to not bring this site into disrepute. In the UK it is proposed that providing assistance to someone creating bombs (including websites) will be illegal, and I'm sure that homeland security in the USA takes a similar view on the matter, let alone the views of other countries around the world. There is also the danger that we could assist "inquisitive" people to blow themselves up in their garages. I believe that WP must be seen as sensible and trustworthy on this matter and that whilst it is right that we continue to inform about chemicals we should not condone, enable or assist in any way anyone to make bombs or explosives. --Vamp:Willow 16:52, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Please see the related discussions (started last week) on Talk:Acetone peroxide and at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Wikipedia should not help terrorists to build bombs (now consolidated onto Talk:Acetone peroxide). We should not attempt to duplicate those discussions here. Rossami (talk) 17:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I am aware of those discussions (indeed I have taken part in them!). The point of this note is to draw the attention of other admins to the situation as a general view on how we should deal with such issues on a range of articles, rather than just this particular page. --Vamp:Willow 17:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism in progress page errors

Twice I have reverted the Vandalism in progress page as it was constantly duplicating itself. The first time I reverted it [4], it was five times as long as it should be at over 700 kb. Almost the whole days worth of edits were lost. I reverted again [5] today and about 5 hours of edits were lost. I dont know if reverting was the right thing to do, but the page had become very unwieldly and extreamly slow to load. After the reverts it was at least useable. Are any admins watching this page anymore? I don't know what the problem is, but it seems to be firefox doing something odd. See the talk page for more info.
&#0149;Zhatt&#0149; 20:06, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

• Any chance of someone reinserting the text from the lost edits? - Mgm|^(talk) 10:15, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration case - Tkorrovi and Paul Beardsell

A decision has been reached in the above arbitration case. Paul Beardsell was banned from the article artificial consciousness indefinitely and Tkorrovi for three months. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tkorrovi and Paul Beardsell#Final decision for further details and the full decision. -- sannse (talk) 21:05, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Closing VfD for Authentic Matthew

Would some brave admin consider closing the debate on this VFD. It is 9 days old, and the temperature is rising with a string of pretty nasty remarks. I make no comment on who is right or wrong - but I think a speedy close would be in the interests of everyone. Doc (?) 00:33, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Certain admin's practicing censorship and/or disallowing honest contributions by labelling them "Nazism"

Hello all. I have tried to create the following article by the title of "Adolf Hitler's Popularity" but one admin (User:Neutrality), despite his userid's claim, is not being neutral and deletes the article for no good reason and labels me a Nazi. I am not even of European race. Can some fair-minded admins please look into this? I will post the entire article's content here for now:

---

Despite extensive anti-Hitler propaganda and even extreme fear of any sort of expression regarding Adolf Hitler that is not total rejection, insult and distancing oneself from him in the Western World (and by extension in the rest of the world), the fact is that Adolf Hitler continues to be one of the most secretly revered characters of all history.

Many people, quite possibly even some Jews, in their heart feel that a leader like Hitler would be an ideal and a dream-come-true for any people and/or nation. He was brave, intellignet, dedicated, faithful, charismatic, handsome, knowledgeable and extremely honest, and he was courageous and honorable enough not to give his enemies the pleasure of capturing him.

Because of extreme anti-Hitlerism in the world after WW II and practically a "taboo" of speaking the truth about Hitler, people who like Hitler are not allowed to express their sincere feelings about this unique and mignificent character in the way they truly feel about him.

But with the advent of the Internet and the Information Age, and availability of "people-oriented media" such as Wikipedia (as opposed to corporate-controlled media) gradually people will have more and more chance of expressing their true feelings without the fear of losing their jobs or being discriminated against.

---

... words fail me.

Actually, no, they don't. Here's a few for consumption. POV, trolling, original research, no sources cited, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. For starters. khaosworks 02:10, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

ONE admin deletes the article and labels you a Nazi? That's outrageous! How many admins have we got, 500? Bishonen | talk 02:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Can I delete it next? Pretty please? On a more serious note, this type of material–if appropriately sourced and presented from a neutral point of view–should be in Hitler's existing article. Creating a fork for a specific point of view is not an accepted Wikipedia practice. TenOfAllTrades(talk)

OK, I think presenting it from a neutral point of view would leave the text "After WW II." Would you like me to merge that with Adolf Hitler? Bishonen | talk 03:14, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

You've just got a sentence fragment there, and it's not well tied in to the whole Hitler thing. Perhaps you should phrase it as "After WW II, Hitler sharply curtailed his public appearances and played a much less direct role in setting public policy. Many individuals found this new 'hands off' leadership style more agreeable, and welcomed the change." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Look, just put this stupidity on VfD and be done with it. That will remove this dispute. User:219.144.196.200, suggest you read the articles about verifiability, NPOV, no original research and citing sources. None of these things are evident. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:28, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Have added a note to the anons talk page. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:40, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Requesting VFD debate links to be added to talkpages

I have now closed the debate Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses, and removed 124 VFD tags. Does anyone care to add links to the talkpages to the VFD debate? I'm feeling a little lazy today... Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:04, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Mediation

The following seven processes are presently listed for dispute resolution, and are generally some form of mediation or getting people to calm down and discuss rather than argue. It seems to me that at least half of these are either redundant or non-active, or both. The entire situation is rather confusing, especially to newbies. Maybe some of these should be merged or redirected to ones that actually are active? Radiant_>|< 12:00, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

1. Wikipedia:Requests for mediation
2. Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates
3. Wikipedia:Mediation (2005)
4. Wikipedia:Wikimediation
5. Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal
6. Wikipedia:Third opinion
7. Wikipedia:Requests for comment (section for user disputes)

Page move

Please could UN Security Council be moved to United Nations Security Council, for consistency with its first sentence and with United Nations General Assembly. Thanks. Martpol 15:46, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Page move requests should be made on Wikipedia:Requested moves. Talrias (t | e | c) 08:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration case - Zivinbudas

A decision has been reached in the arbitration case relating to Zivinbudas. He has been banned from Wikipedia for one year. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zivinbudas#Final decision for further details and the full decision. -- sannse (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

How come all the evidence cited in the decision is from talk pages? You're banning someone from Wikipedia for a year based on their comments on talk? Everyking 06:40, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

First, of course they can -- a fine contributor to articles who spews venomous hatred and personal attacks in talk (note:I'm not saying this is Zivinbudas...didn't read the evidence page in any detail) is more than deserving of a long-term ban. That's a violation of site policy, as much as replacing the entire Wikipedia article with the word "penis" is. Second, why challenge the decision here, especially after it's final? A well-placed comment on the talk page of the arbitration decision while it's in process is read and considered carefully (at least I always tried to, and I have absolute confidence that this continues to be the case). I just don't see why these sorts of battles need to be started. Jwrosenzweig 06:47, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say it shouldn't be considered. I implied that one shouldn't receive such a harsh penalty purely on account of that. If there's equivalent article evidence, fine, but why isn't it cited there in the decision? And moreover I don't see why I should bother to argue anything with the arbitrators. They only listen to a few, and I'm not one of them (and I have tried, long and hard, without luck—even in my own arb cases they didn't pay any attention!). Anyway, I wasn't trying to start a "battle"; I just read the decision and noticed something that shocked me so I thought I'd ask a question about it. Everyking 06:53, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Did you bother to look at the evidence page? Based on even a brief sampling, I would have blocked him permanently as a disruptive, vandalistic troll. I think he was let off easy with a mere one-year ban with option to renew. --Carnildo 07:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

No, I just looked at the decision. If there's article vandalism to penalize him for, that should be cited in the decision. Everyking 07:25, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it a crime to tell a homosexual you are not interested in interacting with him in Wikipedia?!

The admin User:El C has blocked me because I told him I am not interested in interacting with a homosexual when he wanted to continue on a useless and time-wasting argument on my talk page. Is it a crime if one simply avoids the homos? What is this world coming to? I simply said I am not interested. He also edited out my comment from a talk page because it revealed his clear hypocrisy. Why isn't there a more stringent standard in selecting Admins in Wikipedia? There seems to be a significant percentage of admins who constantly abuse their admin status for personal goals. --MJ

It is a bad idea to avoid a ban by changing your IP address. If you are blocked, the correct place to discuss your ban, if you feel it is not warranted, is on your talk page, or on the mailing list.

To other admins: I've blocked this IP for a week as a ban-evader. Talrias (t | e | c) 09:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Someone's sexual preferences shouldn't affect their wikipedia interactions. If you both work on the same article, or talk in the same discussion you need to work together anyway. If you don't agree with the block you can email any admin to ask for an unblock. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:55, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

God [sic] how I wish I could rid this world of Jews and Homos. [6]. And more rants by MJ on Talk:Iran. El_C 10:30, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

To put in my two cents, I think a person should not be forced to interact with someone if that person has some kind of moral/religious problem with the other, but that should only apply if that person is willing to stay out of any kind of dispute with the other. In the event of a dispute you need to either grit your teeth and try to be friendly anyway, or abandon the matter. Also I do think that no matter what one's views it's highly inappropriate to refer to people as "homos". You can avoid someone without insulting them. Everyking 11:36, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

<Removing hate speech from blocked user signing "MJ".> Principle: 1. Remove personal attacks. 2. This user is supposed to not edit wikipedia. That's what blocked means. Bishonen | talk 14:18, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

You also have the right to not be here. Why would you want to subject yourself to all of us Jews, gays, communists, libertarians, libertines, Asians, Hindus, pro-choicers, etc.? There are so many places on the web where you can go and play and not bother us decent folk. func(talk) 12:59, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

<Removing racial and homophobic attacks from blocked user signing "MJ".> Bishonen | talk 14:18, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• To add to this, it is not considered politically incorrect to use the term "homosexual" to describe someone who is, in fact, homosexual. However, it is considered rude and offensive (read: a personal attack) to use the term as an insult, which clearly was occuring. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 12:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, at the event, my sexual preferences and virtually any other personal details (cat exempt) are not a matter of public record. El_C 11:48, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Everyking, I'll give you two cents if you click on El C's links above instead of taking the anon's word for it that he "simply said I am not interested". You'll find that it's insulting, not avoiding, that he's into. Permablock for hate speech and potty mouth. Bishonen | talk 12:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

And I will give you two extra cents if you pay attention to the timestamps. --MJ

I wasn't taking anybody's word for anything, I was just speaking from a general perspective. Everyking 12:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• Permablocks on dynamic IP's don't work well, sadly. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 12:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• This isn't going anywhere. May I suggest that we take away the troll's food dish? Let's leave it be. --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 13:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

If you want to avoid particular groups of people then an online collaboration project such as this really isn't the best place to hang around. By all means add to the articles, but don't state extreme opinions - they're not necessary and don't help in any way. violet/riga (t) 13:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Just for the record, IMO El C has acted completely correctly by blocking that user for hate speech. Thue | talk 13:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say that's quite clear. - Taxman ^Talk 13:57, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

For the sakes of political-correctness and procedural mechanics, let's just say I blocked him for disruption. El_C 14:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

That reminds me, I protected his talk page following the genocidal pronoucnements against Jews and homosexuals cited above. El_C 14:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The one and only time I have been involved in a revert war, and on WP:AN to boot, and no one blocked me...my feelings are hurt. ;-) func(talk) 14:08, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, there's still time... Depriving the masses of people from such enlightenment, how could you! El_C 14:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I am sooooo tempted to block func for the fun of it. But that's because I am extremely juvenile. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 14:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Hey, any blocking of func is all entertainment to me; forget rationals, listen to your heart. El_C 14:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm actually kind of curious, what does it look like? Flashing red lights, big bold words "YOU CAN'T EDIT, MUHAHAHA"? func(talk) 14:33, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Darn it func you managed to get this comment in before i finshed doing the block. Now the element of surprise is gone. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 14:37, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The simple answer to the question is "yes". You can't refuse to interact in Wikipedia - what would that amount to...page forks to avoid editing the same pages? Refusing to explain your edits or cite your sources because it came from any editor who was gay, or whom you thought was gay? A one-word answer could have settled this :) - Guettarda 14:15, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what's going on here. A blocked user is flitting between IP's in order to put hate speech and nauseating personal attacks on this page, and people are responding to him...? That's completely wrong. I'm removing those attacks now. The user is supposed to not edit Wikipedia, excepting his own talk page. That's what "blocked" means. Please revert on sight, people. Bishonen | talk 14:18, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Well said. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 14:25, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

---

I am purging this discussion into page history. (See diff and removed comments.) I am not doing so because the content is offensive or inappropriate. (Regardless of what the user said or did on other pages or what you infer about the user's motivations based on those other edits, I don't see that the specific words used on this page were patently offensive.) However, it very explicitly says at the top of this page that the Administrators' noticeboard is not for dispute resolution. If someone wants to recover this discussion and move it to the correct dispute resolution page, it is acceptable to provide a link to the discussion on this page. Rossami (talk) 17:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Rossami, when you say the user's "specific words used on this page were not patently offensive", it could give latecomers the impression the user put on a civilised debating style for WP:AN. I don't think s/he should get to take credit for that. I'd already removed the hate speech, that's all. Bishonen | talk 17:51, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Wait a minute, you also link to the comments I removed, so you are saying those weren't patently offensive? I don't understand you, then. Are you sure you read all of it? Bishonen | talk 17:56, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Restored all comments prior to Rossami's purging. El_C 22:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Note that Rossami repurged again after specifically asked to discuss his issues prior to doing so (he was then reverted by Snowspinner). Note also that he failed to explain why he found "specific words used on this page were not patently offensive," only to say that he regrets any confusion caused by his editorial comment. Indeed. Uhhh... This was not a content dispute, Rossami, this was me reverting vandalism and events that took place from that point on. El_C 03:47, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree with El C, there is no content dispute, and I'm sorry Rossami ignored my question about his description of classic Nazi hate speech as "not patently offensive". Bishonen | talk 10:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I maintain that (not to be offensive, but to stress the point nonetheless) a non-evasive answer from Rossami is due on these questions (plural). In the interest of accountability, and our own preplexity. El_C 10:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I enter this discussion with great hesitation. There seems to be no way to avoid getting dirty. Unfortunately, I already stuck my foot into it in an attempt to do what is best for Wikipedia. I will make this one attempt to explain my reasoning but then I am recusing myself from the dispute.

1. Is this a dispute? Clearly, the answer is yes. It is not a "content" dispute but it is still a dispute. The paragraph at the top of this page is not limited to content disputes. Specifically, the first sentence in the first posting in this thread establishes this as a dispute over whether a block and a pattern of edits was appropriate - a report of "abusive behavior". The anon user was either through ignorance or intent attempting to bypass the regular dispute resolution processes. (Note that the truthfulness or factual accruacy of the anon's claims don't enter into it. That is a matter for the right people to decide during the dispute resolution.)
2. Should/may disputes be resolved on this page? No. First, because it says so in black and white at the top of this page. (See #Dispute resolution.) Second, because this page is not set up to handle disputes. These same comments and replies would have been perfectly acceptable if made at WP:RFM, WP:RFC or even WP:RFAr. Those pages have the processes, expertise and attention necessary to deal with the dispute. The admin noticeboard does not. It is a noticeboard - a place to notify other administrators of topics deserving attention. Every time we have allowed disputes to propogate on this page, the proper functioning of this page has been degraded.
3. Does policy and practice support my decision to summarily purge the dispute off the page with a request that it be moved to the correct place? There is less precedent but I believe that I did the right thing. See this discussion on the Talk page where we discussed the problem last month. There were no objections. This practice has been implemented several times since the decision. This is the first time that it has been deemed controversial.
4. Was my editorial comment about the redaction of some of the anon's comments appropriate? I'm not sure yet but clearly it was counter-productive. It has become a distraction from the core issue which is that this page ought not to be used for attempts at dispute resolution.
5. Having admitted that it was counter-productive, I've been asked to explain my reasoning on this point as well.
   • We have a strong policy of no personal attacks. We have a more controversial proposal to allow the removal of personal attacks. While I am a supporter of that proposal, the standard for attacks which may be removed is quite high. That is what I meant when I used the phrase "patently offensive" above. Are the words used so offensive that the Remove personal attacks standard would apply?
   • The redacted comments (see this diff) open with a claim that English is not the anon's native language then turns into a rant about politically correct speech. Later in the comment, the user expresses a personal opinion advocating isolationism. This does demonstrate the user's bigotry. The second comment in the diff continues the racist diatribe. At no point was a specific person was attacked. Please see the counter-examples on the Remove personal attacks page. Collective attacks are explicitly not removable under this proposed policy. We are expected and required under Remove personal attacks to be the bigger person and to ignore the collective insults.
     • Note that this only applies to comments made outside of articles. Inside an article, the comments would be removable under the NPOV requirement. User pages, Talk pages and project pages (of which this is one) are held to a lower standard. It would be nice if we were all perfectly professional in all our dealings on ever page but we have not set the expectation that high. We are expected to be tolerant as we continue toward our goal of building an encyclopedia.
     • I don't know or care whether this anon is telling the truth about his/her fluency with English. I don't know or care what meaning you apply to the anon's comments based on your interactions with the anon on other pages. Those are matters for the dispute resolution process to address. The standard for Remove personal attacks is very narrow. The edits should be evaluated individually to determine whether they constitute an attack.
   • Even if you do find specific parts of the comment to be an attack, the section of the Remove personal attacks proposal on "How to refactor" requires us to very narrowly redact only those parts of the comment which form the personal attack. Wiping the entire comment obscured the context of responding comments and instigated a revert war with the anon - the very reaction that makes Remove personal attacks such a controversial proposal.

Please direct any further comments to my Talk page. I am removing this page from my watchlist. This constant arguing over disputes adds so much clutter to the noticeboard page that the cost/benefit of this page has gone negative. Rossami (talk) 19:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Clutter you say...? Responded here. El_C 09:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC) Change to diff, since Rossami has purged his talk page. El_C 21:31, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

So did I. Bishonen | talk 16:53, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

And I want to warn others against wasting their time doing the same. Rossami has deleted El C's and my posts from his talk page. Bishonen | talk 19:50, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

You can't fight in here, this is the War Room! Oh, and this troll is laughing his ass off. JRM · Talk 21:22, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Please don't tsk, JRM. Bishonen | talk 17:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I doubt the troll even cares. But I do. Please everyone. Just stop it. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:49, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Fine, I'm taking my nonexistent toys and going home. Rossami has treated me, personally, in an unfair way, and I take exception to that. El_C 21:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Page Move problem

I've got a problem with what I would have thought was a simple page move. I'm trying to move Electronic Stability Program to Electronic Stability Control which is a one edit redirect to ESP. Now, I thought this was a situation in which the ordinary page move tab should work. However I'm getting the error message 'Source and destination titles are the same; can't move a page over itself.' So it looks like the real problem may be a string comparison that compares less than the whole string. Would deleting the redirect at the target page be likely to help? -- Solipsist 11:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The destination had a history and that was preventing the move. I've fixed it now. violet/riga (t) 13:19, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I suspect the problem was that you were entering the destination page title into the wrong field. The new title should be entered into the top field, the bottom field is the move reason. By the way, page move requests should be made on Wikipedia:Requested moves. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:40, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Well actually, the problem was that I was looking at the page history for the lower case Electronic stability control which had no history, whilst trying to do a page move to the uppercase Electronic Stability Control which did in fact have a previous history of edits.

Also the genereal text on the page move failure special page needs updating to direct people to WP:RM rather than List of administrators.

Does anyone know how to edit the messages on special pages? -- Solipsist 17:16, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I think they are generated from a page in the MediaWiki: namespage, but which page I don't know. Thryduulf 17:51, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I believe I have updated the appropriate messages (MediaWiki:Articleexists and MediaWiki:Movepagetalktext). Talrias (t | e | c) 18:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Langer

Tony Sidaway and I have come to disagree over a VfD, and I was hoping for some advice here. Langer was VfDed last November ([7]), and the result was: "The result of the debate was transwiki to Wiktionary". The article has been recreated a few times, and has been speedily deleted each time. When I did it again the other day, Tony recreated it; when I explained the position, and deleted it again, he agin recreated it with the comment:

"I agree that it was decided that the article should be wiktionaried (not deleted) nearly a year ago. Now please stop repeatedly deleting the Wikipedia article. It's extremely frustrating to see you doing this for no discernible reason."

That was a little odd, as I'd given him my reason, which (indeed) he was responding to. When I queried this he argued:

"The VfD, decided last year before the recent vote on transwiki deletions, resulted only in a decision to transwiki. There was no deletion result. Moreover the current article is patently more an encyclopedia article than a dictionary article."

I've replied:

"I take "transfer" to mean "move" — that is, removed from one place to another. That certainly is how I read the VfD debate."

Any comments? I'm not looking for agreement with my position, particularly; I'd just like to know what the consensus is so that I can act correctly in similar situations in the future. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

(copied here from my Talk page:)

Well that problem here is that another interpretation is possible--and indeed there was at the time, as far as I'm aware, no practice of deleting transwikied pages. The article was deleted out of process, and with no justification that I can discern. There were only two delete votes, and one of those expressed as "very weak". It was also closed irregularly--Rossami had voted in the discussion and then went on to close it. If there really is a terribly pressing reason to delete this perfectly good article, it should be VfD'd. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The proposer can surely be taken to have voted "delete, which makes three — and one of the "keep" votes was also "weak". Another way of putting it is that there were only two "keep votes, one of which was "weak". But the route to take if you really believe that the article was deleted out of process is to nominate it for undeletion. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:32, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

How about you simply put it up on VfD again, making all the points you have made here? Talrias (t | e | c) 20:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

That might solve the current issue, but I was hoping for a general policy. My current opinion is that this is the recreation of an article deleted (after transwikification) following a valid VfD; if I'm wrong, I'd like to know for future reference. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:12, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Transwiki log, after an article has been transwikied, it must be submitted through VfD again, which determines whether it has any potential encyclopediac content (in which case keep) or not (in which case delete). Talrias (t | e | c) 22:21, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• According to CSD#A5, as adopted last week, they need not pass through VFD a second time and can simply be deleted if the person doing the transwikiing thinks it is unencyclopedic. After all, no information is lost, it is simply put some place else. Radiant_>|< 23:05, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

I should have mentioned this here before; the article is again on VfD (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Langer 2). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

User:TV Party Tonight!

Me again, I'm afraid. yesterday I blocked TV Party Tonight! (talk · contribs) as one in a long line of accounts created merely to attack User:Chadbryant and to vandalise his User page. Some seven hours afterwards, he edited his Talk page ([8]). My first thought was that he'd been unblocked, though i couldn't think why — but the block-list shows that my blcok should still have been in place. Does anyone have any idea what happened? I've blocked again, just in case something went wrong with the first one. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:31, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

The Block page says "The operation of blocks has changed recently. Blocked users may now edit their talk page even while they are blocked." So if all that was edited was the user talk page, that's the answer. - RedWordSmith 18:44, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

Ah, that's it — thanks; I hadn't noticed. That's a slightly odd feature for users who have been perma-blocked, but I suppose that little harm can come of it. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

This was previously discussed. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive6#Block behaviour changes. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:56, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Mel, if harm does come of it, just permaprotect the talk page. Bishonen | talk 02:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks all; as this person skips from account to account (see User talk:Mel Etitis/Chadbryant vandals for the current, probably incomplete list), I doubt that it will create any further problems. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:47, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Anon style sheets

• Discussion moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Anon_style_sheets as suggested. -- Solipsist 17:04, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Conflict Alert: User:Sam Spade and User:FeloniousMonk

User:Sam Spade and User:FeloniousMonk have been having destructive interactions recently, and apparantly, also for a long time. I have not enough information to say who is to blame for what, but I suspect it is going to get worse before it gets better. I suggest a relativly disintrested administrator keep an eye on them.

I do not wish to share my opinion on who is more likley to cause trouble, merely alert that this could get very ugly very fast. see the Talk:human and relevant user talk pages for more.--Tznkai 20:25, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Up-date

Queen Anne's dead. Our reporter, fresh from investigating the religion of the Pope and the toilet habits of bears, has the latest...

I'm not sure that there are any admins who'd be accepted as disinterested in this — it's been going on for too long and has sucked in too many people (not to mention one of the parties' other activities). Move along, there's nothing to see. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:26, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

How about me (!)? Am I disinterested, Mel? Comeon be honest with me, & don't spare the Whip. Where is Rossami when you need him? El_C 23:04, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

You're every bit as disinterested as I am. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:41, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm about as disinterested in this issue as they come, to the point that I'm not really interested in wading in to see what the issue is. I've never had a conflict (nor much interaction at all) with either one of them, nor do I edit any of the pages there is any conflict between the two of them. If there is something someone really unbiased is needed for specifically let me know. I don't really see the need for that though, as here's all that needs to be done: warn and if necessary block either one of them for obvious abuses such as personal attacks and do the same if the articles they are editing are actively made worse by their edit wars. Short of those, just try what you can to get them to be reasonable, but in the end let them go at it as long as the articles are not harmed. - Taxman ^Talk 18:08, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee decision: User:Irate personal attack parole

The original decision said:

1.1) If, after the closure of this case, Irate continues to engage in personal attacks, the Arbitration Committee may, upon notification of this fact, choose to subject Irate to a personal attack parole of a duration of one year wherein Irate will be temporarily banned for a short period of up to one week if he makes any edits that an administrator judges to be personal attacks.

As he returned after his ban and appeared to continue as before with personal attacks, the AC has enacted:

1.1.1) Irate is placed on personal attack parole for one year.

Irate was notified 13:08, 25 July 2005, so the parole is current until 13:08, 25 July 2006.

- David Gerard 13:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems Irate wasn't able to restrain himself from attacks even while on parole and blocked. Snowspinner has blocked him for seven days. Irate continued his attacks on his Talk: page, so I protected that also. I see no hope for this user reforming. — Matt Crypto 15:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Is there a list anywhere of which users are subject to arbcom paroles? If not, would it be possible to create one with a simple list like:

• user
  • parole type (e.g. revert parole, personal attacks parole, etc)
  • parole ends: (e.g. 18:57, 25 January 2006)
  • enforcement: (e.g. block of up to 7 days)
  • link to arbcom case

So it wouldn't be a witchunt type page the entries would be removed when teh parole expires. The idea behind the suggestion is that this page will be archived several times between the start and end of a parole, and if someone in a few months time disputes a block then it would just be a quick check to show the admin was acting within the rules. Also, if J Random User is placed on personal attack parole now, and doesn't make any personal attacks until November, then an admin might not be certain if they were on a parole or not - and the arbcom case pages might be named something like "user:I am a naughty boy, user:goody-two-shoes and user:J Random User" so guessing the name isn't always going to be easy. Thryduulf 18:03, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Admin enforcement requested. Talrias (t | e | c) 18:08, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The page Wikipedia:Election Notice needs to be marked as {{historical}}

The headline says pretty much all of it. I'm trying to clean off well-catagorized pages from Wikipedia:Topical index and while it's obvious that this page is a historical-interest page, I can't add the tag because it's protected. If you add the tag, it would be nice if you would remove the page from the Topical index, or leave me a note on my talk page, and I'll do it. Thanks for all your work with mop and bucket! JesseW 23:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Done, though I question why the page really nees to be protected at all now. --Dmcdevit·t 23:29, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree, it might as well be unprotected, but again, it might as well remain protected. I can't see people needing to edit it, for good or ill. JesseW 00:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Holcoaust Revisionism on Reinhard Heydrich

Help! For lack of a better term, there is a newbie user writing neo-nazi and holocaust revisionism statements on the Reinhard Heydrich article. I am about at my third revert. user is removing references to the Holocaust, deleting all info that Heydrich may have been of Jewish descent, and also stating that he was a misunderstood person who was really warm and caring. We need admins to help the reverts on this clear case of disruptive POV edits. Any help would be welcome. -Husnock 13:53, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked him for 24 hours for revert-warring. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Urban75

There is an ongoing dispute on this article. User:Ernestolynch, also editing anonymously, has continually reverted it against a consensus. Unfortunately, I have been rather drawn in to this and hoped somebody else might protect the article in order to encourage some discussion on it. Warofdreams 16:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

User:Sortan/User:CDThieme

A couple to watch out for. As soon as Sortan runs out of reverts, CDThieme reappears. The Sortan account appears to be up to little good (making edits in controversial areas) and is a likely candidate as a sockpuppet. Current best guess is CDThieme - but they're already stirring up trouble on the BC v BCE and yoghurt v yogurt front. I wouldn't be surprised if more were to follow, jguk 19:52, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

There appears to be more than one editor that is reverting you, and not all of them are Sortan or CDThieme. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

That wasn't what I was saying - I'm fully aware that there is a small number of editors making politically-motivated edits against what the community has recently decided - and you'll notice that it's not just me that's reverting them. My comment here is merely to highlight my suspicions that Sortan is a sockpuppet account, that judging by edit histories, there is a strong possibility that he is CDThieme, and that the Sortan account is not being put to good use, jguk 20:49, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

User:Jguk

Someone to watch out for. The Jguk account appears to be up to little good (making edits in controversial areas and trivial articles about cricket) and is a likely troll. Is stirring up trouble on the BC v BCE and yoghurt v yogurt front. I wouldn't be surprised if more were to follow. Has engaged in a revert war on Fu Hsi against every single other editor [9], for a total of eight reverts. Has engaged in similar actions elsewhere. Sortan 20:17, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

If it's 8 reverts, shouldn't he be blocked for 3RR violation? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:34, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Not all in a single day, but he has a habit of coming back to the same articles each day to do his reverts. Sortan 20:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Hold on, I appear to not have looked at the above section. Are you aware that your userpage shows that you are a suspected sockpupet of CDThieme? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:38, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it was added by Jguk... I'm waiting for someone to do ip checks to clear me of his accusations. Sortan 20:40, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I was advised to by someone on IRC. The edit histories show it to be a strong possibility that CDThieme and Sortan are one and the same. Certainly the Sortan account seems to have a somewhat dubious history - largely involving itself in the midst of well-known disputes. It's easy enough to get two ip's, so maybe Sortan/CDThieme's showing off that this is what he's done - but I'd be very surprised if Sortan is not a sockpuppet (and as User talk:Sortan shows, I was not the first to mention it), and CDThieme seems to be the most likely candidate, judging by edit histories and edit patterns, as noted above. Hence the heads up, jguk 20:46, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Seriously, why do you waste so much of your and other people's time reverting repeatedly on the date issue? While I agree BCE/CE is an uncommon contruction, that is used out of proportion to its real world usage, it is certainly more of a waste of time going around and reverting it everywhere. It is so much better for the project just to let it go. I'm not sure why I am wasting my time here though, since this is not an issue that requires the AN, nor do I believe you will come to your senses and stop wasting everyone's time. - Taxman ^Talk 21:07, July 26, 2005 (UTC)