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Angela Beesley

I've moved this from Talk:Angela Beesley as this is more a matter of policy than Angela's article. It seems that the reputation of a school is bing "damaged by gossip spread by Wikipedia Volunteers".

Dear Angela, Please accept my apology in advance if this is not the place to share this information. The rules of Wikipedia are such that I am personally lost with regarding to correct forums for various purposes. That being said, please forgive me, and take a few minutes to read the following:

Linda Christas, as school of over 4000 online students and over 300 faculty and counselors has been damaged by gossip spread by Wikipedia Volunteers. Our parents, faculty and students have attempted on several occasions to add Linda Christas to Wikipedia. We are a recognized effort to reform Western public and private schools. We do that by taking the aptitudes, skill levels, interests and learning style of each student PRIOR to adopting curriculum. In other words, we believe that much of the alienation found in classrooms throughout the West is a result of the West adopting the system of klaxons, bells and whistles, as well as one size fits all curricula for children as if children all matured at the same time and in the same way, such as we might find with carrots.

We feel financially damaged since one of our celebrity board members, Alison Jiear, resigned from our board as a result of Wikipedia sharing with her gossip that a true racist shared with her, gossip incidently which was just that. But, Alison's management didn't seem to care if the material was true or not. They recommended that she resign and she did.

Over and over again, we have been deleted from Wikipedia, even though Pat Boone, Efrem Zimbalist Jr, and Sue Grafton, along with pioneering surgeons, Naval officers and Fulbright scholars have endorsed the school.

We really do not wish to involve ourselves in any type of litigation. We simply want to be treated fairly with a permanent entry on Wikipedia. Surely this isn't asking too much given the treatment our students, faculty and parents have been subject to thus far from Wikipedia volunteers.

Please keep in mind that Linda Christas is oppposing a one size fits all monolith supported by hundreds of billions of education dollars each year. We do not collect any public money, and it is safe to say that we are outmatched by public sector power. If we cannot even be recognized by a liberal organization such as Wikipedia, we certainly are doomed.

Ronald F. Bernard, Dean, Linda Christas www.lindachristas.org

The following was the note I received from a Wikipedia volunteer after my protest of the latest deletion.

Dear Ronald Bernard, Thank you for your mail. Ronald Bernard <rbernard@lindas.com> wrote:

> 
> *Dear Wikipedia,
>
> It has been brought to our attention by Alison Jiear that someone at
> Wikipedia has been reading IP addresses and misinterpreting them as
> coming from the same computer9s).
>
> Our servers process e-mails from over 4,000 students and their families
> daily.
>
> One of the things we ask of all our students and faculty is they use the
> school's servers so we will have a record of daily activities at the
> school similar to a brick and mortar institution.
> 
> That means, of course that the IP addresses will be similar for all
> e-mails processed through the school's servers.
>
> So many people believe that they are computer literate and most are, but
> reading  IP addresses to uncover dishonesty is not demonstrative of very
> much.
>
> That Linda Christas must continually fight for any recognition is a
> mystery to our faculty and our students.
>
> I see that once again, Linda Christas International School has been
> eliminated from Wikipedia, when brick and mortar kindergartens with
> enrollments of as few as 25 are maintained.
>
> With over 4,000 students world wide and 312 licensed counselors and
> credentialed teachers, someone or some-many are not being fair with our
> School.
>
> And, we do not know what to do about that.
>
> Any counsel you may wish to share with us regarding how we can maintain
> a listing for Linda Christas would be very much appreciated.
> 
> Our best,
>
> Ronald F. Bernard
> Dean
> Linda Christas*> 

I'm sorry to hear your experience with Wikipedia has been frustrating.Articles on Wikipedia are deleted according to our Deletion Policy:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy>. If your article was deleted by an administrator without a discussion, thatmeans the article probably met one of the criteria for Speedy Deletionoutlined here:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion> If yourarticle was speedy deleted, this may be because it was extremely short orbecause it did not provide information about why its subject was notableenough for inclusion in an encyclopedia. If your article was deleted after a debate on "articles for deletion"(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion>), it isbecause members of the community decided that your article was for some reasonunsuitable for inclusion; possible reasons include being not verifiable fromoutside sources, or because it was a page on a person, group, or idea that isnot sufficiently well-known for an encyclopedia article. If you believe after reading the deletion policy that your article wasunfairly deleted, you can ask the administrator who deleted the article for afuller explanation. (You can find out which admin deleted the article bysearching for your article title in the deletion log at<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete>.) If after an explanationyou still believe the deletion was unfair, you can bring up the article atDeletion Review (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review) wherethe community can take another look to see if the article was deleted inerror. For more guidance on how to write a Wikipedia article, you might find thenewcomers' guide to writing Wikipedia articles helpful:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Your_first_article> The Tutorial is also a good reference for help on all aspects of Wikipediaediting: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial> I hope this helps, and I'm sorry for any trouble this has caused you. Yours sincerely,Michelle Kinney -- Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org---Disclaimer: all mail to this address is answered by volunteers, and responsesare not to be considered an official statement of the Wikimedia Foundation.For official correspondence, you may contact the site operators at<http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>.71.142.242.201 00:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The AfD was full of spa's and sockpuppetting, with several of the spas having been proven to be from the same IP address. There were zero independent sources for any of the claims, including that the named individuals are really members of the board. Despite repeated requests for verification, none was forthcoming. If you want to take it to DRV, you may certainly do so, but more sockpuppeting there will do no good, and you should read WP:SNOW. If you feel the need to take legal action, please contact the Wikipedia legal representation, but threats here will only lead to any accounts making such threats being blocked. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm somewhat confused by the claims in this. It seems to assert being damaged by gossip and "result of Wikipedia sharing with her gossip that a true racist shared with her". Yet I'd woukd have thought that gossip would be pointed to, so it could be sorted out. Instead it just stays as just vague claim, the fact that their isn't an article means this "gossip" can't be there, nor does the AFD appear to contain "gossip". The second sentence makes no sense, who was it who told the gossip Wikipedia or this "true racist"? Or is the suggestion that this "true racist" said that wikipedia contained gossip? Regardless of that I can't see how Wikipedia containing an article on the subject would solve this problem. --pgk 09:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

From what I can gather in the deleted talk page comments there were apparently things said on other sites which they are attributing to 'Wikipedia volunteers'. They describe these 'off-Wikipedia' comments as negative/biased against them, but don't provide any actual links that I saw. In any case, the extreme 'ranting quotient' in all of this does make it rather hard to follow. I'd expect an educational group to be capable of presenting a better / more coherent case... and thus find the whole thing rather questionable. There continues to be no evidence that this group has ever been mentioned in a reliable third party source... or even that it IS a 'group' rather than a web-page set up by one person. Maybe they exist and do something noteworthy... but if that were the case you'd expect to be able to easily find evidence of it - or that they would be able to provide such. --CBD 12:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, during the AfD I attempted to contact the board members listed on the Christas site. Here is the email I sent to one of their managers:

---

Hello,

Rich Fife here with a question about <listed board member>.

I am doing some work investigating an organization called "Linda Christas" and I am trying to determine if <listed board member> is in fact on their board. Here is their page:

http://www.lindachristas.org/board.htm

Are they a member of their board? If so, what is their role? Thanks!

-- Rich Fife --

---

I feel it's a fair and neutral email. They replied in a non-committal way, and I replied as follows:

---

I'm working on an article about the Linda Christas organization for the Wikipedia online encyclopedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

The article in question is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Christas_International_School

There's considerable question as to their legitimacy, and one of their claims is that you are a member of their advisory board of directors per this website here:

http://www.lindachristas.org/board.htm

All I really need is a quick "Yes, that's me. I've been working with them to do <X>" and it will help the discussion out quite a bit.

Thanks a lot!

-- Rich Fife --

---

The member in question replied that they had been contacted by them after seeing a performance and asked if they wanted to be a board member. They said sure, why not? And that is pretty much the last they heard about it. They asked me if there were any issues they should be aware of. I explained as follows:

---

Thanks for your reply!

The answer is, as most things in life are, complex. The question I've been working on is "Is Linda Christas of sufficient profile to be listed on Wikipedia?" The answer is seems to be no.

Operative word "seems".

You have my permission to stop reading this as soon is it gets too arcane. Wikipedia isn't your problem, I realize.

The weird thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can add anything to it, but then the other contributors ("editors") can then change it or decide to remove it. An article on Linda Christas was added, then removed after a discussion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Linda_Christas

The author put it back, then it was removed and banned from reinstatement. The author put it back under a different name here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Christas_International_School

and then added unrelated mentions to dozens of unrelated articles all over the place like so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_Financial_Officers_Association&oldid=81335356

Causing much consternation. Discussion of removal of the second page starts here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Linda_Christas_International_School

I, naive person that I am, stumble in late while this is going on. Here's a point you should be aware of: Wikipedia has a way of determining whether a particular contribution has come from the same computer as another contribution (all computers have addresses on the internet just like houses have adresses on the street). All of the contributions to the discussion in favor of keeping the article save one (from TruthBringerToronto) have come from the same computer, but they are signed as if they come from more than ten different people. One person is pretending to be many people in order to swing the discussion in their favor. As you can imagine, this is a major faux pas.

Anyway, oddly enough, that's not the real issue. The real issue is that Linda Christas makes many claims that SHOULD have easily accessible means of verification, but no verification is forthcoming. They claim to have schools in China and Poland, but refuse to disclose where they are or how to get in touch with them. How can they possibly have any students? The list goes on and on.

Anyway, one of the high mucky mucks (I'm just a plebe with pretensions) finally decided they'd had enough and banned any newbie users from participating in the discussion, which shut the discussion down.

And that's the story as far as Wikipedia goes. Sorry you asked?

Here's a blog entry about another man's strange encounter:

http://ramblingtaoist.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_ramblingtaoist_archive.html

Here's them trying to shut him up:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=1884

And here's their homepage:

http://www.lindachristas.org/

I'd like to mention this email exchange on the discussion page, but I don't want to name you without your permission. There is a possibility that bringing your name into the discussion will cause the whole thing to pop up when people enter your name into Google (Google really likes Wikipedia for some reason). I can refer to you indirectly or simply as "someone on the list".

Thanks so much!

-- Rich Fife --

p.s. <Compliment>

p.p.s. You have a Wikipedia article here:

<redacted>

Anything you'd like added? Is there a headshot you'd give permission to use? I (or someone else) should do it. You're not supposed to edit your own.

---

It turns out they are quite internet savvy and knew exactly what a IP addresses and sockpuppets are. They contacted Christas directly and received all manner of replies from different email accounts coming from the same IP address, which did not leave a good impression. Either they were being astroturfed or Christas was sharing their email address with lots of people. They asked to have their name removed. - Richfife 21:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

---

I am bringing this back from a previous deletion as it relates to a controversy that has involved legal threats from Linda Christas towards Wikipedia (see above) and should probably remain on the record. - Richfife 16:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

---

THERE IS NO GOSSIP BEING SPREAD BY WIKIPEDIA VOLUNTEERS!!!! Dear Angela, Having just removed myself as a board member at Linda Christas, I hoped that I could forget about the school, but I am angered to find that I am now being grossely misquoted, and I am not going to remain silent.

I would very much like to elaborate on what Mr. Bernard has said below regarding my resignation as a board member of Linda Christas. Firstly, the truth of the matter is that I received a perfectly polite email from someone, on behalf of Wikipedia, asking me if I would kindly verify that I was on the board of Linda Christas. Simple, straightforward. I replied saying that yes, I was on the board, and that was the end of that. It was at this point however that I did wonder why I was being asked to verify my involvement, & realised that although I had accepted the Mr Bernard's invitation to be on the board (only months earlier), I really knew very little about the school. This I felt in hindsight was irresponsible on my part, and so decided to do a little digging and just make sure that I was happy with my decision to remain on the board. Unfortunately, I discovered various "chats / articles" about the school, which were not exactly complimentary. I also came across information that indicated that various contributions to Wikipedia all came from the same i.p.address, but under different contributors names. It all started to unsettle me. As a Patron for a very well respected charity in the UK, in which I actively participate in fundraising, I was angry with myself for not seeking this information earlier, before agreeing to "put my name" to it, and I considered contacting Mr Bernard to discuss removing myself as a board member. It is true that after putting feelers out, I received 2 private "comments" on my website from someone who was obviously not a supporter of the Linda Christas school, but this person was not from Wikipedia, and I NEVER told Mr. Bernard that they were. Mr Bernard states that "Wikipedia shared with her gossip that a true racist shared with her".... ALL LIES. Wikipedia only contacted me to verify that I was a board member, and that was all.

For him to say that a "racist" had shared information with me is incorrect. How curious then, to receive two emails, post resignation from two other persons I'd never heard of who were "connected" to the school( though strangely they came from the Dean's ip address, and it appears the same computer also ) suggesting that "if you really don't care about inter-racial harmony or children, then you will follow the path of least resistance" and resign. As a mother, and a supporter of various causes, I was deeply insulted, and their emails only confirmed that I did not wish to have anything further to do with these people, and to find that I am now being misquoted, just enfuriates me. They are trying to use my resignation as "fuel on their Wikipedia fire"... How the school can say that they have suffered financially from having me remove myself from their "school" is a joke, and beyond my comprehension. I was on the board for less than two months. Critereia for becoming a board member... all the school did was email me and invite me to be on the board, I said yes without looking into it, they stuck my photo and name on their list of board members, and I never heard from them again, until I emailed them asking to be removed, and now the mud is flying. For all I know the school may be completely above board... I will never know, but if the way I have been treated is any indication of their ethics and christian ways, I regret ever having been involed with this organisation. Alison JiearAlisonjiear 09:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

10 year old user with detailed information on userpage

User:Ujjwal Krishna states where he lives and even has a photograph of himself on his userpage. This obviously comes under WP:CHILD. Thought I should bring it to someone's attention. — AnemoneProjectors (talk) 21:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 03:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

No. Not done. If I can still see the information, others can as well. Please, please, can people dealing with things like this get the process right. (1) Remove the information from immediate view; (2) Contact someone who can permanently remove the information; (3) Don't shout about it on a publically accessible noticeboard. Seriously. Shout about it publically all you like after the appropriate edits have been oversighted, but not before. In fact, someone should put a header up at the top of the page stating this: DO NOT PUBLICISE SENSITIVE ITEMS REQUIRING OVERSIGHT ACTIONS BY LINKING TO THEM. I know I'm WP:BEANing on this, but this point needs to be made forcefully. Carcharoth 05:07, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Not a wise thing to do by user, and Zscout370's action appreciated, but let's be aware that WP:CHILD is the subject of an arbitration case as to whether it has been rejected or is still proposed, or maybe even accepted. So let's be careful using it as a justification for edits. 157.191.14.26 18:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

So it's at ArbCom now? Hmm..didn't know that. All I removed was just the name, where he lives, where he goes to school and the photo he used. The user wasn't blocked and I won't ask for one either. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 18:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You do realise that what is needed here is Wikipedia:Oversight? The actions taken so far have done almost nothing to protect anyone. If anything, this thread has made a problem visible and has helped reveal a potential target. The picture has been deleted though. Carcharoth 01:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The information is still visible. Can someone please delete the relevant revision. Carcharoth 21:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Now dealt with. Carcharoth 02:10, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

New block option

I just noticed a new option in the block screen: we can choose not to autoblock IPs used by the blocked user. Sounds like a handy tool, but of course we won't know in advanced who is using AOHell so perhaps not as handy as it first looks. Guy 00:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds great, but doesn't the autoblock go poof as soon as you switch IPs anyways? Or is that just when the IP itself is directly blocked? Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 00:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This should be used sparingly, otherwise most blocks will end up being meaningless ("We don't want you to edit from this account for 24 hours! But feel free to create a new one.") As we don't know who's using AOL (even the vandals who claim they are on AOL probably just want to avoid blocks), the only use for this that I see is username blocks.--Konst.able^Talk 01:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Can also be useful if we notice a bunch of autoblocks in the log- unblocking the username and reblocking without autoblock. Ral315 (talk) 01:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Exactly--it's good for username blocks. I just blocked one, and got to use the option for the first time, and it's a particularly good example: [1].

We may not use this option every day but I can see it being useful. Antandrus (talk) 03:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Uh, maybe it's different here, but the change on wikibooks was to allow blocking of all IPs that were used by a particular account (we didn't have that before). This tool has a great capacity for doing collateral damage, since it's essentially a step beyond "not allowing account creation"... if I understand it correctly, it means that any registered user will not be able to edit if they're using that IP, which is a serious problem for schools, AOL, etc. --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 17:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

autoblocks have long been a feature of mediawiki so I would have thought applied to wikibooks as much as it did here. The new option allows you to explicitly stop autoblocks happening. Whilst you are correct there is the potential for collateral damage (the reason this option to swith off was developed), it also stops the create an account, be a m:Dick get blocked, create another account, rinse and repeat cycle. --pgk 17:42, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The checkbox is marked "Automatically block IP addresses used by this user", and refers to autoblocks, which happened automatically before. By unchecking it, autoblocks won't be placed. Ral315 (talk) 01:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

User:CommandoM

CommandoM has been adding pictures of upskirts and downblouses claiming that the pictures are pictures of the user and have tagged the pics as such. I think that at the moment the pictures should be removed until we know that these pictures really are of the user. Gdo01 04:13, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

As I read the license assertions, the uploader claims that the photos are by the uploader, not of the uploader. So they are validly under GFDL. Secondary to that, there may be a privacy issue of consent of the subject of the photo, but none of them include faces or are otherwise identifiable. Talk:Upskirt indicates there is an ongoing discussion on User_talk:CommandoM. I don't see a necessity for admin action in the meantime; others may disagree. --MCB 22:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Massive sockfarm

In the past few months, there was a lot of edit warring concerning fair use images in Pokémon articles centered around the user Bobabobabo (talk · contribs) (who has recently been blocked and banned). A full list of usernames can be seen at User:Interrobamf/Bobabobabo. Several are blocked already, as are the IPs, but there are some that remain unblocked, as this user amassed 75 discovered sockpuppet accounts.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You may want to ask for a checkuser to track down any others. JoshuaZ 05:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

He did - how do you think he found them ;) Raul654 05:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, since I made that edit I noticed. Most of them seem to be pretty obvious socks anyways. I've blocked about 10 of them. I don't know how many are left. In any event, I support a community ban. JoshuaZ 05:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

In the past, she's edit warred over a lot of things, but her latest obsession is messing with Interrobamf's page, reuploading Image:PokeAG191.jpg, Image:Satoshi and Haruka contest winners.jpg, and Image:TheIceCave.JPG, and making cut-and-paste duplicates of merged Pokémon episode articles (visible in Category:Pokémon episodes; if there's a name with ugly caps or unnecessary parentheticals, she made a new sock). In the past, she's edit warred over reinserting unnecessary images into Togepi, Bulbasaur, and Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys and reuploading this godawful ugly collage of Legend of Zelda covers to Image:LegendofZeldaseries.JPG.

I've tried to talk to her, to get her to concentrate on productive edits, but at this point (after her little foray with a dozen or so socks this morning) my patience is exhausted. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

User:74.78.65.143 needs to be deleted, as Bobabobabo was impersonating this IP to (poorly) throw off accusations of sockpuppetry. Interrobamf 05:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

All should be done with (unless there are those that were missed) and Centrx put a banned template on Bobabobabo's user page.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I've checked them all; all are indefinitely blocked. Interrobamf 05:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

And Bobabobabo emailed me claiming that only four of the usernames were actually hers, the text is as follows:

Thanks alot you meany head

I'm 13 years old

Those user names are not mine. My IP is a school IP. My User names are only

1. Bobabobabo
2. Yugigx60
3. Mewtwo4
4. Taiyou-BitetheLung

So stop speading lies!

And I also received this email from LordPrincess:

May you mind telling why I'm blocked. My IP is 208.101.35.51. I don't even konw what Sockpuppetery is. So may you please tell a adminsator to unblock me.

—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, I got a similar email from Lordprincess but with a different phrasing. see my comment on Raul's page. I'm particularly curious as to why LordPrincess would choose to email us two if she was blocked by Raul and had no interaction with either of us. JoshuaZ 05:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I did tag her page, but Raul has told me (privately) that both are full of bull. Both are residential cable modems.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't say all of them are cable modems, but the one that the vast, vast majority of them originated from is clearly a road runner residential cable modem. Raul654 05:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

208.101.35.51 is used by LordPrincess, as seen here. It's probably a school or public access IP. It's still pretty apparent that LordPrincess is Bobabobabo, because, out of the blue, she places indefblocked templates on user pages, something her sockpuppet did before, and says how great everybody, that Bobabobabo had troubles with, is, despite never coming in contact with those people. Interrobamf 05:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Princiess is telling the truth that 208.101.35.51 is an IP address she has used; however, it's not the only one. Raul654 05:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Figured that. Thanks for the help. Interrobamf 05:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I have also received an email from the Princess, with whom I have never dealt. I s/he just going down the list of admins and emailing all of us? She should be blocked for spamming, if that's the case. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Aaaand, I got an email from User:Woopert with an unblock request, a long list of pages to be protected, and a short list of admins to be blocked (User:A Man in Black, specifically.) Wonder how s/he picked me? Or are we going to see 997 other admins reporting similar emails.... FreplySpang 05:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, she also emailed OTRS to get me blocked from certain pages and to hack into AMIB's account :P—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 06:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I got the same email from Woopert (talk · contribs), claimed that the following were hers: Woopert (talk · contribs),Fabu-Vinny (talk · contribs) and Taiyou-BitetheLung (talk · contribs). Note how Bobabobabo and Woopert both claim Taiyou-BitetheLung is their account. Don't believe a word she's saying. Of course I support a full community ban.--Konst.able^Talk 07:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, right now that is the case. CSCWEM even locked User talk:Bobabobabo.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 07:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I also got an e-mail. It was a heart-wrenching story of the Pokemon gestapo cracking down on a poor child at the generically named "Learning Community School". It had good sentence structure and there was a good use of vocabulary, but it had clearly not been proofread. I give it a B-. —Centrx→talk • 17:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

My e-mail from Bobabobabo reads:

Please unblock me!! To tell you the truth, I was a wonderful contributor to articles in Wikipedia "Yu-Gi-OH and Pokemon". The story began when a user named Mitsumasa began creating and upload Pokemon images and articles. After about 5 months after the start of the articles the PCP began merging the articles (A Man in Black, Ryulong, Interrobamf) i tried talking to them, and the PCP but they did'nt listen. I gave up until recently students at my school "The Learning Community School" began bullying me, they knew that I was a contributor at the site "Wikipedia", so they told my teacher that they logged in some accounts and began vandalizing the articles that I personattly was currently having problems with you. My teacher Mrs. Lisa Mercato talked to the students Jene', Jessica, Aaron and restricted them from using the school computer. To tell you that I'm not some of those user names I merged some of the articles that i clamied I did. I'm very sorry May you please unblock me and my IP address 72.177.68.38."

(aeropagitica) 17:50, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Bobebobebo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) just popped up. Interrobamf 21:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Now indef-blocked and tagged as a sockpuppet. (aeropagitica) 21:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

75.126.40.74 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) was used, as seen by this edit. Interrobamf 22:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

And from that IP, you can add these two newly registered socks: user:Jomarjerome and user:Shadownight1 Raul654 22:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

More fun.

• From Bobabobabo (Received today at noon)
  

  Please unblock me students at my school "The Learning Community School" were bullying me, they knew that I was a conmtributor at the site "Wikipedia", so they told me that the logged in some accounts and began vandalizing the articles that I personattly was currently having problems with you. My teacher Mrs. Lisa Mercato talked to the students Jene', Jessica, Aaron and restricted them from using the school computer.

  To tell you that I'm not some of those user names I merged some of the articles that i clamied I did.

  I'm very sorry

  Please tell Centrx to unblock me.

• And from Woopert (Received at 2:30)
  

  Please don't block Bobabobobabo for what we did. I'm sorry for bullying her. It was a wrong thing for to do.

  our stupid Bitch Teacher restricted us from the computer for doing the shit.

  THe IP I used was:

  72.232.215.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), which I used on the proxy site: TNTproxy.com

  These are may sockpuppets:

  This list is on 72.177.68.38

  [Removed list of anything that's on Interrobamf's page, if you wish, email me]

  Don't be mean to Bobabobabobabo

  [Name withheld for underage reasons]

Frankly, with this mess, I don't know what should be done. Do we unblock the school IP (72.177.68.38 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)?) or should we just let the blocks stay in place for the bullshit that's gone on?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, ManjyomeThunder1 (talk · contribs) just showed up.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Now indef-blocked and sock-tagged. (aeropagitica) 23:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

ONE MORE THING, 75.126.40.74 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (used by someone in this mess) is a backslashing open proxy.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't suggest unblocking the IP, as that'd only lead to more sockpuppet accounts; Bobabobabo hasn't proven herself to be mature enough to trust. If it blocks her "school", then so be it. Interrobamf 22:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Schools that are a source of constant vandalism are often blocked, regardless of this sockpuppetry; I think all this is just a deceptive stupid ploy though. —Centrx→talk • 22:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Bobabobabo has registered a ja-wiki account at ja:利用者:Bobabobabo and it appears that she has also created an impostor account of myself as well at ja:利用者:Ryulong. I'm getting tired of this, and I was hoping I could actually edit at ja-wiki one day.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to protect the sockpuppet talk pages, as Bobabobabo keeps reverting my redirects to her main talk back to the same old "classmate" story. Interrobamf 19:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Asinine behavior ar RD

Anyone else want to try to convince the clowns at the RD that, for example, this thread is completely inappropriate? Before wading in you might want to review the history at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk and user talk:Light current. I've tried to be way more than reasonable, but apparently have only managed to piss them off. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've blanked the section (see my last edit in the history) and left a note at Light current's talk page. JoshuaZ 05:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The reference desk Humanities gets trolled consistently by the please-talk-to-me set ("blacks are stupid," "jews run everything," "women are stupid," "anyone who believes in God is stupid," "anyone who doesn't believe in God is damned"), but the volunteers have lately been giving head to the needy clowns way too often. There isn't much to do but offer up stern reminders and then hope that they take the advice. As volunteers, there isn't much coercive that can be done to or about them, nor should anything more really be necessary. Geogre 17:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

User Light current is not a random troll on the reference desk. He regularly abuses it, askes inapporpriate questions and answers serious questions with jokes. Someone really should keep an eye on his, its childish behaviour such as this that seriously hiders the usefulness of that part of the project. pschemp | talk 20:21, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What pompous nonsense! Give examples of inappropraite questions. Look at the ration of serious answers to jokey ones. Why are you picking on me. Other people use the RDs. Why didnt you also remove the preceding comment by StuRat eh?--Light current 05:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

StuRat has been nearly as bad in the past, just not this time. You both need to think before you type. pschemp | talk 06:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a serious problem. Just tonight we have more inanity and crude jokes that could be offensive to those not "in" on them. If these editors continue, I'm going to block them. Their actions are disruptive and offensive. pschemp | talk 03:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I told you that is NOT a joke. Its a short discussion on skid marks that should not offend anyone. Tell everyone how these posts disrupt anything. I would think VERY carefully before I took unjustified and unsustainable actions. I get the impression now that Im being Wikistalked by pschemp. Please desist.--Light current 05:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Seriously how many people need to tell you to knock it off for you to listen? - Taxman ^Talk 06:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Knock what off? What am I being accused of? I am not trying to be offensive to anyone and thread was serious. You must come up with a violation of some rule. Otherwise you are just making up policies to suit yourselves. Please tell me specifically where I am violating policy.--Light current 17:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Raul654

Raul654 has been systematically ignoring my requests for him to explain why he shut my FAC on Bereishit (parsha) after only 4 days, when, having spent three of those days pleading for my opposers to reply promptly, I was actually in the middle of addressing objections. I wrote to him here, and have left two other messages since, but despite replying to many other users who have posted after me, Raul refuses to reply.

I think this is very unfair, particularly I am genuinely seeking an explanation for something I do not understand. Raul, as FA director, is in a position of great power, and I feel frustrated that he will not explain his seemingly arbitrary actions. What can I do? Dev920 (check out this proposal) 11:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bereishit (parsha)? The history for that page indicates no edits by Raul654 at all. —Psychonaut 11:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Raul654 closed the FA nom here. I see nothing wrong with that, as the article is clearly far from FA standard, as it is still mostly a summary with very little discussion of real-world recption, influence, and context. There seems to be more work to do than can be easily done while the article is on FAC. Kusma (討論) 12:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please don't get into semantics. There is no influence on a work allegedly dictated by God. I countered that on the FAC page,and was in the process of acquiring expert help to explain and/or suggest what could be done. And Raul shut it, as I was addressing objections, after I had spent days trying to coax responses from people whose opposes I had dealt with. The issue here is not the article, (which I do believe is FA standard or I would not have nominated it), but the fact that Raul has persistently refused to reply to my messages to explain his actions, which I find, frankly, to be an abuse of power. Wikipedia is about collaboration, not control, why will Raul not work with me? What can I do? Dev920 (check out this proposal) 12:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This isn't an admin matter, and doesn't belong on this noticeboard. Wikipedia admins can block people, protect pages, move pages over redirects, delete pages, and merge histories. None of these apply in this case. All we can do is, to a limited degree, enforce policy. It seems there is no policy regarding the FAC process - the community has, in essence, appointed Raul as a benign dictator in that regard. As far as I can tell he can promote or demote any article he wants to, for whatever arbitrary reason he desires. It's not up to admins to tell him how to operate the FAC process; it's not our business. If you don't like that, you need to get the community to agree to a policy for us to enforce. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the fact that Raul totally ignored Dev920 messages is downright rude. --Alex (Talk) 21:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, but administrators are not the manners police. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

But admins may have to block people for being rude and incivil. It is logical that they should avoid this behaviour themselves (and ignoring a message is rude). I currently have some ignored messages on a blocking issue. I'm waiting a few days for a response before bringing it here. I check that the users in question have recently edited, and I also also notify them when I take a question somewhere else, in case they have forgotten about the original message. Carcharoth 08:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I came to this page looking for help as to what I can do. The fact that I've basically been informed that Raul is a dictator who can do what he likes without any kind of redress is terrible! Only Jimbo has that right, and he at least explains his actions. This isn't right. Dev920 (check out this proposal) 10:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

This isn't even an encyclopedia article, let alone a featured article. It's just a straight summary of the Book of Genesis. —Centrx→talk • 08:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Take it to the talkpage please. I'm talking about Raul, not the relative merits or otherwise of the article(because I blatantly disagree with you but am not prepared to argue about it here). Dev920 (check out this proposal) 10:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Calling him a "benign dictator" is a personal attack and does not help your case whatsoever. If he's guilty of being rude to you, you're even more guilty of personal attacks. – Chacor 10:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

(Well, to be fair, a "benign dictator" is not necessarily seen as a bad thing in volunteer communities. See Benevolent dictator. It's not clear that Dev920 understands that, though.). — Matt Crypto 10:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Technically it was me that called him a "benign dictator" first. I think, however, that we should stop calling him that, as I suspect he'll rather like it, and demand some kind of special hat to go with it. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Finlay - as usual, you made me laugh out loud. Raul654 08:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you're overreacting, Dev920. Raul654 not answering you is a minor slight. While that may be impolite, you should probably just get over it. It's really not a world-shattering "abuse of power" nor a "terrible" instance of malevolent dictatorship. Raul has a reputation for doing a good job with FAC. You're troubling the entire adminship (and now Jimbo) with complaints that are out of proportion. — Matt Crypto 10:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

But Benign Dictator is the term used by admin in this very thread and I'm guessing that's where she has taken that term from. Lots of people use FA status as a guide to writing their articles, I'm not sure I like how it's explained here - that's it's the kingdom of one person and if editors don't like how they run it - tough. I think some of the responses here have been downright odd. --Charlesknight 11:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, for something to fail to achieve featured article status, all that is required is for the regulars at WP:FAR WP:FAC to raise valid objections that aren't addressed after a period of time (about a week). In this case, there are objections that haven't been addressed. See the FAR page for details. Carcharoth 14:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly my point. People had raised valid objections, and I was addressing them. They did not reply as rapidly as I did and so the process was delayed. In any case, Raul shut the FAC after just 4 days. How does that give me any time to address objections?

Additionally, how can I be overreacting when there is no process for redress if Raul does something I strongly feel is out step with procedure? There is no proportion because there is no procedure. Maybe you don't think that Raul making an autocratic unaccountable decision an abuse of power, but I do, and you have no right to be condescending to me because you are an admin and I am not. Excuse me for troubling "the adminship" with a valid concern, but "users seeking help will often turn to an administrator for advice and information. In general, administrators acting in this role are neutral", and I somewhat expected people to weigh up what I was saying rather than come down on Raul's side because he's "has a reputation". So did Ed Poor. Dev920 (check out this proposal) 18:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point though. Although Raul does make the final decision, the people you have to convince are the people commenting at WP:FAC. It probably would be best for Raul to use an edit summary when removing articles from the candidate list, and when adding them to the archive for that month. But if every editor involved in an article nominated at WP:FAC questioned his decisions, then the process would stall. You can safely assume, without asking him, that he removed it because, based on the comments received so far, the article's nomination was not going to be successful. Do carry on improving this article, or try improving other articles, and try again. Or work on implementing the proposal you are working on. That will be more productive than pursuing this complaint. Finally, as the admins in this thread have said (and I'm not an admin), this is not really a matter for the administators' noticeboard. Try Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates next time, if you still feel aggrieved. Carcharoth 18:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

But I was convincing them. I was in the process of convincing them, editing to their objections etc. The article was progressing smoothly, and after 4 days, the FAC was shut. Are you seriously saying that 4 days is enough time? You said a week was sufficient above! Maybe the process would stall if Raul had to explain himself to everyone, but not everyone would question his decision. You have given me good suggestions on that FAC which I will use, but I'm still going to file that RfC, and I sincerely hope that this is the final time Raul does this (because he did in fact do it with Jake Gyllenhaal's first FAC as well - which I nominated three days later and it passed with 100% support). I think some sort of policy defining the FA director's election, role, and limitations would be in order as well, at some point. Dev920 (check out this proposal) 19:19, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

If there actually is marked improvement in the article after a few weeks, can it not be re-nominated? —Centrx→talk • 19:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. But the issue was, Jake Gyllenhaal was fundamentally the same both FACs - again, I couldn't get opposers to reply fast enough for Raul, who closed it at 4-2 support. The second around, the opposers never showed up, so it passed at 2-0 support. Dev920 (check out this proposal) 19:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Only 2-0? I wouldn't shout that out too loudly, as in a few months someone might take the article to WP:FAR and it could get defeatured. Indeed, from what I've read at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Jake_Gyllenhaal, I would say that the removal of the candidate and its subsequent renomination is rather unorthodox. You might be pushing it to try the same thing with Bereishit (parsha). I'd concentrate on keeping Jake Gyllenhaal at the level it is at, or even trying to improve it, rather than kick up a fuss about Bereishit (parsha). The other thing is not to obsess about process. Articles do pass WP:FAC if enough work is done on them. And standards are extremely high, so it is no insult for an article to fail. Just keep working on it, and come back in a few months if there has been substantial improvement. Carcharoth 23:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Most editors' standards are way in excess of what WP:FA? actually says. They've built it up into the Holy Grail so much they're losing sight of the original criteria, I think.Dev920 (check out this proposal) 10:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyone, not just Raul, can close a FAC that stands no chance (per WP:SNOW and WP:NOT a bureaucracy). I review FACs on a fairly regular basis & would have been sorely tempted to close Bereishit (parsha) myself - it is a long way from satisfying WP:WIAFA. Sure, Raul should have replied but he's under no obligation to do so & he's a busy guy from what I gather. Mikker ^(...) 00:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, thankyou very much for that damning but completely unhelpful piece of criticism. If you feel that it is sooooooooo bad, why don't you add suggestions to the FAC like Carcharoth did? Dev920 (check out this proposal) 10:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

And Raul has now responded on Dev920's talk page. So that should be the end of this thread! :-) Carcharoth 02:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

He has, I accept, case closed. Dev920 (check out this proposal) 10:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Emmalina

So I've been going back and forth with User:JzG on this, and, while I have no doubts about his good faith in his actions and our discussion, I would very much like a neutral, uninvolved party to review what's gone on the last week and get some sort of motion on this.

Emmalina is a YouTube gal who's been the subject of multiple news stories. There were a number of AfD's, the third that was closed somewhat bizarrely as delete, and unfortunately upheld at DRV and turned into a redirect to Notable YouTube memes. When that was deleted, a second DRV occurred, with a number of people changing their positions based on the deletion. The vote count (see why DRV shouldn't be a straight vote?) was dead even, so Xoloz "played King Solomon" and left the deletion, but unprotected the redirect. Since that redirect, we had one anon try and resurrect the information outright, and a discussion was occurring before JzG decided to simply protect the redirect, essentially stopping discussion dead in its tracks.

Whether I think it's the right move to eventually keep the redirect in place is irrelevant (I think the original delete close didn't take our guidelines into effect at all), but it's obvious that consensus changed and the DRV closing reflected that. The protected redirect is helping nothing, and stifling the discussion to actually come to a consensus in light of the new events. I have no problem with rolling with what the consensus ends up coming to amongst the editors, but that would require us to be able to without this sort of intervention. I'm noting this at JzG's talk page so he can toss in his two cents, but I'd appreciate some neutral review on this. Thanks. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Q. How does a protected redirect prevent further discussion?--Doc^g 14:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It's stifling it. What's the point of discussion if nothing's going to come of it, for instance. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

But how is it 'stifling' the debate. Perhaps something or nothing will come of is - but there's no need to beggar the question.--Doc^g 16:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how requesting some neutral input into the action is begging the question. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Asking for neutral input into the discussion isn't - but insisting that the protected redirect is removed prior to the conclusion of that discussion is. It doesn't need removed unless the discussion reaches that conclusion. It only needs removed now if you assuming the outcome of the discussion is to remove it - that's beggaring the question.--Doc^g 18:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[De-indent for interpolation.] Um, the expression is "begging the question". But "beggaring the question" is a nice eggcorn. Metamagician3000 00:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, given that I believe that he protection has effectively stifled debate, and was put in against what the DRV closing was, I disagree. Hopefully we can focus on the actual issue at hand whether than quesitoning whether I'm "beggaring the question." --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

But you are still not explaining how protecting a page stifles debate. You aren't debating on the protected page, are you? The talk page isn't protected, is it? Go debate. If the result is a consensus to undo the direct then fine. If not, then the question doesn't arise. I still don't understand why you are on this page with this. If you want community input into a debate then there is RfC or DRV.--Doc^g 19:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that on a strictly path-of-least-resistance standpoint, you could always (1) start a discussion on the Emmalina talk page, (2) create a working copy in a sandbox off the Emmalina talk page, and (3) solicit some participation or discussion through appropriate RFCs, etc. If you end up with a well cited page in the sandbox and a consensus on the talk page to un-redirect, you'll have a much better case to re-open. TheronJ 18:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, there already exists one in the history. The article has been through some rather bizarre discussions the last few weeks, and the sourcing and attention is in line with similar articles with similar notability (geriatric1927 comes to mind). We're actively abandoning our guidelines on this one (which we're prone to do), and I'd honestly rather see a new AfD with the lack of a notable YouTube memes article happen than the current situation - then we can ahve the protected redirect knowing it's a real consensus, and not just one person deciding they don't like the DRV result. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, wacky. I can't say I wouldn't have closed the 3rd AfD as delete - in borderline cases, the admin has to use their judgment, and Deizio's judgment was delete. It looks like Xoloz's intention was to "see what happens", and what happened was the article was recreated. On the other hand, it is extremely suspect that it happened to be recreated by an anon whose only edit, ever, was to recreate the article. The main problem I have is that JzG's reprotection basically ignored process and made a spot judgment on the article's notability. He didn't explain the protection on the article talk page, and his conversation with Badlydrawnjeff is debating the notability of the article, not really explaining his action. I would be in favor of unprotecting and respecting Xoloz's DRV closure, but I think JzG's impurt would be valued here. --Aguerriero (talk) 19:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be useful, and I'd like him to give it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

A very important clarification. The redirect was not to Notable Youtube memes, it was to Youtube. Deiz has explained (multiple times) that the existence of the Notable Youtube memes article played no part in the decision to delete the article [2][3][4]. As I have explained as well, the Notable Youtube memes article was created during the Emmalina AfD, was then AfD'ed itself almost immediately and quickly gained an overwhelming consensus to delete. This was two days before the Emmalina AfD was closed; basing the decision on the existence of Notable Youtube memes would have been very wrong, as that article was well on its way to deletion as well. WarpstarRider 22:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The existence of Notable YouTube memes largely contributed to how at least 3 people based their opinions at the DRV. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

• Rationale as stated several times: the consensus was not to have a separate article, notable YouTube memes got deleted so we should have a section on notable memes in YouTube and see where it goes. If it gets too big it can be forked. But we should stick to what is verifiable, factual information, and not fall prey to the ludicrous fandom which is so common in this kind of article. In other words, we do the same as we did with YTMND, where we leave it to their wiki to do the original research "look at this, k3wl" crap which causes so much trouble with neutrality, verifiability, sourcing and other WP policies and guidelines. And to be honest I am just the tiniest bit pissed off with endless wrangling about subjects which have no sources which meet our guidelines, which are trivially easy to find out about from the original source, which is still on the web. I did not think we were intended to be a mirror of Google or indeed YouTube. Guy 23:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Jose(Cha-Cha)Jimenez

Moved at Jayjg's suggestion to WP:AN/I#User:Jose(Cha-Cha)Jimenez. - Jmabel | Talk 23:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

recently returned from lengthy absence, is there anything I need to know?

. . .specifically, before I start using my admin powers for anything more than deleting a bunch of my old subpages. I stopped paying attention to all the behind-the-scenes goings-on in April or May of this year; since that time, have there been any significant technical modifications made to the admin buttons? Have there been any significant changes in the mores and customs surrounding the use of those buttons? Any landmark incidents or decisions I ought to review? The policies are their usual bureaucratic selves, and delving through six months of history on multiple heavily-edited pages to figure out what's a significant shift and what's a narrow agenda would be a nightmare, so any brief summaries or pointers would be appreciated. thanks in advance. —Charles P._(Mirv) 07:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• There are new options for blocking; anon only and account creation enable/disable (which show all the time but only affect IP blocks) which have the effect you would think they do, and allow rangeblocks and longer IP blocks with less collateral damage; and disable autoblock (which only works with user name blocks) which is mainly useful for blocking vandal username violations (so that someone on AOL can't make a denial of service attack by registering a bunch of vandalistic user names).
• There have been major change to Speedy Deletion (WP:CSD) expanding the kinds of articles and images can be speedy deleted.
• More community-imposed permabans, and an attempt to start Wikipedia:Community probation.
• The 3RR applies to any 4 reverts in a day, not just 4 reverts of the same text
• Oversight can hide edits that disclose personal or libelous info even from admins; see WP:RFO, requests should be made on the mailing list.

What else? Thatcher131 07:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Nice summary! :-) Do you want to write the potted history of Wikipedia policies? Actually, that was a joke, but now I think about it, a brief overview of the history might be useful. What have the major changes been since the project started, and are they documented anywhere other than in megabytes of talk pages and page histories? Carcharoth 07:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Forgot WP:DENY. Thatcher131 13:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Image undeletion is also possible now, as of June 16 I think. I don't think all active admins even know about it yet, I get the impression a lot of admins shun image deletion like the plague still... --Sherool (talk) 13:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Copyrighted items can be speedied now without going through WP:CP. User:Zoe|(talk) 00:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarifying Thatcher's above, for 3RR the edits still need to be on the same article. JoshuaZ 01:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure that was how I was inforceing it over a year ago.Geni 02:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, you can take a look at the archives of the Wikipedia Signpost and see any significant stories each week. Even if you don't read the articles themselves (although I encourage you to do so), the headlines themselves should give you a good idea of what's been happening. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• There was a brief attempt to list such things at Wikipedia:Changelog, but it never really caught on. >Radiant<

• Some observations: WP:BLP is enforced more strongly, and I think more of us pay attention to it than before; most serious content contributors use inline cites now, and in general we are much tighter about our sourcing and referencing than, say, a year ago; I see more and quicker blocks for personal attacks and gross incivility (fine by me); Zoe makes a good point--we kill copyvios more quickly than before, whether they're brand new articles or just additions to existing ones; overall I think our standards have climbed a bit. Antandrus (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gundagai editors

This case is now closed and the results have been published at the link above.

The anonymous Gundagai editor is banned from editing Wikipedia for one year. All blocks to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Gundagai editors#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 18:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of ifd tags

I submitted one image for deletion, as I am confident it is a copyright violation. The uploader, whom I notified to the submission, is keeping on removing the ifd tag from the image page (but the submission is still at AID), claiming that the tagging is "vandalism" and "bad faith nomination" (we had some content disputes in the past).

What should I do? Is the nomination still valid, even if I can't restore the ifd tag because of 3RR?

The image is Image:Ottl ima 010805.jpg, the user User:Kingjeff.

Thanks.--Panarjedde 18:44, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing IfD tags is vandalism, and reverting vandalism does not count towards 3RR, so feel free to revert such actions (it would be helpful to also leave a note on the user's page to let them know that such a revert is not counted as contributing to a 3RR violation). _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 18:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of comments from talk pages/discussions

Is it possible to remove another users' comments from a talk page/discussion? Like in this, this, and this case? --Panarjedde 18:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It is generally not allowed to remove other people's comments from talk pages, unless they violate specific guidelines. First, if they are chat or personal communications, they can be removed (kids talking to each other on their school's mandatory article page). Second, if the comments are wholly unrelated to the article the talk page accompanies, they can be removed, with some warning (usually by an administrator, usually after mentioning it on AN or AN/I to get some agreement among the community). Finally, some people believe that one can remove personal attacks, but this is not policy, and even the suggested guideline says that any removed comment needs to be archived and a link left in its place. If you believe that your talk page comments were removed inappropriately, you really should first give the one who removed them a chance to explain. If there were no legitimate grounds, then the person who did the removal was in error, if not actually vandalizing. Geogre 03:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The instances Panarjedde has linked to are on an AMA Requests for Assistance page. Addhoc, an AMA member who answered the request, deleted the entire exchange, with the comment "this isn't a discussion forum, request for comment or mediation page. Your comments are not required" -- which renders this question moot. Tempers appear to be high in that case, & I'm hoping Addhoc can defuse the situation & help in this matter. -- llywrch 06:38, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

In other words, he felt that it violated the second instance -- that the comments were unrelated to the matter at hand -- and felt that leaving them was disruptive. That's a legitimate reason. It does look like folks are pretty hot over there. Geogre 13:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Would you be so kind to explain me why other people's comments are allowed, and mine are not? Notice that Addhoc has now accepted to leave my comments there.--Panarjedde 14:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Not too sure where to put this...

... I'm suspiscious of the articel USPS Office of Inspector General, which is blatantly copied from their office site, a .gov domain. If the OIG is part of the Federal government it's OK, but the postal service isn't and can hold copyrights.

I went to the logical place (WP:SCV), however it says its only for a bot and that I should use {{cv-unsure}}. That however states that it's only for suspicions without a source, which I have.

Does anyone know what the correct answer to either is (problem or not, and where things like this should go in the future)? Thanx. 68.39.174.238 19:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

From what I see, this applies: In practice, this means that much material on *.gov and *.mil, as well as material on some *.us web sites (such as the sites of the U.S. Forest Service), are in the public domain. Please note that not all such material is in the public domain, though. Public domain essentially means it can be copied and used anywhere, including the commercial wikipedia.Logical2u 20:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Even if it turns out to be public domain the source should still be credited. Durova 21:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The US Postal Service is not part of the US government. They've got a .gov domain because many people believe they are, but works created by the USPS are not public domain. --Carnildo 23:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

So postal workers are federal employees (IIRC), but they aren't part of the US government? Hbdragon88 02:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The U.S. Postal Service has a unique status. At some points the debate about whether it's "part of the government" or not becomes almost metaphysical. One official attempt to explain the employment status of postal employees is here. Newyorkbrad 04:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Could we be safe and just delete it? The articel isn't even named right (missing definate articel, probable improper contraction). If someone will create the page at the correct name and let me know, I'll write up a unquestionably legit articel for them. Thanx. 68.39.174.238 22:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

User: Lalli

This user has for example vandalized my user page and been incivil on talk pages [5]. --Jaakko Sivonen 23:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

AOL vandal reverting User:Hu12's edits

Need some help with this, an AOL vandal has been repeatedly reverting many of User:Hu12's edits, and it's quite aggravating to me, as I'm sure it must be to him (ex. diffs: [6], [7], [8], [9]). It's quite likely the spammer is the same as had posted personal information on my userpage from AOL, and was noted as likely through a checkuser here to be the since banned User:EinsteinEdits. As both myself and Hu12 reverted and repeatedly warned this user for his linkspam, and this vandalism started soon after that (and I know, personally, that I haven't done anything that might antagonize anyone here recently), it seems obvious to me that it's the same person doing it. I had been liaising with User:Kylu on this problem (see some messages on her talk page regarding this situation here, however it appears she has gone on Wikibreak. So I figure it's high time I come here, and ask for others to keep an eye on this AOL vandal, and especially Hu12's contributions, since they seem to be getting reverted on a daily basis. Thanks. -- SonicAD (talk) 05:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

This appears to be a thebookstandard.com-related effort. El_C 06:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, he'd been doing it before he reverted anything having to do with that website. See [10] [11], [12], and especially this, as this vandal has repeatedly reverted (probably more than any other of the pages he's reverted) Tickle Me Elmo, which User:EinsteinEdits repeatedly spammed with http://www.tmx-elmo.org . -- SonicAD (talk) 12:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I stand collected. El_C 13:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

This aol proxy Vandal, in addition to what SonicAD has mentioned, has also threatened Pilotguy,by blanking his talk page and leaving this [13], resulting from the revision here. This vandal has been well doccumented, more background can be found in the following locations; [14], [15], [16], [17], [18] and [19]. Most recently has vandalized these pages; [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27]. Hu12 16:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

More.. [28], [29] Hu12 19:40, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Copying this section back from the archive, as it looks to be continuing... [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35] -- SonicAD (talk) 01:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Help with new template

OK, I created this template in light of a situation that required it. Which policy should it be mentioned in? Does this qualify as a doppelganger or a sockpuppet template? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:39, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Wait, are you suggesting that admins should start guessing what usernames banned users are going to pick? Unless I'm misinterpreting the use, I think this is a bad idea. Picaroon9288 02:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The new template is essentially a rewording of the {{doppleganger}} template, hence making the new template quite unnecessary. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 03:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. How is this different to {{doppelganger}}? --bainer (talk) 04:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Attacks in edit summaries?

User:TJ Spyke has done it in his edit summaries (more than once), he has put the word "trolls" in the edit summary. In my opinion, that's an attack. If he sees vandalism, he can remove it and NOT insult the user by calling him or her a troll. I mentioned this on his talk page, and got no reply. While he doesn't constantly call people trolls, he has done it quite alot over a few weeks period. I asked an admin about this, and was told to ask it here. This simply shouldn't be allowed, not everyone on Wikipedia knows how everything works... so in all those cases, people werent "trolling" and certainly shouldn't be called names. RobJ1981 02:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

If you really feel that this needs to be pursued, I'd suggest you start an RFC. From your description, there is nothing here that is disruptive enough (or insulting enough) to call for pre-emptive administrative action, and it sounds like you've already pointed out to him that these amount to personal attacks. - Jmabel | Talk 22:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Banned user pages

User:CoolKatt number 99999 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has thirty subpages left: Edit Wars, 26 lists of TV stations by channel number (MfD the aforementioned pages), and three other pages. I would love to house those three last pages, under User:TrackerTV/CK/(subpage title). TTV (MyTV|PolygonZ|Green Valley) 05:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Well that user isn't banned from wikipedia so I'm not sure what this is about. If the subpages don't meet Wikipedia:User page#What about user subpages? they should be deleted per the arbcom ruling arbcom ruling. I'll take a look --pgk 10:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Not much left I'm afraid the three pages I guess you were refering to had once been mainspace pages which went through VfD/AfD and were deleted, storage of such material is not what user space if for (not a free webhost) and circumstances like that were within the bounds of the arbcom ruling and as such have been deleted. --pgk 11:30, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Article on Dungeon (BDSM)

The article on Dungeon (BDSM) seems to have inappropriate images, but I'm not sure what Wikipedia's policy is on pornographic images. Nor do I know the proper approach to having the images evaluated for appropriateness. Can someone please take a look? Thanks! Jonemerson 08:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no policy prohibiting it, so Wikipedians like to put porn everywhere they can. They have far worse things than this.--AltUser 12:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Um, an admin might want to take a look at the above user's contributions, just for interest's sake. Tony Fox (arf!) 18:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not mind pornography (although I think sadism (deriving pleasure from the suffering of others) is the worst possible trait/paraphilia/disorder that someone can have), but this picture is racier/more offensive than it has to be. A topless woman is not necessary for an image on the subject of BDSM dungeons and the gag and diaper are really over the top. As an example, the operating theatre could have a picture of a gunshot victim with blood and tissue all over the place, but such a picture is not necessary for the subject. I think that a picture of a dungeon with various equipment would best, but a picture of a clothed person would be an improvement. -- Kjkolb 17:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

And a picture of a bound person doesn't need to show any nudity either. It could be from behind; it could be in a position with naughty bits concealed; whatever. By the way, that gal isn't "suffering"; she's restrained, but isn't being harmed or hurt in any way. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

See also Hogtie bondage. As a general principle, I believe that whatever is necessary in order to properly illustrate a topic should be used without restriction. However, beyond that, images that are likely to avoid offense should be strongly avoided and/or alternatives sought. — Matt Crypto 17:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

If the images in the article are bothering you, you can be bold, and remove one. The article does not need two images to illustrate the subject. I would suggest removing the image with the gag on, as this one seems to be more offensive than the one without. Thε Halo ^Θ 17:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

<rhetorical question>Now, why exactly was someone who would easily be offended by images like that looking at Dungeon (BDSM)?</rhetorical question> - Jmabel | Talk 22:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Just because someone has a moral opposition to pornography doesn't mean they're not curious about what's going on in the world. I could easily see someone clicking on the BDSM link from "Dungeon (disambiguation)" just to see what BDSM is. But the reason I brought this article to people's attention is because I think the pictures are pornography, which I happen to enjoy on other places of the Internet, but which I don't think belongs on Wikipedia. Jonemerson 23:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You may want to look at these: WP:NOT, Wikipedia:Profanity, WP:PORN, as they are all relevent to what you are talking about. As I said, I think having at least one of those pictures in the article is acceptable, as it illustrates the subject matter. Thε Halo ^Θ 23:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!! An hour ago BanyanTree removed the less illustrative of the two images. I have also copied over this discussion to the Dungeon (BDSM) discussion page for future reference. Jonemerson 04:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Moving Van der Graaf Generator (band)

The name "Van der Graaf Generator" is unique, is well known as the name of a rock band and can not be mistaken with a machine called "Van de Graaff generator" though the band has derived its name from it in the late sixties.

The talk page Talk:Van der Graaf Generator (band) has a consens that a requested move should be done. The page Van der Graaf Generator is only a redirect page with no editing history. Nevertheless the move I tried wasn't possible:

"The page could not be moved: a page of that name already exists, or the name you have chosen is not valid. Please choose another name, or use Requested moves to ask an administrator to help you with the move. Do not manually move the article by copying and pasting it; the page history must be moved along with the article text."--Peter Eisenburger 09:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

And now it seems the page is in limbo.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 10:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I was not expecting that to happen. The main article was merged with the redirect and then deleted, which is rather the wrong order. I'll keep an eye out for that next time. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 10:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

No admin action needed anymore. The page has been moved by another user.--Peter Eisenburger 10:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

CC, can you figure out what I was doing wrong in the first place? As I interpreted the help page, when I move a page to another page (with the same -new- name), which is only a redirection, I am not supposed to delete the redirection page as the first step, because the deletion gets automatically done by Wiki?--Peter Eisenburger 10:32, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The automatic deletion only occurs if the page has only one line (its creation) in its edit history. Since this redirect was somewhat warred over (switched between the apparatus and the band), it didn't have such a simple edit history. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 10:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I was aware of that one-line-rule but looked in the wrong tab. The article then should be blocked by an admin to re-moving again.--Peter Eisenburger 10:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Still screwed up...

How so? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Help me spam

Well, I'd like to do something to bring awareness to this problem with have with youtube links. I've created some boilerplate to help "educate" the general wikipedia public on the problem with YouTube.

This template is no longer in use. Please do not delete, I'd like to save for historical purposes. ---J.S ^(T/C) 06:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

_{(from :User:J.smith/YT)}

I'd like some feedback on the language used and perhaps some assistance on spamming it on a few thousand article talk pages. ---J.S (t|c) 10:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Added an image. I was thinking the red hand, but this one is a little less...err...aggressive.---J.S (t|c) 10:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Copyedited to make it more general (Based on policy rather than "my informal research"), also added an autosig. Why don't you move it into the template name space; you may want to add a hidden category as well ("Articles whose YouTube links are in question", perhaps). (it should be subst'ed when its used, of course) and note it on Wikipedia talk:External links, where there is a big YouTube discussion. Thatcher131 13:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Spot on. A great start on removing this festering sore form the project. Guy 15:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I started a trial run. Hit the article in the first 100 link results. ---J.S (t|c) 18:04, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Do I get a cookie for this one? Joyous! | Talk 00:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Spamming underway

Well, I've started spamming my little message and I've gotten mixed results. Nothings has happened on many articles, but It's worked where thier are active editors present.

I'd really like some help with the project. Even with AWB its gonna take a long time to hit 4000 articles. Let me know on my talk page if you want to help... My list is organised by letter... so it would be easy to split up the work. ---J.S (t|c) 21:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I may be totally ignorant here, and feel free to tell me so, but....in the time it takes to place the message, couldn't you remove the link? Joyous! | Talk 01:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Spam project?

I wonder... should I start a project to help organize the spam? ---J.S (t|c) 21:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've created a miniproject. ---J.S (t|c) 08:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians by year of birth categories

I recently speedy deleted categories containing Wikipedians born in 1993 and later years. These categories are now on UCFD should admins wish to contribute. --kingboyk 12:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

User:BobbiLou many images uploading as pd-self

I placed imagevio on a couple images uploaded by this user, which he tagged as pd-self but, to me, are obviously copyrighted. After checking out his log history, he has uploaded many images, all pd-self, but I'm very suspicious of this being at all true. Before I proceed with mass imagevio tagging, I would like to ask people's opinion and maybe if this user should be blocked for "disruption". - Tutmosis 14:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems to be asserting that composites are therefore his own copyright to be done with as he pleases. I'm pretty confident that is wrong. Step 1 is to warn the user not to upload any more like this, I guess. Guy 22:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The {{Notable Wikipedian}} template

How do we know that the people who claim to be the people in the Wikipedia articles and the people who use those names as editors, are really those people? We take their word for it? That violates WP:RS. They say so on their blogs, in their newspaper columns, etc? Still violations of WP:RS. Seems to me that we need some sort of verifiable proof that these people are who they claim to be, or else we have to remove this template from the articles. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:17, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Can't it just be changed to something like "An editor claiming to be..."? Also, does WP:RS apply to talk pages?! I don't think so. --kingboyk 19:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Since taking the name of a famous living person who is not yourself is against the policy for account names, typically when an account appearing to be a famous person appears, an administrator will get hold of the person through non-Wikipedian channels (e.g. if they are affiliated with an organization, someone will contact them through the organization). For example, I did this recently with User:Medeabenjamin after her first edits. I cannot say for sure that this is always appropriately verified, but I can certainly say that it usually is. If there is an individual about whom you have doubts, I suggest that you specifically raise those doubts, rather than raising possibly offensive questions about the identity of many people whose identities have been confirmed. - Jmabel | Talk 23:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? I am not raising any offensive questions, I am asking a perfectly legitimate question about the verification of the use of this template. If the person's identity has been identified, then excellent, but if it hasn't been, then the template shouldn't be on the article. And I think you owe me a major apology. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Baby admin's first application of G11

• ArtificialMemory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is my first deletion under G11. The author, Lars Ludwig (talk · contribs), immediately recreated the page without responding to the message I left at their Talk page. My immediate reaction is to re-delete it, but as this is my first major use of the admin tools I'd like a sanity check. It'll take me a bit to get comfortable with the tools and practical feedback will help a lot. Thanks! — Saxifrage ✎ 21:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I would blam the article and salt it if recreated. Yanksox 21:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleted again by me. If it gets recreated again, salt it. Unless, of course, it asserts notability (CSD A7) and is not spam anymore (CSD G11). --²¹⁰physicq (c) 21:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. The user has left me a message with the usual unaware-of-our-guidelines statement that it's not commerical, and I'm attempting to teach them about the problems with self-promotion. Hopefully the lesson takes and salting won't be necessary. I'll be slow on the next delete if it's recreated while I engage with the user. Thanks for the feedback! — Saxifrage ✎ 21:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

extra buttons in the edit toolbar

As requested at MediaWiki talk:Monobook.js I have (re)added several extra buttons to the Edit toolbar. Could several people verify that:

1. pressing the "make table" button/using the "make table" feature does not crash Internet Explorer. (This was previously reported, but supposedly fixed.)
2. while loading the images of the edit bar (which now takes slightly longer on slow Internet connections) you can already start editing on every browser/system configuration.
3. it does not cause any JavaScript warnings/errors, delays or other problems.

Regards, —Ruud 23:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The "make table" feature crashes IE after the cache is cleared. I have removed it. —Ruud 03:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It didn't crash IE for me, or cause any other errors. I am using cable so I couldn't test #2. VegaDark 02:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

From Bobabobabo

I am posting this on behalf of blocked user Bobabobabo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I made no promise to him that the request would be granted (I already told him that I would not be comfortable granting his request myself since I'm not familiar with the situation). Admins who are more familiar with his situation, please review.

May you please unblock me!!

To tell you the truth, I was a wonderful contributor to articles in Wikipedia "Yu-Gi-OH and Pokemon". The story began when a user named Mitsumasa began creating and upload Pokemon images and articles.

After about 5 months after the start of the articles the PCP began merging the articles (A Man in Black, Ryulong, Interrobamf) i tried talking to them, and the PCP but they did'nt listen. I even tried to leave a committ on their usertalk pages but A Man in Black is the only one that responds to my commi! tt. I gave up until recently students at my school "xxxxx" began bullying me, they knew that I was a contributor at the site "Wikipedia", so they told my teacher that they logged in some accounts and began vandalizing the articles that I personattly was currently having problems with you. My teacher Mrs. xxxxxx xxxxxx talked to the students xxxxx xxxxx and restricted them from using the school computer.

I'm very sorry

May you please unblock me and my IP address 72.177.68.38

He also indicated that his teacher's e-mail address is xxxxxxx@yahoo.com.

I do not endorse grant or denial of this request in any way. --Nlu (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

No opinion on the merits, but I've taken the liberty of redacting the teacher's e-mail address to protect her from spam inundation, and the names of the teacher and students for privacy reasons. Obviously any admin who needs them for follow-up can pull them from the history. Newyorkbrad 00:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

See above. FreplySpang 00:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

She mass e-mailed that to everyone. I got it too, and right now she's got an unblock on her user talk. Frankly, with all of the crap she caused, even if it wasn't all her, then I think the block should be kept. There were upwards of 70 unique accounts that she indirectly caused to pop up and edit war and vandalize and cause too much strife. She was the one who did not listen to WP:PCP, and all of the sockpuppets that could or could not be her were all helping. One open proxy is blocked, as are the other IPs for the school.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 01:11, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Could use help with cleanup of image talk pages

I've been looking at image talk edits by anon users and I've come to the conclusion that about 90% of them consist of either: 1) An edit to an image of a non-existent image, or an image on commons (hence the comments should be moved to the commons talk page, and the wikipedia version should be deleted, by my understanding) 2) tests or vandalism or 3) Comments not relating to the image that need to be removed. Take a look at these and see if your findings are different. I've cleaned up/tagged for deletion a lot of the most recent ones but there are still tons to deal with. Also, should image talk pages that consist only of vandalism be tagged with Template:db-vandalism or simply blanked? (if it should be tagged, then should currently blank talk pages be tagged with Template:db-empty?) I've been blanking them up to now. VegaDark 23:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Blanking is fine. Some raise valid concerns (Who painted this picture?, etc). Those should be {{unsigned}}, and left there until someone answers them. Comments in images that are host in commons should be tagged as {{db-talk}} directly, unless they rise some valid concerns about the image source or license. At least, those are my thoughts and what I had done when finding myself in a similar situation. -- ReyBrujo 03:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Templates

A number of templates are in use (apparently by the CVU) stating that removing talk page warnings is uncivil and disruptive and grounds for blocking and having your talk page protected. I believe the wording of these is way too harsh (WP:BITE). I'd like to hear some thoughts on the matter. >Radiant< 00:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As an occasional rc patroller and nonmember of the CVU, I think that although it is helpful for vandalism-warning templates to be left in place (for the sake of sanely progressing in the warnings system, ie 1-2-3-4-5, or 2-4-5 in extreme cases), it shouldn't be required to leave them, and definitely shouldn't be a blockable/page protectable offense.

After all, blocks are preventative, not punitive, and this seems a lot more like punishment than prevention of harm to the encyclopedia. (However, I'm not a sysop - therefore incapable of blocking users - so my opinion should be taken with the knowledge that I might be completely ignorant of the situation.) Picaroon9288 00:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

These should be nuked. Yes, on occasions the immediate removal of warnings needs preventing, and admins have digression to take the appropriate action. But the effect of these templates is to create a new policy and encourage people to enforce it. There is no set policy here (nor should there be).--Doc^g 00:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree these templates are not helpful. There is not agreement that warning templates must stay on a users page after the user has read them. Warning templates placed in error by newbies are often removed quickly by experienced users. These templates promote the idea that removal is wrong and escalate problems between new and experienced users. --FloNight 00:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As someone who has fallen headlong into reverting the outrageous amount of vandalism, I don't want to report a user unless they've "achieved" the requisite number of warnings. There is no easy way to tell if it's constant, repetitive, etc., if the user simply removes the warnings after reading them or regularly blanks the talk page. This is especially applicable to IP vandals. CMacMillan 00:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC) ( <-- Not an admin)

Edit summaries. Thatcher131 01:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems relatively easy to view the user's talk page history, edit history, etc. Ral315 (talk) 01:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The templates need to be deleted. They aren't going to help in creating the image that users get blocked for removing comments from thier talk page. semper fi — Moe 04:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't there an entire centralized discussion on the wr templates, many times?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If there was, then it should be easily found and linked from a suitable place (the talk pages of the templates?). Otherwise we are doomed to forever repeated previous discussions. Carcharoth 10:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

(deindent) here here and here. Can someone put an archive box around this, so the long debate isn't repeated? MER-C 10:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Problem editor or problem administrator?

It's time to get some feedback about how I've handled a situation. On 31 October Halibutt posted a complaint to WP:PAIN about User:M.K. I judged that the problem was a content dispute and referred the matter to WP:DR. Halibutt wasn't satisfied with that decision and I wasn't satisfied with Halibutt's subsequent behavior. So please browse Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Halibutt#Outside_view_by_Durova and tell me whether I've been fair.

The way I view this, I'm dealing with a disgruntled editor who has been attempting to bait me. I consider my actions lenient because I haven't endorsed the RfC and I haven't blocked this editor. I have issued two block warnings and written an outside view at the RfC, which Halibutt and a couple of other editors think is too much. So, given my reputation as a softie, have I treated another troublesome editor with kid gloves? Or have I lost perspective and been too vigilant? Durova 02:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I've traced the source of at least one complaint: Halibutt has replaced my warning[36] with a rather lengthy reply.[37] So there's his side of it - should I back off and apologize or is he as off the mark as I think? Durova^Charge! 04:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting a link to my reply there. In short, I had two questions from someone from the WP:PAIN. Before Durova replied to any of them, I was accused of WP:POINT just in case, without any apparent reason. But then again, I received all I asked for, but was again accused, this time of even worse offences. And when I reported to Durova that certain user started calling me names, Durova explained to the community that it was me to offend myself... His/hers comment at my RfC (Halibutt has returned to my user page to insult me again. Highlights from his latest post include dick, fuckhead, and I'll think twice before I trust your judgement in the future, given your recent trigger-happiness.) was extremely misleading and one-sided, given that I merely reported to her. He/she did not mention that my I'll think twice before I trust your judgement was merely a response to his/hers I could no longer extend an assumption of good faith toward claims you might make in some future dispute and that the offensive language was actually a request for clarification on the rules (But still, I wonder how would you qualify the recent action in which one of your fellows suggested I'm a dick or fuckhead? A friendly euphemism perhaps?). So, it was not me to offend Durova, but it was Ghirlandajo to offend me and me to ask him/her for help. A help I did not get so far.

I'm not a newbie and don't really care for wiki that much, but just imagine how would a newbie feel if treated that way by a wiki administrator: first presented with a fancy interpretation of WP:POINT, then accused of fancy things, in the end warned that using his/her talk page might get him/her blocked... and that should someone offend you and call you names, you are responsible for that. I'm extremely dissatisfied with Durova's accusations, but at the same time I'm quite happy with how she/he handled my requests for clarification of the scope of WP:PAIN. //Halibutt 07:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Fast blanking of warnings from user talk page

As I understand it, an IP number has no right to remove warnings, etc., from its own talk page. A the other extreme, some users in good standing routinely zap (without archiving) all discussion they regard as old, and there seem to be few complaints (answered by "Look in the page history"). But what's the policy (or what are the guidelines) on a user's fast deletion (without archiving) of warnings and adverse comment left on his/her own talk page? (Yes, sorry, I just know this has been done to death; but, hurried as I am, I can't find where.) -- Hoary 03:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, I just came here to get advice on the same matter. The example is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:66.90.151.114&action=history - I have been reverting this IP's removal of warnings, but not 100% sure that he is breaking any rules. Wanted to "cover my ass" by getting another admin to take a look at it.. (it's one of those anon's that causes trouble, but nothing that is an immediate blockable offense) -- Chuq 03:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not anyones place to force users to keep comments on thier talk page if they don't want them there. If a user has read it, they can remove it. Besides, if you have warned the user, it will always be in the history of the talk page for evidence. Constant revert warring placing comments on thier talk page is more of a disruption than helping. semper fi — Moe 04:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Would this the same for anonymous IP addresses though? -- Chuq 05:09, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, theres no difference between users logged in or under an IP address. semper fi — Moe 05:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

A previous discussion on this topic had the administrators who commented come to the conclusion that it was not okay to remove current warnings from a talk page. So, for example, a user who has been warned that the images they upload are missing mandatory information (such as the source) cannot remove the warning unless they've added the source information to that image. Similarly, a user currently engaged in vandalism cannot remove current warnings against vandalism. This is entirely different, however, from removing old warnings against vandalism. The consensus at the time was that a warning that was a month old was reasonable to remove but a warning just a few days old was not (unless it had been dealt with). Times in between were discretionary. If a user removes current warnings and then continues the abusive behaviour, it becomes much less reasonable to extend a presumption of good faith to that user. Also worth noting with IP pages is that it is possible for multiple users to "use" the page. In that case, it may be inappropriate to remove a comment as it may be directed to one of the people who share your IP address. Of course, the best solution in this case is to get your own account. --Yamla 05:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Abusive users remove very recent warnings, perhaps in the hope that (a) {{subst:test2}} will be followed by {{subst:test1}} rather than {{subst:test3}} (for example), perhaps in the hope that (b) they won't be recognized as recidivists. If it's (a), they're being treated with undue leniency; if (b), with unneeded leniency and timewasting. For example, if I notice on my first encounter with User:JoeBlowhard (fictional name) that he has made what appear to be racist comments, I may waste time on the rhetorical effort of AGF if he's removed from his talk page a series of recent warnings about racist comments. A lot of these people are quick to remove any message commenting on the removal of messages: the simplest inference (for me) is not that they want a "clean" talk page but instead that they don't want to be seen by newcomers as the kind of "contributors" (detractors) that they really are. You say: Similarly, a user currently engaged in vandalism cannot remove current warnings against vandalism: granted that people disagree over what "current" is, I think all (except the perps) would agree that it covers what's less than a week old. But is there any policy (or at least guideline) that says such a thing? I sometimes deal with truculent customers who are keen to stand up for their rights (or anyway whatever rights seem to let them continue to be a [insert contumely here]); it would be good to be able to say to them (politely, of course!) "It's not your opinion versus just mine, chum; it's yours against the policy Wikipedia:Don't screw with comments on your own talk page." -- Hoary 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree with Hoary. The problem here is rarely users removing week-old, or even day-old warnings. It's almost always vandals/trolls just doing it to try and hide (I've seen one vandal be given the "welcome" template four times over the course of the day). yandman 10:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Users also legitimately remove warnings right away when the warning is wrong. Bots give out wrong warnings sometimes. And users sometimes give out bad-faith warnings to further a dispute. In both of these cases, it's legitimate for anyone to remove the warning right away. --Interiot 19:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

User talk pages exist to facilitate communication. Not to act as a 'rap sheet' or 'wall of shame'. That is not their purpose. Restoring warnings is thus at best edit warring, and at worst disruption or harassment. If you need to see what a person has been told before check their page and/or contribution history. If that is too difficult then get together and come up with standardized edit summaries to parallel the standardized templates... add special characters around them to make them stand out in the page history and you can have a record every bit as complete, but more concise and less disruptive. --CBD 12:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed 200%. If we do want a proper way to record "this is going on your record" issues, then it needs to have a way for good editors to address mistakes or bad-faith warnings and get them removed from their record. But that seems far too bureaucratic, so nobody has implemented such a thing yet. Regardless of whether it is ever implemented, a person's talk page is a poor stand-in for that. --Interiot 19:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I just came across this guideline on talk page etiquette which seems pertinent. These two sentences are particularly noteworthy: Feel free to decorate your personal pages as you see fit, but keep in mind that your user talk page has the important function of allowing other editors to communicate with you. People will get upset if they cannot use it for that purpose. Yes, we can consult user contributions, pages histories, etc. but the usefullness of warnings and related discussion is in readily providing a context for understanding users' activity in Wikipedia - their edits and comments. Warnings tags have been designed to draw one's attention (not only the errant user's attention but others' as well) and one becomes justifiably suspicious of users who have blanked their talk pages and accompanying warnings while exhibiting edit histories of a controversial nature. It smacks of attempting to sanitize their presence on Wikipedia, and in that sense resembles sockpuppetry. Pinkville 01:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Logo problem

I'm fairly certain that this isn't the most correct place to be pursuing this, but it's the best place I've been able to find (newbie, sorry). The Wikipedia logo has an error in it. It is impossible that the Devanagari on the left side of the logo could be constructed in such a way, as the "i" vowel is written before the consonant with which it is paired. This is a common font problem, as is noted in the script's article. I'm frankly amazed that it's lasted so long without being fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rev. Strohm (talk • contribs)

See User:Ambuj.Saxena/Wikipedia-logo -- Samir धर्म 05:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Ericsaindon2's back

Architect King (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been editting Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California with similar material that Ericsaindon was banned for using, repeatedly.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Please take this to WP:AE. 19:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Checkuser  Confirmed. Indef blocked. Thatcher131 03:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Possible trolling

172.145.125.13 (talk · contribs) appears to be trolling, but it's not so cut and dry. He's removed some content from a talk page that he didn't like and has put "very strong oppose" on the nominations of two RfA's that were doing very well. Thoughts? Does it look like vandalism to you? I don't want to get into an edit war concerning the talk page, but I'm fairly sure it's against policy. Thanks. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, upon further investigation, it looks like he's a sock of the guy who's talk page comments he's deleting. I'm going to report him to AIV and see what comes, but I'd appreciate comments still. Thanks. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Can deleted discussion be undeleted?

I don't know if what I am asking is allowed, though I have seen precedents for it, but I wonder if the Talk:NPA personality theory page could be, at least temporarily, undeleted?

At present there is still controversy about this article including a blog entry off Wiki [38] and the wildly inaccurate slashdot piece[39]. I already see one edit completely misrepresenting the position I actually took on the article's discussion page [40]. It seems to me that, particularly with a related RFM still pending, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Psychonaut/User watchlist it might solve and prevent a lot of unecessary problems if Talk:NPA personality theory were undeleted to prevent further misunderstandings of this kind? --Zeraeph 11:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

You can make the request at Wikipedia:Deletion review. —Psychonaut 17:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I doubt if that is appropriate because Wikipedia:Deletion review is concerned with reviewing article deletions and it is just the talk page that may need undeleting to avoid further misunderstandings about what was said on it. Of course it is clearly visible to any admin, but with all this unfortunate and rather inaccurate off Wiki publicity it might save a lot of trouble to undelete the talk page for a while. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zeraeph (talk • contribs) 18:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC).

No, Wikipedia:Deletion review is not concerned solely with reviewing article deletions. Please read the page, and in particular the third paragraph and the information (also on Wikipedia:Undeletion policy) about temporary undeletion. Your asking for undeletion here is inappropriate. —Psychonaut 19:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for expressing your opinion but Wikipedia:Undeletion policy refers specifically to articles and media not talk pages, so I really need to know what an Admin thinks, particularly as an Admin can actually view the Talk:NPA personality theory as deleted and make an impartial, informed, decision on whether undeleting would solve or cause problems, or maybe can suggest an alternative that will avoid the possibility of further mistaken statements being made about the contents, under the circumstances. Sorry I forgot to sign the above. --Zeraeph 22:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

PS I chanced it anyway and it is now temp undeleted so thanks. :o) --Zeraeph 22:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, if the talk page in question concerns debate about whether the article should be deleted (a not uncommon occurence with controversial topics), you may have some luck with an inverse application of CSD G8, which says that orphaned talk pages can be deleted unless "they contain deletion discussion that isn't logged elsewhere". This seems to imply to me that deletion discussion that isn't logged elsewhere shouldn't be deleted, and if it has been deleted, it should be undeleted so that it can be archived somewhere appropriate. Now, talk pages should, in theory, be just about article issues and how to write the article, but they often contain discussion relevant to deletion debates, so I can understand why accessing them can help with deletion reviews. But this is all academic in this case now. Carcharoth 23:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing warnings templates

I have recently deleted a suite of user talk templates designed to dissuade targets from removing warnings from their user talk pages. In my opinion, the templates were collectively eligible for deletion under speedy deletion criterion number one for templates, "templates that are divisive and inflammatory". I consider them to be divisive and inflammatory for several reasons:

• The suite of templates threatens administrative consequences for removing warnings, including the protection of talk pages and the blocking of users;
• There is no consensus whatsoever on what the appropriate response should be to the removal of warnings (see Wikipedia:Removing warnings, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Removing warnings and Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll);
• The suite of templates employs a stern and confrontational tone, and uses threatening language, which may be warranted when backed by strong consensus (for example, templates which warn against simple vandalism) but is not appropriate given that there is no consensus as to the appropriate generic response to removing warnings.

I invite the community's review of these actions.

As a note to users who employ these templates, I should add that given that there may be consensus about the appropriate response to removing warnings in individual cases, users should consider tailoring a message to each situation. --bainer (talk) 11:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I fully support this action. The warning templates have been a pernicious source of problems and disruption for so long, far outweighing any usefulnes they had to the community. When people are getting blocked for edit warring over internal templates, things have gone too far. If an editor is removing warnings in a problematic matter, a message more tailored to the situation would be more appropriate, especially because there is little agreement over what situations qualify as problematic. As to the deletion of these templates, I suggest that IAR applies in this case, if nothing else. --Slowking Man 11:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Concur completely. In some situations there is a carefully-crafted system for escalating warnings, to enable admins to work together to deal with a serial offender: this is a good reason for using graduated warning templates. In other cases, however, the "one size fits all" approach simply fails to meet requirements: this is an obvious example. There is no consensus as to how long people are required to keep warning templates around, even: I have even seen people advocating that such templates should never be archived to serve as a permanent record of someone's misdemeanours! HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

While this seems a 'novel interpretation' of the intent of T1 I'm not going to object because I really dislike these templates and the massive disruption surrounding the whole 'you cannot remove warnings' / 'scarlet letter' philosophy. I hope we've reached the point where there is enough consensus that this shouldn't be indiscriminately applied that removal of these 'boilerplate' templates will be uncontroversial. --CBD 12:56, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Probably a MFD would have been more appropriate in terms of process, but the reasons for deletion are compelling. Given the lack of consensus, those things were misrepresenting policy. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I am happy that the templates are gone, especially as their existence is often used to provide a rationale for their use: "If there exist templates for this, it must be policy". A recent TFD discussion has decided to keep them, though, so this might not be uncontroversial ;-) Seriously, there is no need to have templates for this, and educating users that it is more polite not to simply blank their talk page all the time is better done by a polite handwritten note. Kusma (討論) 14:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Specifically, this TfD discussion, I think, though that was from August, and Kusma linked to October, so maybe there have been several such discussions. After further checking, the October discussion is here, and the August discussion (also linked earlier in this post) is here. Can anyone spell J-O-I-N-E-D U-P P-O-L-I-C-I-E-S? Carcharoth 15:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I've also had the thought that there might be further debates elsewhere. These debates and the results should have been recorded on the talk pages of the templates. Can the deleting admin (thebainer) confirm that the talk page was checked for links to previous debates before the speedy deletion took place, and can any admin check the talk pages of these templates to see if there were links to the previous debates? Carcharoth 15:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I found the Google cache of the Template:Wr talk page, and it seems that the previous deletion discussions had not been noted on the talk page, or were moved to the archives of the talk page (which I have been unable to uncover - the archiving seems to have been by the 'page history' method). This is most unhelpful for anyone (eg. someone nominating for deletion) trying to find out if there have been previous deletion discussions. I am asking the closing admins for clarification of this. Carcharoth 15:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

After both TfD attempts, a notice was added to the talk page. The first one was removed before the google cache version was made; possibly when the second TfD began. The version in google was made during the second discussion. Eugène van der Pijll 17:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Grrr... I always seem to find out about the deletion discussions on these right after they close. Which is part of the problem here. The templates are beloved by the users who place them and despised by the admins who see them as violations of the harassment / edit warring / talk page and other policies. The people using them get notification of the TfDs. The admins refusing to enforce them do not. Ergo, neither of those TfD discussions reflects anything like the whole story. The fact is that these templates are abused constantly... as the regular appearance of this issue on AN & AN/I demonstrates. The idea of allowing any user to place a negative / insulting / potentially false 'warning' on the talk page of any other user and edit war to enforce its display there is (by far) the worst I've seen actively put into practice. --CBD 17:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this decision and applaud your boldness. The whole notion of harassing someone with false warnings and then punishing further when they take out the trash is ludicrous. --Cyde Weys 18:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether the templates are good or bad is irrelevant. The fact remains that due process had been followed, and consensus in the TfD discussion was that these templates should stay. (And it wasn't even a weak consensus: 10/3 in one discussion, 16/3 in another discussion.) Once consensus to keep has been established, templates should never be speedily deleted (likewise for articles and categories). Otherwise, what is the point of having a deletion process? If you want rid of these templates, follow due process; failing to do so is a gross abuse of power. Bluap 18:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No, not "never"; there is always WP:IAR. However, I agree that following due process is almost always preferrable to IAR, because it leads to less discussion. In this case, however, due process was followed, and did not result in the correct answer, so deletion was the right thing to do. Eugène van der Pijll 19:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Concur. I'd normally side with Bluap, but this case is special. In a normal deletion case, it's the deleting party that needs to demonstrate consensus; default in case of no consensus is to keep. But in this case, the burden of evidence must be reversed. These templates owe their existence only to the existence of the underlying policy (namely, that removing warnings is blockable). With policies, it's the proposers of a policy that need to demonstrate consensus. This consensus doesn't exist, as the debates elsewhere show; therefore, no policy, hence no justification for the templates. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify that (of course) many of the people who support these templates do not intend to use them for "harassing someone with false warnings"... but Cyde is absolutely correct that this happens. Alot. And I think it is that which justifies an 'out of process' deletion. These templates are frequently used for harassment and that's something which is clearly contrary to Wikipedia policy. The users who support their use in valid cases have good intentions (though I think even then subjecting someone to this kind of treatment often only inflames the situation), but can't prevent their constant mis-use. Wanting a tool available to you for arguably legitimate reasons can't trump the fact that in so doing you also make it available for inevitable abuse. We don't pass out handguns to everyone just because some people can use them responsibly. --CBD 19:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to see those templates gone. They were utterly confusing considering that there is no consensus about removing warnings. Having people reported at WP:AIV whose only "crime" is removing warnings about a questionable edit gets old very fast. --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 21:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Strongly endorse speedy of divisive, inflammatory templates routinely abused and with dishonest content to boot (misleading citations to non-existent policy). I tried hard to salvage these templates because I do think they have a point. Supporters, however, violently rejected compromise, abusing admin tools to fight off edits and comments. Every proposal to mandate these templates has failed -- 4 organized efforts. I'm not impressed that supporters mustered enough "votes" to keep on TfD; we don't decide things by voting here. Speedy criterion T1 properly applied. John Reid ° 22:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I also applaud's Bainer actions on this, I have seen too many edit wars over simply removing warings (which, in itself does not harm the enclyopedia) ending up with absurd situation of blocking someone for "removing a warning about removing a warning over a mis-interpreted edit." I have also seen good faith users being given warnings about a potential problem, the user resolving it swiftly on the article page but months later, when the user cleans out his page for tidyness (i.e. not selectively), another good faith user reverts him, and gives him a follow up warning. Having a good faith user get harrassed by another good faith user is not good practice, and this is exactly these templates encourage in my experience. Personally I think that the deletion was an excellent example of IAR - if due process dictates a situation that increases the likelyhood of unwarrented harrassment, then it should, and must be ignored, which is exactly what the IAR policy is meant to do. Regards, MartinRe 13:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I can confirm that I saw those two TfD discussions, and I can also confirm that I disregarded them. The only argument mustered in favour of keeping the templates was that they were useful, with some users saying that this was so because the templates allowed for the convenient implementation of the policy against removing warnings (although there is no policy on this matter, indeed no consensus at all).

On the other hand, arguments in favour of deletion included that the templates misrepresented policy (Mark), were often used in practice to harass users (AnnH) and were uncivil and sometimes used for harassment of good faith users (Kusma). These opinions by experienced and respected users were seemingly ignored in favour of a numerical assessment of the result. Moreover, the opinion of John Reid (the original creator of the templates), that the language used had changed to be "dishonest and pompous" and misrepresenting of policy, was also seemingly disregarded.

In short, the concerns which led me to consider the templates divisive and inflammatory - that they misrepresented policy, and were threatening and confrontational without the support of strong consensus - greatly outweighed the weak results of these two TfD debates, which in the light of substantial previous debate, could not be said to amount to a consensus. --bainer (talk) 00:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone has to say it: policy trumps consensus. Specifically, it is appropriate to disregard a consensus to keep a divisive and inflammatory template. Well done bainer. Hesperian 00:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming that you (bainer) were aware of the previous discussions. Your arguments for deletion make a lot of sense. What I'm wondering is where the people that used these templates are at the moment? Shouldn't they be complaining somewhere? Carcharoth 02:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

All these warning templates have been undeleted, unfortunately. Eugène van der Pijll 08:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll just put in a quick word in favour of the templates (in reply to Carcharoth, here are your complaints...). The main use of these is when a user is on a vandalism spree and is removing warnings as fast as they're getting them; otherwise it would be possible for a user to get nothing but test1s and not be blocked. Some vandalfighters don't check talkpage history when warning a user (probably to speed up their vandalfighting). These templates are important for speed in such cases. The problem is when they're used on old warnings to edit-war on talk pages or to keep bad-faith warnings there; but this sort of misuse (which I agree is quite prevalent) is on the same level as misuse of any other template (such as {{test1}}. Perhaps the templates should say something like 'Do not immediately remove warnings from your talk page' and explain why. --ais523 09:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The templates are not necessary for this. Every vandal-fighter who is worth his salt always checks the user's contributions link and so sees that warnings have been removed. Vandal fighters who can be fooled by warning removals are doing something wrong. Kusma (討論) 09:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• This is be a good example of why TFD is not determined by vote counting. I believe TheBainer's reasoning is good, and I find it unfortunate that Eagle 101 (talk · contribs) undeleted them all, apparently because he thought it was out of process. Given the strong approval given to Bainer's actions above, I am sorely tempted to delete them again, but for now I'll settle for removing the incorrect parts from the templates. >Radiant< 09:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Template:Wr0 and Template:Wr2 appear to be okay. The rest were talking about disruption, blocks and talk page protections; I've removed those clauses, but that does make the templates appear rather empty. Maybe redirecting them to WR2 is best. >Radiant< 09:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

    They may be clean in the sense that they are not threatening blocks, etc., but there existence is still predicated on the idea that users should react to the removal of warnings by adding some sort of challenge/response. To my mind that is still an undesirable escalation in conflict. In my opinion, the whole removing warnings debacle has been one of the most undesirable aspects of Wikipedia for a long time. If we are really going to address this, I would strongly encourage people to nuke the messages entirely. If removing warnings is really a problem that ever needs to be addressed, then it should be addressed through personalized attention and not through a templatized continuation of hostilities. Retaining the messages, even in a neutered form, will continue to give the impression that giving warnings about warnings is an accepted way of dealing with conflict. Dragons flight 09:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

    {{Wr}} is fine now, but the level-3 and 4 warnings are no longer level 3/4 because they don't threaten blocks (can you have a 'last warning' with no method of following it up?) It may be best to do what was done with {{civil}} and stop at level 2, if this isn't a blockable offence. --ais523 09:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

    • We just need something like Template:WrMeta to warn people who abuse warning removal templates, and Template:WrMetaMeta in case they remove that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

For any process wonks here, if you think that the balance of arguments was to delete but the TfD was closed by votecounting rather than arguments, the correct process is to DRv the most recent TfD, arguing that it should be overturned and closed as 'delete'. --ais523 09:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, you are wrong about that. The text of WP:DRV refers solely to disputed deletions... not disputed keeps. However, that said, these templates WERE deleted (as 'CSD T1') and the proper 'process wonk' response to that should have been to list them on DRV. Even though they were instead restored via wheel war I think the best move may be to set up a DRV rather than continuing the wheel war with another deletion first. As Dragons flight notes above, removing the 'higher levels' and false statements about blocking in these templates reduces the damage they do, but not significantly. The first level alone claiming that users should not remove warnings from their talk pages is all the excuse needed for edit warring / harassment to keep warnings, whether valid or not, displayed. --CBD 11:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Huh? "Deletion Review is the process to be used by editors who wish to challenge the outcome of any deletion debate" That includes keeps. That's one of the reasons it's no longer called "votes for undeletion". >Radiant< 11:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Deletion Review is the process to be used by editors who wish to challenge the outcome of any deletion debate or a speedy deletion" - from WP:DRV#Purpose, and I haven't even just edited the page to put it there; even the bolding is on the page. So I think keeps can be challenged just as much as deletes. --ais523 11:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

See the first four paragraphs of the page... extensive commentary about overturning deletions, finding information on past deletions, et cetera. Nothing about keeps. Nor can I recall having ever seen a page which was not deleted show up on DRV. The comments quoted above about "any deletion debate" were taken by me to mean that AfD, TfD, MfD, et cetera all go through DRV rather than having separate review pages for each. If it is meant to instead imply that DRV is also used for keeps I'd think that should be mentioned somewhere else on the page... rather than the multiple clear statements about DRV being used to review deletions. --CBD 12:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Endorsed 'no consensus', endorsed 'merge', endorsed 'rename', endorsed 'merge/redirect', overturned-relisted 'no consensus', endorsed 'speedy keep', overturned-deleted 'no consensus', endorsed 'no consensus', endorsed 'speedy keep', overturned-reopened 'speedy keep', overturned-reopened 'speedy keep', endorsed 'no consensus'; these are all the examples I could find from November and October of a non-deletion on DRv (one is even a CfD rename which isn't a deletion debate at all), so I think such DRvs are reasonably common. --ais523 12:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just looked again at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_October_18#Template:Wr &c. (in which I participated). There are only three comments suggesting deletion, and one of them (Kusma's) only suggested deleting 3 and 4, leaving only John Reid's comments in favour of deletion of 1 and 2, and they suggested rewording (which has now happened) as an alternative to deletion, and the nomination. There were 16 !votes to keep, most of which can be ignored because they made no new points, but it seems reasonable to think that many users will be annoyed if these are deleted (they were probably trying to use the template and alerted by the TfD tag on the template itself). So DRv is clearly the best option; I'm going there now to ask for a relisting of the debate. --ais523 12:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the spirit of the rule is most important in this case. The world will certainly not end if we bring it to deletion review, and ignoring this "rule" (is it really a rule?) is less important than avoiding a wheel war. It can be evaluated under these circumstances. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Deletion Review

See Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_November_7 for the deletion review on these templates. --CBD 12:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

If people aren't too involved in the deletion review, would this user's history be a suitable example. And can someone explain what the right process would be here? I was trying to find out the history of this user's voting in AfD discussions, and the warnings the user has received, but it is difficult to see this from the page history. Is this an example of a case where warnings shouldn't be removed? Carcharoth 14:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The massive edit warring to restore comments and then warnings about removing those comments was clearly unnecessary... though further confused by the fact that half the comment removals were made by an anon IP and thus some people were restoring because that anon shouldn't remove comments from someone else's talk... except that the anon was probably the user themself. In any case, user was properly blocked for multi-sockpuppet voting on *fDs. The edit war over whether the warnings should be displayed did nothing to improve the situation and was not the cause of the block. The fact that this practice is sometimes used to abuse 'problem' users doesn't make it any more proper or any less abusive... especially when it is just as commonly used against users who have done little or nothing wrong. --CBD 11:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it did waste my time, as I had to dig into the page history to try and find out what was going on, and even then it was not very clear. It would have been much clearer if the comments had been present in an archive. Would it have been acceptable to go through the page history and create an archive page clearly showing the talk page comments made in chronological order? I suppose one argument against that, is that it gives the impression that removal of comments hadn't been going on. It also gives the impression that later posts were added to a page full of comments, when in fact they were often added to a page with previous comments removed. If anyone could be bothered, diffs could be added to each section showing when they were removed. Carcharoth 13:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an illustration of why it's a very good idea for people leaving warning templates to clearly indicate that they have done so in their edit summary. Viewing these via the history page is the only reliable way to track edits. --bainer (talk) 14:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Virus-laden page on de.wiki

I'm not sure if this is posted elsewhere, but I thought it worth mentioning that an article on the German Wikipedia was edited to include a link to a fix for a virus that was in fact a virus in its own right. We've seen similar stuff here on en before, but in expectation of copy-catting, I thought I'd warn admins, and editors, generally about it. The BBC News story does not indicate which article it was, but if someone could find that out, it'd be worth watchlisting it and associates over here, too. Splash - tk 12:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The article was de:W32.Blaster. There's a short discussion on Wikipedia:Village pump (news). —da Pete (ばか) 12:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

US midterm elections

As we're probably all aware the US has country-wide elections tomorrow. We're going to see a lot of partisan vandalism; at the same time, we're going to be under a microscope. Our threshold for disruption is never high, but for tomorrow I think it ought to be a lot lower. During the 2004 elections, I personally administered a 24-hour block for election-related vandalism/POV-pushing on the first offense (see User:Mackensen/Election Day). I abandoned my watchlist and simply kept an eye on Recent Changes the whole day (as some IRC regulars may recall, I didn't sleep for 24 hours).

Anyways, just a thought for the admin corps. Mackensen (talk) 17:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It might be an idea to compile a list of those pages most likely to be subject of the vandalism and POV-pushing (the main election page, pages on close elections, for the key issues, and those for candidates in closely contested races). Then the rest of us, who don't know the details, can use "related changes" for that page to act as a topic-specific watchlist. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you going to do the 24-hour thing again, or are you suggesting a team of 4-5 people dedicated to reverting US election vandalism take it in 5-hour shifts? And do people really read Wikipedia articles just before heading out to vote... :-) Carcharoth 17:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, heavens no ;). I'm just saying that admins should keep an especially close eye on things. If you want to emulate my example from two years back by all means, but it's your body, not mine! Finlay has a good idea there, so I'll start User:Mackensen/Election watchlist. Mackensen (talk) 17:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

User:James Kemp/Representatives and User:James Kemp/Senate are two pages that may be useful to do related changes (or related watchlist) on. --Interiot 18:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

On the plus side, we can then delete all those campaign ads masquerading as biographies, since failed candidates fail WP:BIO :-) Guy 23:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Or you could wait a few days, and give those interested in preserving some of the information a chance to create campaign articles (at least for notable Congressional contests, which is what I'm interested in), and put redirects in place. John Broughton | Talk 03:21, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought, you could just block until Election day is over. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think this is more of a problem for presidential election years, which get everyone fired up, in addition to the including the same sorts of elections as the mid-terms. 2008 will be twice as bad as 2004 apparently was, due to the huge increase in the popularity of Wikipedia. Could be problem with politicking and userboxes too. —Centrx→talk • 23:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Saddam Hussein

This is crazy. Protection removed an hour ago and we've had 10 incidents of vandalism (+ ten reverts) - this means theres a high prob a reader will see the corrupted version. we must be able to do something Glen 18:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, gosh, then sprotect it! I originally thought it was against policy, but I read up: it's featured articles that can't be sprotected, but it says that front page articles can be protected. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:SPP says not to use protection: "On the day's Featured Article, which should almost never be protected, in the interests of encouraging newcomers to be bold. Other pages linked from the Main Page may be protected if under attack;" -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

...which then implies that it's appropriate to use it on Saddam Hussein, since it is under attack. -- Natalya 21:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I read WP:SPP, too, and two thoughts came to mind. First, the words should almost never, which implies that there are times when it is appropriate to protect. An article on a controversial subject is going to attract vandals, whether it's FA of the day or just a run of the mill article. Some articles need protection no matter where they are or what their status. Secondly, I think FAD articles shouold be protected from editing, since many newbies do see them as their first wikipedia experience. So we really want newcomers to see all sorts of random crap thrown into what we implicitly say is the best of Wikipedia? Just my thoughts. Jeffpw 00:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with sprotecting this article. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-11-08 03:19Z

Unresolved issue

Can anyone deal with this? Thanks. Carcharoth 21:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As was said above, the relevant policy needs clarification before we can act on it (at least that's my position--someone else may disagree). Chick Bowen 23:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Agree with Chick, and also, I don't see anything on the user's talk page asking him if he minds his personal info being deleted, either. Maybe it would be a good idea for someone to discuss the issues with the user there. Steve block Talk 01:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I have deleted all the versions from the history but ZScout's better be safe than sorry Alex Bakharev 11:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Carcharoth 02:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Multiple deletions needed

At some point, entries were created for almost every Ozzy Osbourne song. See eg The Ultimate Sin's track listing. As a test case, I proposed deletion for the article on the song "Thank God for the Bomb," which simply consisted of the text "Thank God for the Bomb" is the fourth song on the 1986 Ozzy Osbourne heavy metal album The Ultimate Sin as well as the {{rock-song-stub}} and {{Ozzy Osbourne}} boxes. The deletion criteria was that the song was not notable and that the article contained no new information with regard what could already be found on the album's main page. Deletion occurred without incident. Anyway, I think that now the rest of the songs which have no need for their own article should also be deleted. Is there any way to do this all at once or does it have to be done individually?—Wasabe3543 22:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the work of tracking them all down has to be done by someone, and it seems more likely to be you than anyone else, since you know what you're looking for. Just put a {{db-empty}} tag on each one and we'll get 'em. Chick Bowen 23:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. I haven't done a lot of deletion, so I wasn't sure whether speedy delete was an option in this case.—Wasabe3543 01:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The pages for deletion are listed on my contributions page starting with The Ultimate Sin (song) at 01:16, 7 November 2006.—Wasabe3543 01:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think they're all gone now. :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What was the point of deleting them rather than simply redirecting them to the appropriate album? No admin required, no information lost… HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Phil Boswell. They should be redirected. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-11-08 03:17Z

Botched long Series of Redirects

Moved to WP:ANI. Kavadi carrier 01:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Babur

I am not unable to edit this page. Is there a user lock on my account not permitting to edit this page ? Siddiqui 03:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Problem resolved. Thanks

Siddiqui 03:55, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Create account issue

Hi. Don't know if this is the right place to post my question, but here it is. I use user name Vayaka almost everywhere and I have registered it in some Wiki progects, but I can't rigister it in the English Wiki (Login error:The name "Vayaka" is too similar to the existing account "Nayaka". Please choose another name.) Is there a way to register nickname Vayaka?--195.210.185.5 10:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

For some context, this is the AntiSpoof extension; I seem to remember from wikitech-l that an admin can get round the filter at Special:Userlogin and then email the user in question the requested account, but I'm not sure. --ais523 10:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this would cause any problems. Nayaka has not edited for 3 months now, only made a handful of edits, and was very close to being an spa. yandman 10:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

So what should I do to register username Vayaka? Should I contact someone directly?--195.210.185.5 11:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Look on your talkpage Alex Bakharev 11:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The similar case is posted here. I have mailed the person and asked to create an account with different name. But if could be solved then please create a desired name for him and mail him. Thanks, Shyam ^(T/C) 19:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

AIV backlog

Hey, there's a long enough list of block requests at WP:AIV. Can somebody take a look at it& Thanks. MaxSem 10:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Image dispute

Hey all. Can someone look at Image:Owenpuma.jpg and settle this, please? I don't want to start blocking people for disruption, although I'm sorely tempted, as I have already made a content judgement and so shouldn't use my admin tools. User:Panarjedde and User:Kingjeff have been squabbling over various images etc, with, of course, the other one always being wrong. This image, Image:Owenpuma.jpg, was posted by Kingjeff with no status. Panarjedde immediately tagged it for deletion. I then came across it during a clearout of C:CSD. I removed the speedy tag and put the correct fair use tag on the image (I've tried before to find a free image of Owen Hargreaves - one doesn't exist at the moment). Pan is continuing to tag it for deletion and revert fair use tag, so please, someone else step in so I don't get my editor / admin wires crossed. Thanks. Proto::type 12:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I've done a revert, but as a non-admin, I can't block him. But if he reverts again, he's guilty of 3RR too. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The issue has been misrepresented. Let me explain, possibly not assuming I am wrong without knowing what happened (this is for Patstuart):

• "This image, Image:Owenpuma.jpg, was posted by Kingjeff with no status." Wrong. The image was posted by Sebas87, and had a wrong fairuse tag, which claimed it was a sporting event poster.
• "Panarjedde immediately tagged it for deletion." Wrong, the image was uploaded on 7 September, I tagged it on 6 November, not exactly "immediately".
• "Pan is continuing to tag it for deletion and revert fair use tag." We had a discussion about this tag, after Proto disputed the replaceability of the image, yet today, with no compromise reached, he unilaterally removed my tag. Only today, therefore, I reinserted the tag.

The fact is that Proto is removing a tag he does not like, claiming he acted as an admin until now, while he was involved in the matter since the beginning.--Panarjedde 12:19, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed a step in my 'recap'. Image was tagged for deletion yesterday, I was patrolling C:CSD, saw it, assessed it, removed the speedy tag, and at that point, Pan immediately retagged. Apologies if that wasn't clear. Proto::type 12:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You forgot to add that the second tag was different from the first, as you proposed a fair use license that does not apply. Even if you do not agree with me, it is clear that you were involved in the matter since its beginning, and that you were not "acting as an admin", nor the dispute is between me and Kingjeff, as you claimed to justify your tag removal.--Panarjedde 12:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(from WP:AN/I)

Hello, I have an issue with User:Proto.

I added a "Replaceable fair use" tag to Image:Owenpuma.jpg. User Proto added a "Replaceable fair use disputed" tag to the same image, and we two discussed the matter on the talk page.

Today he unilaterlly removed my tag [41]. Apart the fact I do not agree with him, when I told him not to remove tags [42], he answered me "the dispute is between you [Panarjedde] and Kingjeff; I [Proto] have been acting as an admin the whole time. At this point, I have stepped in and removed the tag, as in my judgement the fair use assertion was correct." Please note that User:Kingjeff has nothing to do with this issue, his only edit being on the image talk page ([43]), after Proto had put the dispute tag.

What should be done? Can he really remove the tag?--Panarjedde 12:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Wikipedia administrators have that authority. Justin Eiler 12:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if this is the official answer, let me say it is unfair that admins are allowed to use their authority in their own content dispute. At least, a third part opinion should be requested.--Panarjedde 12:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I agree with the tagging. the current tag says "where the image is unrepeatable, i.e. a free image could not be created to replace it". Note the could not be created, since of course someone could take a photo the image can be created to replace it thus is fails fair use. (This is not a unique image with the person doing a unique act, it's a simple photo of them) The fact that someone can't find a current one is irrelvant, one can be created. --pgk 12:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And as soon as a free image is available, then fair use no longer applies to this image. The current tag is poorly worded.Proto::type 12:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

When you say worded badly you mean it matches the fairuse policy "No free equivalent is available or could be created", again the "could be created", availability now is not part of the critera. Not to mention that the image is tagged incorrectly anyway it is from advert yet is tagged {{promophoto}}, which is (from Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags) for publicity photographs of people or events, such as headshots or posed shots, from a press kit, also see Wikipedia:Publicity photos - an advert is not a promophoto. --pgk 12:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(The following was written before the post by pgk immediatly above)

The problem is not the content dispute (I have given my reason on the talkpage), the problem is that you removed a tag in a content dispute you were involved in, and claimed to have done it because the dispute was between me and another user, while you had just stepped in to do your admin duties.

Furthermore, I would suggest you to read WP:FU#Policy, which is an official policy of WP, which requires non-free, fair use images to be used only if "no free equivalent is available or could be created". Note it says "could be created", not "has been created".--Panarjedde 12:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Further to this the image is apparently from an advert for puma. The article to which it is attached mentions nothing about puma whatsoever, at best a fair use argument could be used for illustrating the persons association with puma but it is not being used in that way. Again the fair use policy covers this (in the counter examples) "An image of a rose, cropped from an image of a record album jacket, used to illustrate an article on roses.", the fair use criteria have been significantly tightened recently and it is this sort of abuse of fair use which has prompted it. --pgk 12:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, after a read of WP:FU, I see that whilst fair use could be argued. "if the image could reasonably be replaced with a free image that would provide the same value to the reader, then it is very likely to be removed and a request made for such a free image to be obtained". Note the word 'reasonably'. I have tried to find a fre photo of Hargreaves before; none exist on the net, and I don't expect to be bumping into him any time soon to take such a photo. Therefore a fair use photo is justified.

However, this image is not strictly a publicity photo (see Wikipedia:Publicity photos.) Until I read this, I thought it was. It's therefore not a suitable fair use image, let alone a free one, and so I've tagged it for deletion. Proto::type 13:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, just to note the part you quote is under the guideline section a preamble. The section explicilty marked as formal policy contains the "No free equivalent is available or could be created..." text. --pgk 14:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

See Panarjedde, if you're going to bring up my name at least have the decentcy to invite me to the conversation. Kingjeff 01:23, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

??? Proto made your name, I simply answered him.--Panarjedde 01:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Nope, you are the first one on the list that I see that mentioned me. Yes, it's a quote from him. But you're not to bring me up with at least of having the respect to bring me into this. Kingjeff 01:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Post by Proto, 12:09: "Hey all. Can someone look at Image:Owenpuma.jpg and settle this, please? I don't want to start blocking people for disruption, although I'm sorely tempted, as I have already made a content judgement and so shouldn't use my admin tools. User:Panarjedde and User:Kingjeff have been squabbling over various images etc [...]". Care to stop feeling persecuted? Didn't they love you when you were young?--Panarjedde 01:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ethicalhacker

Ethicalhacker (talk · contribs) has about 40 edits, and they're not vandalistic edits. However, I am pondering whether he/she should be blocked for user name. Thoughts? --Nlu (talk)

No, not for username in my opinion. Hacker has both positive and negative connotations, but with the Ethical tacked on, I think this is on positive side and it isn't an issue. -- JLaTondre 16:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm with JLaTondre; hacker isn't always a negative term; if all his edits are good, it would definitely be OK to let him be, IMHO. WP:BITE, too. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

More regarding Bobabobabo

This is an e-mail I received from a person alleging herself to be Bobabobabo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s teacher:

Dear user,

Many of my students at my Private School called the "Learning Community School" are complaining about being blocked from the internet site called "Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia". I don't know the reason for this six month ban. The private school IP is 72.177.68.38, which is located in a residential area of Austin.

I has asked some of the student if they vandalized Wikipedia, many of the students are bullying a student named Grace Moyle, which was a contributor of Wikipedia under the name Bobabobabo which what she told was having problems with some users over Pokamon articles which looking up articles not school related is against the rules, so the three students: Jene', Jessica, Aaron began creating user names and began vandalizing the pages that Bobabobabo editted. She and I talked about the bullying. I restricted the three students from using the computer until next year.

I hope you can reconsider unblocking the IP and Bobabobabo because what she has told was she being made fun.

Thank you,

Lisa Mercato

6th Grade Social Studies Teacher

It seems to have a ring of truth to it, but is sent from an yahoo.com address, which can of course be faked by anyone. It also doesn't boost my confidence that just a day earlier, Bobabobabo had (as far as i know, falsely) told me that Centrx (talk · contribs) agreed to have her block lifted. However, I agreed to post the e-mail here to ask for consensus on this. I still do not particularly endorse granting or denying this request. --Nlu (talk) 16:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a joke. The spelling (and grammar) is awful, and she would have sent it from a school email address, not yahoo. yandman 16:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's just wash our hands of this Bobabobabo business and be done with her and her school. Nlu, if you wish, I can disclose to you the email address of Bobabobabo and compare it with the email address from "Lisa Mercato." Just send me an email, and I will get back to you once I am out of my Marine Bio lecture.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 18:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

An idea: why not ask her to send an email from her .edu address in order to verify her title? I don't think that's asking too much; if we're dealing with a 6 month ban, and just considering ignoring her anyway, I don't think another day or two hastle in getting her to send it from an official address would be a problem. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Based on that email, I wonder why the teacher is asking for the block to be lifted. The teacher realizes Bobabobabo was using school computers to edit Pokemon articles, which is against their rules. Why would a teacher ask us to lift a ban that would allow a student to go back to breaking school rules? Because she feels bad the student was bullied? Hmm...Metros232 18:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you might want to talk to Can't sleep, clown will eat me - he says he blocked it long term becuase it was an open proxy. I might point out that the teacher's claims hold up - there were a lot of Pokemon changes, but little vandalism. But as a teacher, I can understand why she would be frustrated that her class was blocked. In any case, I def advise talking to Clown. -Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Haha, you got that email too? I got the email last week because I blocked some of the sockpuppets of Bobabobabo. They claimed it was a 6th grade student, and I still said no. I later received an email from the teacher, and then another one from "Bobabobabo". It's all BS. Nishkid64 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, one of the IPs was an open proxy (the website claims that it allows you to use MySpace at school). The other IP Raul654 said (when we double checked the massive sockfarm listed somewhere above) was a residential IP address, which is more than likely her own (unless the school uses Roadrunner/Comcast, whatever it was).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The "IP Info" button on the IP's talk page is a wonderful thing. I've got the school's contact e-mail and I'm writing to them myself. Durova^Charge! 16:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, open proxy. What school would use that? This is nonsense from start to finish. Durova^Charge! 17:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Problem with user about his addition to Far Above Cayuga's Waters

I reverted recently an edit from an ip [44]. He commented on my talk page about it [45] which was reverted, came back as a logged in user and said pretty much the same thing [46]. Now he reinserted the edit I reverted, [47] and claims it to be legitimate [48]. Since I know nothing of this topic of Far Above Cayuga's Waters, and the user is accusing me of reverting a good edit, I want someone else to check it out. - Tutmosis 18:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The additions need to be sourced. If not, they should be removed. That article is rapidly becoming an original research nightmare. Chick Bowen 23:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

So it didnt come as vandalism? "Cornell eats shit, Cornell eats shit, Cornell eats shit." doesn't seem like the lyrics of Cornell University. I don't wish to revert it again because this user is accusing me of a bad revert, so in my mind such a situation calls for a second user to confirm my stance. - Tutmosis 00:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed indef-ban of User:SPUI

This user appears to have left in early October. His only edits since then have been to SQUIDWARD pages and violate 3RR. He has also been blocked many, many times before. At one point I would not have wanted him to be indefbanned, since many of his edits were good. However now he is no longer making good edits, and seems to eant to leave the community anyway.Drennleberrn 20:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

SPUI contributes in his own special way. And you seem to have only registered in the past week. How is it that you know so much about SPUI?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The edits with 'squidward' edit summaries and those which led to the 3RR violation were all perfectly valid changes. Thus, your statement that "he is no longer making good edits" is simply false. Nothing in SPUI's recent behaviour comes anywhere remotely near requiring a community ban. --CBD 11:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deleting user talk pages

As a relatively new (< 1 month) admin, I am not sure whether a user talk page with comments from other users and a {{db-author}} tag added by the user qualifies for speedy deletion. I'm inclined to say no (it's not created "in error" and it has other contributors), but am curious what others think. --Ginkgo100 ^{talk · e@} 22:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd say no, unless the user is exercising his/her right to vanish, or there are other exceptional circumstances. People would otherwise be unable to tell if anyone has complained to the user about something (ie. test templates), and it just gets to be a gigantic pain. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I would say how {{db-author}} is applicable if the user talk page is contributed by other users? Shyam ^(T/C) 22:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I've often seen people try to get their user talk pages deleted via {{Db-userreq}}. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, these requests are often denied. For the most part, it is vandals/trolls/etc. trying to clear the history of various warnings and discussions. Of course we should assume good faith in all cases, and it's often a good idea to discuss a decision with other administrators, but for most cases user talk pages should remain intact. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 22:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

IIRC last time there was any real discussion on this the view was that even for users exercising their right to vanish we would simply blank the talk page, and use deletion primarily for scrubbing any personal info. The basic reasoning being as suggested above that their were some editors who were effectively leaving one week having their talk and user page deleted then returning the next, repeatedly (I perhaps exagerate on that, but you get the idea).--pgk 07:13, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The only time user talk pages are deleted is when the user is banned. Otherwise, simply blanking the page is enough, including for a user choosing to vanish. —Centrx→talk • 07:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Randomness Vandalism

Hi, I've noticed a very high level of vandalim on Randomness, the level seems to suggest some form of vendetta, having only recently started monitoring the page I'm not aware of the history. I've just noticed a named user leaving obscene messages - without knowing if there is a history I would rather not put a vandal template particularly as I'm not exactly sure of what I'm doing. --Mike 23:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Ottl ima 010805.jpg

A decision is needed for this image. It's been beaten down by mainly me and Panarjedde. I essentially think it's a bad faith nomination and gaming the system(Please look at his record) and he's going on about it being replaceable and so on. Kingjeff 00:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to oblige this user to stop saying that my edits are bad faith ([49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64]), gaming the system ([65] [66] [67] [68]), as well as some other nice things ([69] [70] [71])? Is the fact he is not capable of reading WP:FU policy a good reason to let him insult me every time he edits an article?--Panarjedde 00:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

So, I can't believe someone is doing bad faith edits and nominations? Kingjeff 01:00, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Getting back to this photo. All I'm asking is that an administrator deal with the photo and use sound judgement on this. Kingjeff 01:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted it. It clearly fails the criteria for fair use. --Carnildo 07:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

User:Panarjedde/appo

What's this? This looks like a personal attack if I ever saw one. Kingjeff 02:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

A link to your userpage is not a personal attack. semper fi — Moe 02:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

This is his userpage. The other is something else. It looks to me as if he's trying to personal attack? Kingjeff 03:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No, there are at present no personal attacks on either page. Please read over WP:NPA so you know what a personal attack is. semper fi — Moe 03:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

To me, it looks like he's gathering evidence for an RfC or Arbcom case. That is most definitely not a form of personal attack. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 08:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandal with grudge against William Connolley the user taking it out on the William Connolley article

User:MarkThomas appears to have taken it upon himself to vandalize the William Connolley article in retribution for an earlier block dealt to him by the administrator User:William M. Connolley.

These actions have mostly included blanking ([72], [73], [74], [75], [76]), but also included some simple nonsense vandalism such as [77] and [78]. He also gave 2 rather WP:POINTed talk page suggestions here and here, and bragged about his earlier vandalism [79]. His edit summaries have also generally be insults against Connolley.

During a short period in which he was not actively damaging the page, another user (with a similar name pattern) conveniently emerged to continue his vandalism ([80], [81]) Mark Thomas also ignored a vandalism warning left to him by another user[82] and threatened to report me for 3RR violation for reverting his vandalism [83].

I request User:MarkThomas be blocked for disruption, vandalism, and most likely personal attacks as well. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 08:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 24 hours.--MONGO 12:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've removed one of his talk page comments as particularly abusive as well, per Wikipedia:remove personal attacks.. A check of the article history reveals that the user only started to edit this article, after his original 3rr imposed by Connolley had expired. Morwen - Talk 12:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

And you can add Appeals to Jimbo[84] and talk page trolling[85] to the list of misdeeds. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:14, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

And to top it all off, I've filed an WP:RFCU case on him for his abusive sockpuppet assistant User: Sarah Williams here. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 12:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:RFSL

I have written a proposal for a hybrid between RfC, Arbcom and the Community Ban and named it WP:RFSL. It is intended to be an RFC with teeth (or faster Arbcom that works be Admins not by Arbitrators or Community ban with discussions). What do you think? Will it work? Can it be abused? Alex Bakharev 09:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm not an expert at RfCs, though... What is an "RfC with teeth"? If during an RfC strong remedies are proposed and endorsed by a substantial number of editors, I don't see why such strong measures from a regular RfC couldn't be enforced. So, if regular RfCs have no teeth it's because nobody proposes or endorses stringent messures. A regular RfC has the advantage over this new RfS proposal that the decision-making isn't limited to admins. I don't particularly like the idea of giving admins a role akin to an "arbcom-at-large" or "ad-hoc arbcom". On the other hand, this is what sometimes happens anyway at WP:AN/I, so maybe this could be seen as a formalization of an existing informal process... There's also the timing question. New ArbCom elections are upcoming: why not wait and see whether the newly constituted ArbCom manages to work more speditively? Lupo 10:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Have you read Wikipedia:Disruptive editing? Durova^Charge! 15:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Help at WP:CSD

There's over 150 articles, including nearly 80 images awaiting deletion. I've done 40 so far but my internet's crapping out horribly. I'd appreciate some help :) Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Down to images, but I don't trust my school's connection. I leave it in your hands. Luigi30 (Taλk) 14:20, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Unblocking collateral damage assistance required

Hello! I have received the following e-mail from Feedmelinguini:

"I have been blocked for "persistent vandalism." The full text of the message is "Your account or IP address has been blocked from editing. You were blocked by (aeropagitica) for the following reason (see our blocking policy): persistent vandalism. Your IP address is 65.43.196.16." I am confused as to why this would occur. My changes to webpages have been primarily spelling errors, as well as an occasional substantive change. Never have I vandalized any page, and I am not sure why I have been accused of having done so. Your response is greatly appreciated."

The Talk page for this editor reveals an unblock for collateral damage on September 13. I need to know how to determine which block of mine would result in this autoblock in order to unblock and reblock allowing logged-in editors to contribute. Find the editors' IP address? (aeropagitica) 16:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)