Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive238

Please look at Inter language links part of Harrier Jump Jet article. Is it true?Gire 3pich2005 (talk) 16:16, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes as many other wikis have several articles on the Harrier and it's different versions all linking to this one article here. NtheP (talk) 16:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Up to 1,559 seconds. Who broke it? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:07, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

See WP:Village pump (technical)#Database lag. Dougweller (talk) 17:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Leontopodium alpinum (edit | user page | history | links | watch | logs)

Unprotection: This page does NOT need protection. zzuuzz was asked to remove protection and refused to help. Unlike many of the editors involved, I do not have problem with IP editors or assume they are the bad guys. I want them to be able to contact me. This protection was instigated by a small number of overzealous editors continuously reverting an IP and agitating it in the process. The original edit was not even a personal attack as they put, although it was a bit harsh. Editors causing this problem need to read WP:DENY. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

To elaborate on the comment recently on my talk page, as with all my actions any admin is welcome to adjust the protection as they see fit. If you've seen the proxy-hopping trolls, both(?) ANI threads, and the edit frequencies then you're not missing much. My reasons for protection remain unchanged, so I won't be doing it myself. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Leon should do what I do and what the rules recommend: create a separate, non-protected pseudo talk page where IP's can "contact him", as he puts it. The "contacting" in this case is nothing more than a personal attack on another editor, and is not appropriate for Leon's talk page. And Leon's insistence keeping the attack there raises suspicions about his own alleged "good faith". The WP:DENY stuff is wrong-headed. You don't "deny" trolls by leaving their garbage untouched - you deny them by preventing them from posting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:17, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I would say that the suspicions arise more from you wikistalking my edits and canvassing your pal Dave1185. You caused this whole problem by reverting edits multiple times that are really not personal attacks, and that's true no matter how many time you claim otherwise. Please refrain from adding your opinion unnecessarily, as you are not an admin. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 14:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I have asked Dave to comment here. If he doesn't care, I don't care. If he does care, then your page should remain protected, so as to "deny" the trolls as you say. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a nice idea from you, but unfortunately for you or Dave1185 to "care" or not or what you think about what should happen to my talk page are not necessary or relevant. Please do refrain from your own agitation. Thanks for stopping by. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

You are under the mistaken impression that you "own" your talk page. You don't. If you allow incivility against others to remain on your page, you are approving of that incivility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

You are under the mistaken impression that your opinion is necessary or appropriate to add to this discussion. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 05:30, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

As this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit everyone's opinion is appropriate and even necessary any/everywhere. Can someone sort out these facts for me. Based on this edit history Leontopodium alpinum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log);

1. La has minimal edits to article space - four although I may have miscounted.
2. La went around bestowing barnstars to those who complained about Dave1185's alleged incivility. So, per AGF they disapprove of such "personal attacks" occurring on WikiP. YET
3. They are perfectly happy for "personal attacks" against Dave1185 to be added to - and remain - on their talk page. The term "tag and bag" used for socks who have already betrayed the communities trust is far less offensive then the post about Dave1185 added by various IPs (and that alone should raise red flags of various sizes and vivid colors) to La's talk page.

As Bugs correctly state if La is here as someone who want to edit constructively then they can "create a separate, non-protected pseudo talk page where IP's can "contact him"" other wise can we please apply WP:NOTTHERAPY - among several others - and end this drama. MarnetteD | Talk 05:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

You warp facts to fit the agenda of you and your friends. This has nothing to do for the actual comment left on my talk page, although I strongly disparage your view that it was a personal attack. If you think this is personal attack the you skin is far, far to thin for Wikipedia. It is clearly not a personal attack. Dave 1185 and his pals are simply trying to keep the Wiki clean of criticism of his actions.

1. The number of edits I have made does not matter: WP:DONTBITE. Of course I thank people that took the reasonable position in a long argument. Oh, and Dave1185 did the same thing.
2. You are grossly misstate what I am asking. I am not interested at all with this request to anything with the original edit on my page. I never mentioned it here. Good attempt, but again you do not tell the truth about this request. I am only demanding that my own talk page be unprotected.
3. You do not have a neutral opinion in this matter and should recuse yourself from the discussion. You were part of the Dave1185 clique that caused this problem by constant revert to my talk page.
4. If you wish to so nakedly have a personal agenda outside of the actual discussion please be a little more clever about disguising it. Bugs does not correctly state anything, and neither do you. You two are part of why there is a drama at all. If you had left it alone the page would never have needed protection and a mildly annoying comment (but NOT personal attack) would not have created the problem this IP wanted. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 12:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Your screed proves my point. BTW we have both Wikipedia:Attack page and Wikipedia:NPA as policies that should be remembered in this situation. Oh and I am not part of any clique. MarnetteD | Talk 16:49, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

No, you are completely and embarrassingly wrong on all counts. Recommend you review the literature and Wikipedia policies before making any further comments. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 18:22, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Marnette has had an account here for 7 years, whereas you've had an account for 7 months. So there's a good chance that his/her knowledge of the rules is better than yours. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:37, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I note that Leon has removed the semi-protected flag from his page. That doesn't actually affect anything. The semi remains in effect until the 13th, at this point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:43, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

It should also be noted that although Leon does not approve of a message being removed from their talk page [1] they have no problem with removing them from other another editors talk as can be seen here [2] and [3] MarnetteD | Talk 15:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Once again you are kilometers from the correct mark here. Removing a comment from my page 1. Not what this is about 2. Not something I ever opposed. I spoke against you and your pals edit-warring and agitating an IP on my talk page, not against the comment being removed. And you are most certainly not comparing removing my own comments from a page to this, because even that would too nakedly reveal your agenda and bias in this situation. Please do sit this one out unless you have something valid to contribute. You are acting as the "garbage truck", as your buddy Dave1185 likes to say. Leontopodium alpinum (talk) 16:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

• Uninvolved admin here. I have been reviewing this situation, and come to the following conclusions:

• The removal of personal attacks and the protecting of the page were entirely appropriate
• Therefore the request for removal of protections is declined
• Leon is reminded that this is an encyclopedia and that everything else is secondary to that goal. It's July, and you have made but 3 edits to actual articles this year. And no, it's not "biting" to say so, merely a reminder of what it is we are supposed to be doing here which all of you involved in this should take to heart
• As a show of good faith from all concerned I would ask you all to voluntarily topic ban yourselves from interacting with "the other side" in this conflict. There is an evident pattern of a long-term problem here going back several months. Continuing to have any contact at this point is only going to antagonize the other parties.
• This matter should now be considered closed. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

That is fine. For the record I have no idea what "long-term problem" you are referring to. I got involved with this less than three weeks ago when this thread Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive756#User:Dave1185 and the user namespace occurred at ANI and, thus, do not know what you might be referring to. That is why the accusation of cliques makes so little sense. Also, just for my information, will it still be closed when another IP restores the offensive message (which contains no examples of the behavior alleged BTW to say nothing of there being no attempts to "help" as a followup) after the page protection expires? MarnetteD | Talk 21:44, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

There is an edit war and revert war on this article: Montenegrins between the users.

Parties involves in the edit/revert war:

• User:23 editor
• User:Navyworth

I reverted one edit and advised the users to discuss their differences of opinion on Talk:Montenegrins to discuss what the topic of the article should be about, as Montenegrins may refer to people as citizens of Montenegro, or an ethnic group in Montenegro that identifies as Montenegrin. The article is currently about the ethnicity of Montenegrins and the basis of this dispute is whether Montenegrins identified as an ethnicity prior to the 1940s. I asked for users to take part in a discussion and present their evidence. In spite of my request for the users to engage in discussions to resolve the problem, neither user has taken part in such discussions and the edit/revert war has continued. The hostility of the edit/revert war began to become very strong at this point: Navyworth reverting edits here and using combative language [4] [5], 23 editor repeatedly reverted edits by Navyworth with no explanations of why he/she reverted them, [6] [7], [8] - as can be seen, none of these revert edits explain why the edit was made.

I recommend that both users be given a warning to cease this edit/revert warring immediately, to discuss their differences of opinion on the talk page, to request a Wikipedia:Request for Comment if they cannot find an agreement between each other, explain the reasons of their edits, and to immediately cease using combative language.--R-41 (talk) 00:42, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Warned both (under WP:ARBMAC), and blocked Navyworth for a day, as I find his conduct even more objectionable than the other guy's. Question now is, is the IP 62.178.104.225 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) who suddenly popped up to continue Navyworth's reverts and made personal attacks in the process the same editor? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:58, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment - As a non-involved editor, wouldn't you agree that your judgement is injudicious? The arbitration case you cited in your judgement was striked out in 2007 and even if it still holds, the ruling states that an initial warning is prerequisite before taking any such sanction. The same warning that you gave to User:23 editor should have also been given to User:Navyworth. I think that would have been fairer because both were involved in edit warring which in itself is a blockable offense. If you are going to block Navyworth, then 23 editor should have also been blocked. Objectionability is also a subjective judgment. I am interested in what Wiki policy states. For the record, I am not affiliated with any of these two (and have never conversed with them), neither I am a contributor to the article in question. My comment are purely based on the spirit of Wiki policy. If am wrong in my analysis, I stand corrected with a direct link to the relevant policy.Tamsier (talk) 13:21, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:ARBMAC is very much still in effect and actionable, as you can see from the unbroken stream of new sanctions logged under it all the time. Yes, it requires a prior warning, so that's why I gave them just that warning now. The block of Navyworth is a standard edit-warring block and doesn't require any such precondition. I decided to treat his conduct as significantly worse than the other guy's because (a) he has been around longer, (b) he has a significant history of prior disruption, (c) he continued edit-warring beyond a warning, (d) he reverted more often, (e) his reverts were accompanied with personal attacks, (f) he was revert-warring against an apparent consensus of several other editors, and (g) the other guy at least tried to request help from others, indicating he was aware something was wrong about the situation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:42, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I see no diffs other than having to take your word for it. With respect, that will not do. Policy is policy and should be judicially applied when passing such judgments. Ignorance of policy is no excuse no matter how new an editor. As regards to Navyworth's talk history, I do not see a massive list of severe issues (exc. this) other than FfD nominations and the one you added in July 2011 [9]. Surely, he could not have been that disruptive since he registered in 2008. If he was, then surely administrators or other editors did not find his "disruptiveness" severe enough to warrant a warning on his talk page. As such, we have problem.Tamsier (talk) 14:19, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Why do you expect I should have to spend time digging out diffs for you in a matter that doesn't concern you, just on your say-so? I looked at both parties' conduct and made a decently well-informed judgment to the best of my ability. If one of the parties wants to challenge it, they are free to do so. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:46, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I am so sorry you feel that I have inconvenience you. I thought the application of Wiki policy (or lack of) is an issue that concerns every contributor on Wikipedia. By your edit, I can only conclude you don't believe so. Since you have blocked one of the parties, I doubt if they will be able to challenge your decision until after the block has expired, by which time, there is no point in challenging it. I am interested in "procedural fairness". I believe the decision to be injudicious, hence my comments. This is not about you digging diffs because of my say-so. This is about you justifying the action you've just taken which I believe to be contrary to Wiki policy (see above). With respect, you still have not done so (based on policy), and may be this is one of those incidents which needs to be taken to ANI. I would like to know what other administrators think, and would accept the consensus whatever it may be.Tamsier (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

What policy exactly is Fut.Perf. supposed to have applied badly? He warned both users per WP:ARBMAC, and he explained in detail why the conduct of one of the edit-warring users was worse than the other's. Even if he was mistaken about Navyworth's prior history, that still leaves multiple reasons why Navyworth's conduct was worse (chief among them the fact that 23 editor at least tried to get a discussion going). I'm not an admin, but I see nothing wrong with Fut.Perf.'s decision. The WP:Blocking policy explicitly mentions personal attacks and disruption as a block reasons, and Navyworth was significantly more disruptive. Also, Navyworth can request to be unblocked. He cannot request 23 user to also be blocked, but what purpose would that serve? Huon (talk) 16:38, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much Huon for your contribution. Perhaps I have gone blind or loosing my faculties, so would be so kind to show me where 23 editor had "tried to get a discussion going"? I have looked in the article's talk page (where discussions are held and consensus reached) but there is nothing there by either 23 editor or Navyworth. The only involved person I see there trying to get a discussion going is R-41, the editor who reported the two [10]. Even R-41 in their report (above) states that : "I asked for users to take part in a discussion and present their evidence. In spite of my request for the users to engage in discussions to resolve the problem, neither user has taken part in such discussions and the edit/revert war has continued." Further, 23 editor has shown no interest, even in the edit summary. Indeed, he did not even leave comments in the edit summary expressing a wish to hold a discussion in the article's talk page and reach a consensus, instead, he kept edit warring. This is the problem I am having. So when I read 23 editor has been trying to get a discussion going, I ask how and where? Because he surely didn't do it in the talk page where it should be done, and still haven't done so. For the record, I am taking no one's side. I think they are both as bad as each other regarding their edit wars. My issue is the fairness (based on policy) in which Future Perfect has passed his judgement. At present, I have not been convinced. Tamsier (talk) 17:52, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

23 editor went to Navyworth's talk page and asked for sources. Surely not the best choice of venue, but still better than nothing. Huon (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

You've said it : "Surely not the best choice of venue..." As regards to whether it is better than nothing, I think that is a subjective opinion. 23 editor practically posted to Navyworth's talk page accusing him of vandalism (a civility breach especially in this heated issues) and then talked about general consensus which he had played no part in reaching even after being invited by R-41 on the talk page, which he still has not contributed to other than edit warring. Surprised he talked about discussion on the talk page but did not part take in the open discussion other than edit war. This brings me back to my point above, they are as bad as each other regarding their edit wars. Now if Future Perfect found it fit to block one, he should have found it fit to block the other. If he decided to give one a mere warning, then he should have done the same for the other.Tamsier (talk) 21:30, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Since I was the one who posted the original complaint here about both users behaviour, what I will say is that there are different levels of administrative action that I believe were needed here. On the issue of strong combativeness and highly uncivil behaviour in violation of Wikipedia principles - Navyworth required a reprimand on the account of combativeness, this will serve as a reminder that such behaviour will not be taken lightly. so I support Fut. Perf's decision on that issue. However I somewhat agree with Tamsier that 23 Editor's behaviour has been very uncooperative. Outside of the issue of Navyworth's uncivil combativeness that deserved a reprimand, I believe both Navyworth and 23 Editor require the following clear and direct warning: that any further revert warring between them or others will result in immediate administrative action via a topic-ban on the Montenegrins article for both users.--R-41 (talk) 01:02, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, considering the extensive edit-warring on the issue of whether to identify "Montenegrins" as just those who identify as ethnic Montenegrins or whether to identify "Montenegrins" as the citizens of Montenegro (that includes ethnic Montenegrin, Serb, Bosniak, etc.) needs to be resolved via an administrator-overseen Request for Comment - with the administrator serving as both a moderator between the more heated partisans who support one side or the other. The Request for Comment must also include asking users for sources that show when the earliest time that a Montenegrin ethnicity was used and evidence for when ethnic Montenegrin identity became extensively accepted.--R-41 (talk) 01:02, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

This bot is running amok and needs to be corrected - it is currently adding this:Category:American tempura painters to articles about artists who paint with tempera the category should read: Category:American tempera painters. Unless of course they all cook Japanese, someone needs to change the bot...Modernist (talk) 21:16, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Being taken care of by User:The Bushranger...Modernist (talk) 21:29, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Bot isn't running loose; it was told to move articles from category 1 to category 2, and it so happens that the instructions misspelled the name of category 2. Nyttend (talk) 21:31, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Copyright problems
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins

I decided I was going to remove it from my watchlist when I announced my break from CP because I can't keep up with it and I can't stand to watch the backlog grow, but I just have to point this out. The "Advice for admins" pages tries to make it easier for admins who want to pitch in. I'd say maybe we could use some more clerks, but I wouldn't even know who to approach. If anybody wants to take a stab at it, it can use all the help it can get. The more the merrier. Many hands, light work. Name your cliche. It just needs people. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:28, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I addressed the open issues on 18 May, so you can skip to 20 May if you want to work on oldest. (I've never closed a day before, so checking to make sure how.)I now know.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

For exercising long term poor judgement in his use of administrative tools, including his recent block of User:Itsmejudith, User:Carnildo's administrative tools are removed. Carnildo may regain the administrative tools in the usual manner via a successful Request for Adminship.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 15:34, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

In response to my question, a link was posted — this decision was the result of an arbitration case, not an emergency decision. Nyttend (talk) 19:21, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

This websites ravensprogressivematrices[.]com/ created 4/2012 edit this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices#External_links many times for Advertising and money. Please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by LANA5588 (talk • contribs) 01:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

We generally allow a link to an official website, so I've reverted your deletion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:17, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I also note that you have removed the link 5 times in the past 24 hours (and 11 times in the past 2 weeks), using your new account and the IP User:113.190.195.152. This is called edit warring and is not allowed under Wikipedia's policies, so please stop before someone decides to block you from editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:53, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

LANA5588 reverted again, and another editor reported to the AN3 board. I suggest that there's nothing for admins to do here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:09, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

We have a new editor, ProBonoPublicoA90 (talk · contribs), who out of enthusiasm has added wikilinks to phantosmia to several dozen articles. I am going to use rollback to revert most of them, because any other approach is too much work. This is not an incident requiring intervention; I am simply letting it be known what I am going to do. I will give the editor a pointer to this section. Looie496 (talk) 17:32, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I have now done what I said I would. Looie496 (talk) 17:52, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

It should probably be noted that they were adding it to the See Also section, as opposed to wikilinking an already existing use of the term, which is what I thought "added wikilinks" meant before looking at the diffs. - SudoGhost 18:02, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, I should have been clearer. Wikilinking existing uses, or even adding new text that uses the term, would not have been a problem. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The prod on List of Webkinz stuffed animals was removed one hour after the 7-day cutoff. Does this still go to AFD or not? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:23, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Still goes to AfD. The point of the 7 days is to give someone a chance to object, but its the objection that counts, not the timing of it. You can also get a WP:REFUND of most prodded articles without much struggle, so it wouldn't make sense to delete it with an outstanding objection. Monty₈₄₅ 01:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Monty. I (as well as many other admins) undelete most PRODed articles upon simple request. AfD is best course here, as you've done. Rjd0060 (talk) 02:47, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

While patrolling WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology I reverted a spam edit by 115.111.32.134. When I visited their talkpage to leave them a notice of the action, I discovered that they have been warned repeatedly about spamming. I have two questions:

1. Is this the appropriate place to address this issue? And
2. Do I need to do anything else?

Kthapelo (talk) 23:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:AIV is the place for quick reports about obvious spam accounts. DMacks (talk) 23:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I just reverted several questionable links he inserted regarding for-profit business colleges. See [11] and [12]. 81M (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

You might alsowant to read WP:BLACKLIST. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Concerns about the site Wikimapia's suitability as a citation source or external link have been raised at the reliable sources, and External Links noticeboards respectively. Feedback would appreciated as before starting to remove links (as opposed to mere commenting out), I was needing consensus. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:48, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me as though there is a substantial backlog at WP:SPI. Requesting that anyone willing and able to do something take a look. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 17:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I need a file named File:Paris logo ter jms.svg containing the wikicode #REDIRECT[[File:Ter.svg]] so that the last entry of {{PA icon}} will work correctly. Useddenim (talk) 19:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. Couldn't you create it yourself? Nyttend (talk) 00:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

No; I kept getting a "prohibited filename" message that told me I needed an admin to create the file. But thanks for the fix. Useddenim (talk) 03:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the right place to put such a complaint, but it appears that 赵明毅 (talk · contribs) is creating hoax articles for which there are no sources (at least not according to Google). --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 07:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

As far as my tired brain can tell, he's creating complete hoaxes. I just tagged one for speedy, but the rest can probably be safely tagged for speedy as well. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I can testify that fluorine perchlorate is real. The others, however, are not. Never mind. I see now that he did not create fluorine perchlorate. In that case, they're all hoaxes. CSD'd. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 07:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked by Materialscientist.--Makecat_Talk 08:01, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I have indeffed this user and deleted three article they created - those were claims of revolutionary discoveries which could not be confirmed by any web search (like superconductivity at impossibly high temperatures - better say hoaxes). The user was editing from an open proxy and was clearly familiar with the inner working of wikipedia (engaging the RFP and AIV boards from first edits). Likely a block evasion, but I don't know who. Materialscientist (talk) 08:04, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

He seems to be User:李煌教授 because checkuser has confirmed he used a sockpuppet named zh:User:赵明毅教授 on zhwiki. --Makecat_Talk 08:06, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, this is a straightforward case for applying a checkuser scan. This is a good evidence of a web proxy that might need a proxyblock (maybe a rangeblock). Materialscientist (talk) 08:13, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Chaohu, which was tagged under CSD-G6 (db-move) more than 40 hours ago, has yet to be attended to. Also, the following have been tagged for at least 12 hours:

1. El Ángel, 37 hrs
2. Thomas Massie, 20 hrs
3. Soban Jat, 19 hrs
4. Ying e Chi, 17 hrs

I don't care that a few admins may still be in the dark after that nasty derecho back on 29 June—there should be other admins dealing with, and ideally preventing, backlogs globally, and this is unacceptable. GotR ^Talk 16:38, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

What's the rush? "Speedy" means "anything less than the 7 days required for PROD or AFD". Have a little more respect for the project, policies (and admins). There certainly is no backlog (✉→BWilkins←✎) 16:46, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought the policy for CSD was 24 hours, so this is really a mis-understanding, not being "damned rude". Besides, up until now, every G6 I have tagged has been decided on within 12 hours. GotR ^Talk 17:01, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

There is generally no grace period with CSDs they are actioned as soon as an admin gets around to it. I've removed the tags on the last two, they should really go through AfD. Monty₈₄₅ 17:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Dunno what a derecho is but the db-move requests are all sorted now. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:40, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

See June 2012 North American derecho. Graham87 23:03, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Give us admins a goddamn pay raise and maybe we'll move faster :) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:17, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, effective tomorrow, pay is doubled. Now, back to work.SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I know it's not quite the same thing, but when I glance at the CSD backlog and see 36 items, I decide to work on Wikipedia:Copyright problems, where the backlog isn't 37 hours, it is 38 days, or OTRS, where the backlog is 47 days.SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Just a side comment. In the past I have declined CSDs that sit for over 24 hours. These are ones that I do not feel comfortable deleting myself, but also are not clearly declinable under any other obvious reasons. My logic is that, if they have sat at CSD for over 24 hours, and no admin has felt comfortable either deleting or declining in that time, then that fact by itself is an indication that Speedy Deletion is likely not the proper deletion system, and a fuller AFD debate is likely warranted. - TexasAndroid (talk) 20:30, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• "Speedy" doesn't really mean "Must be done immediately". It means "Obvious candidate for deletion so we can bypass the week of haggling at AfD". If there were G10s sitting around being ignored, that would be a big concern; but if something like a G6 or an A9 or maybe a db-talk is left visible for a day, it's not going to do the encyclopædia serious harm. bobrayner (talk) 21:20, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Could an uninvolved admin close the merger proposal at Talk:Church of the Nativity? Looks pretty clear to me, but as this is a very contentious area I'd rather follow the rules to the letter. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:42, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I've made a closure, with a brief personal recommendation on how to proceed about the trimming. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

User:ThomasMoore1852 is my alternative account, the user page is being edit warred over because I prefer to redirect it into mainspace. Rather than go to rfpp immediately, would someone here please address this issue. Thank you kindly. ThomasMoore1852 a.k.a. Penyulap ☏ 01:08, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Stop redirecting it to mainspace. Problem solved. Somebody looking to direct a question or comment to a specific editor should not be directed away from that editor's user/talk pages. --auburnpilot talk 05:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't get it. Is this guy asking to be blocked for edit warring? S/he's identified that it's an edit war and certainly violates WP:UP. Toddst1 (talk) 06:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

That policy only restricts user talk redirects, on what grounds did you delete the userpage? Also see WP:3RRNO, its not a violation of policy and therefor he is permitted to edit war on his own userpace. Monty₈₄₅ 07:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree, WP:UP talks only about user talk pages not to be redirect to mainspace, and within an own userspace this is not edit warring - please undelete and stop vandalising this user's userpage. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:08, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Moreover, the warning on the user's talkpage should also be removed. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Mmm. Missed the specific about talk page. Apologies. Toddst1 (talk) 12:02, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I would have intended to put some clarification onto the policy page in the future, but I gave up in the present because of the inevitable shouts of creep made in the past. Penyulap ☏ 13:47, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)

RfC

there is sufficient confusion over the issue elsewhere to warrant a RfC here. Penyulap ☏ 19:50, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Now that there is an RfC on the issue, might I recommend that everyone stop reverting each other? This is getting ridiculous, and there's no reason to continue the conflict when we'll have a definitive answer to whether it's allowed or not once the RfC closes. Penyulap, the "letter of the law" may not currently say that you can't do what you've done, but the fact remains that if your editing is in dispute and you've been asked to stop, you're supposed to stop. Everyone who's reverting Penyulap, why get deeper into the dispute when the community will give you an answer soon enough? Leave it up to the RfC. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:08, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you figure it's time for me to ask at rfpp as I intended, to stop everyone, including admins, warring over my own userpage. Hey, quick show of hands, how many people think I'm doing this on purpose ? lol. Penyulap ☏ 21:42, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the RFC was improperly closed, which might explain why it is continuing. Since no one has demonstrated any harm by the redirect, and no one can show where policy prohibits it, and I can show where policy went out of its way to not prohibit it, I can only assume that a great many people are mistaken about this issue. That I have to even spend the time to defend this silly little redirect shows how overly bureaucratic and domineering we've gotten as a community recently. As Wikipedians, this is not our finest hour. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 13:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it is disallowed per policy. UP#SUB and UPYES. Specifically UPYES, which states :

Details about yourself should not normally go in the main encyclopedia namespace (reserved for encyclopedia articles only), and encyclopedia articles should never link to any userspace pages.

Linking his userpage to a main page runs counter to this,explicitly.
Further, while you don't have to have anything on your user page, you are allowed to redirect it to your talk page only, per UP#SUB:
User page Your user page has a name like this: User:Example. (This link is to yours.) Its normal use is to give basic information if you wish, about yourself or your Wikimedia-related activities. You don't have to say anything about yourself. If you prefer to put nothing here then you can redirect it to your user talk page for the convenience of other editors.
It never allows for a redirect anywhere else. Just my .02 "....We are all Kosh...."  <-Babylon-5-> 16:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

UPYES says "Details about yourself should not normally go in the main encyclopedia namespace ..." - this is information in the user namespace. "... and encyclopedia articles should never link to any uyserspace pages" (my emphasis) - this is the reverse, hence, there is nothing that says anything.

UPSUB says "If you prefer to put nothing here then you can redirect it to your user talk page for the convenience of other editors." - however, if a user prefers to have something else there (say, a redirect to mainspace) then there is nothing in that sentence that prohibits that. We may not like it, and we can talk to the editor and try to convince them, but in the end, there is no policy basis that prohibits this (and there should not be). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:40, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

With links, they are one-way, and the policy doesn't really mention that. So when you read it with that in mind, that they link only one way, it will clear that up for you. Userpages just for the time being can state you're an alien from another planet, or editors can insult themselves and talk nonsense. No doubt there will be editors who will make demands one day in the future that userpages be regulated with maybe even a new BLP/U drama board for issues like "Editor X says they come from Africa, met Michael Jackson and they do brilliant editing, I dispute that, blah bla bla citation needed blah bla Jackson was already dead bla bla blah". But for now it's the locker where we can put our approved personal possessions prior to labouring at the cube farm. Penyulap ☏ 01:31, 12 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Has everyone finished yet ?

Not that I mind the attention from so many editors, admin and non-admin alike, fighting to own my userpage, but do you think if it is not too much to ask, that the page be returned to it's former state whilst people argue or get sick of arguing or whatever ? I've already enjoyed the lovely example of how Vet editors are followed about while they do their boring routine and are halted by critics yelling "HA! I found something" like a kid with a metal detector who just found pirates gold at the beach. I can see how they'd be concerned (I'm not) about continuing to work when admins itching to block and don't need real excuses form a throng. Because who cares if they are wrong ? I consider Toddst1 as both competent and trustworthy because he/she admits to being human, and let's face facts, we are all human. Toddst1 is not part of the editor retention issue I expect, being able to admit a mistake (even if he/she turns out to be correct) is an obvious hallmark of someone who we can build a community around.

Meanwhile, Future Perfect at Sunrise seems to have appointed them self supreme ruler of my userpage, may I be so daring and bold to ask why he/she thinks I approve of this state of affairs ? Penyulap ☏ 01:31, 12 Jul 2012 (UTC)

How about because you don't own your userpage.

"....We are all Kosh...."  <-Babylon-5-> 11:24, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The backlog at Wikipedia:Copyright_problems is at 38 days, and now long enough that it is creating a technical problem, as the template include size is exceeded.

The best solution is to cut down the backlog. The backlog had been kept manageable most through the efforts of Moonriddengirl, who has temporarily "retired" from CP, if it is correct to call it a retirement—she decided to work on the longer backlog at CCI

There's ten or so items a day, for roughly 400 items in the backlog. If every admin addressed ONE item, there wouldn't be enough to go around.

Actively ensuring that we do not permit copyright violations is critical to the existence of Wikipedia. I'm not going to pretend it is fun work, but it often requires reading the whole article, and I've learned about some people and events I might not have learned about otherwise.

Please do at least one, and we'll have the backlog reduced in no time.SPhilbrick(Talk) 11:40, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Let me add my plea to this. The problem is actually worse than it appears, as there is much undetected copyvio. I seem to be removing copyvio almost every day without working at CCI. I'm trying not to add editors there, which may be a mistake as it makes the numbers look smaller than they are. Dougweller (talk) 11:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Thirded. I'm helping out when I can but as I'm currently travelling this isn't very often. As well as the technical issues this also means that there are probably hundreds of articles which are either partially or entirely blanked. Advice for dealing with these listings is at WP:CPAA. Dpmuk (talk) 12:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Fourthed! I'm only a CP clerk, not an admin, so I can only completely resolve some types of CP listings, e.g. those not needing revision deletion or whole article deletion. If you're new to working at CP, be sure to leave a quick note under the article's listing saying what you have done and that it's resolved. You don't have to use the symbols if you find that too fiddly. But don't delete the whole listing when you've resolved it. We need to keep track of how many articles we've dealt with there and how we dealt with them. Doug is absolutely right. What is at CP is only the tip of the iceberg. :/ Voceditenore (talk) 17:02, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Welcome to yet another symptom of the decline of Wikipedia. Not to worry though, the Foundation's right on it sticking their thumbs in the cracks via editor retention. Smart, them thar folks. <cough> --Hammersoft (talk) 16:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Wonder what effect it would have if we restricted article creation to autoconfirmed users? Nyttend (talk) 18:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• It's one potential solution of many. It may take many solutions. Bottom line, content over time is becoming increasingly static with less and less creation. With the decline in editorship (now in its fifth year I believe) there needs to be a strategic plan in place for long term survivability of the content. There is, to my knowledge, no such plan now other than ineffectual (to the overall purpose) attempts at editor retention. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Nyttend, we've been barking up that tree for over a year now; tell them. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:50, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• My edit summary linked the ACTRIAL page; I too was disgusted by the response from WMF. Nyttend backup (talk) 18:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

• I shoot a lot of these on sight while doing long stubs cleanup. Another list that is excessively large, but less critical. One note on the list, it seems to be stale, probably due to what others have reported as database problems. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • The list isn't really stale - the individual days are still being created and should contain listings - they're just not being transcluded onto the main page due to too many transclusions. Not idea but at least it means those listings won't be lost. Dpmuk (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I also partially blame the RFA process for this. I for one would help with some but I am not an admin nor likely ever to be, so even if I found a problem, all I could do would be to refer it to someone with access. If admins weren't the only ones that could do some of the other tasks that currently are restricted only to admins and some of us old timers that have been around for years and with hundreds of thousands of edits, but have for various reasons been deemed as not trustworthy enough to wield the mop, then more admins would be freed up to do some of these other things. Kumioko (talk) 20:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• Well it isn't blatantly obvious you can't be trusted? You haven't reached 500,000 edits yet without getting blocked. Of course, the fact that you have over 350,000 edits means you've been around too long to be trusted with the extra tools. I'm quite positive there would be an enormous amount of damage to the project if you were made an administrator, and worse since there's no effective way to remove an administrator who makes bad decisions [13], we're all terrified of the abyss the project would descend into if you were granted the admin bit. Besides, I'm sure the 9 admins we'll promote the last six months of this year will gladly step forward and focus on this area of concern. Your services just aren't needed! <cough> --Hammersoft (talk) 20:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Kumioko, I respectfully, but vociferously disagree. The most important tool in a CP task is editing ability. In second place is general commonsense judgment (which is not as common as it should be) and maybe in third place is access to tools. Open and shut, this was a pure copy of some site without question does require the admin bit to delete, but most of those are picked up and handled as CSD G12. If it gets to CP, it is probably because it is a mixture of copying and original prose, or there's some question about which was copied from what, or the paraphrase is a bit close for comfort. The solution to the first and third is editing, the solution to the second is a little detective work, neither of which requires the admin bit. I guarantee that if you rewrite some prose so it now complies with our guidelines, but think a couple revisions should be revdel's and post on the CP page that all is fine except for the revdel, you'll earn my undying gratitude, and I’ll happy wield the mop for the easy cleanup.

A perfect example is Bloody Knife (7 July). A GA review found some close paraphrasing issues. It is well-written enough that it should be fixed by someone who can take the care to improve it, not hack out some of the problematic sections. If done correctly, it will result in a GA, and no admin need be involved. (I don't think we need to rev del everything but don't tell MRG I said that)SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:40, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

indeed, i think the policy is or at least should be that rev del is needed only when the copyright holder requests it, or perhaps in certain exceptional cases where there is no possibility of a fair use defense, though I find it difficult to imagine any. In general, since WP has an educational purpose, our use is transformational in making a free encyclopedia, & is most unlikely to cause anyone commercial harm, even if the work were poetry or fiction & we used the whole work, a plausible US fair use defense is possible in essentially all cases. We choose to restrict ourselves further (which I accept is a prudent policy and a wise choice by the Foundation) and therefore should delete to match our own self-imposed requirements; the only reason to rev del even upon outside demand is to retain good will in the conventional publishing community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 03:50, 10 July 2012‎

Actually, not all that many articles require rev del. It's normally sufficient to simply remove the offending text from the article, either by chop or rephrase or by reverting to a clean version. And that's what we do on the whole. The value of rev del has to be balanced against (1) losing attribution for the intervening editors who didn't add copyvio, and (2) the complexity of the task for the admin. It's easy if it's all been added as one chunk, and no one else has worked on it. Otherwise, it's often best to leave the old versions unless we get a complaint. There are a few cases where the copyvio is so pervasive and foundational and often from multiple sources, that the only solution is a complete re-write on a temp page and deletion of the previous version. Even as a non-admin, I'm able to clean many many articles at CP either by excision or rewriting on a temp page, and only ask for an admin when an article needs to be replaced with the rewrite. Voceditenore (talk) 05:49, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Re the suggestion that requiring auto-confirmation to create articles would help this situation, I don't think it would make a real difference. The majority of the problems I see are copyvio added to the article after it's been created. For example, 3 years after Pasadena High School (Pasadena, Texas) was created, this little beauty was added. Two years after Yale Law School was created, this chunk of copypaste was added. Also, a fair amount of the copyvio I have dealt with has come from long-term and sometimes prolific editors—just take a look at Contributor copyright investigations. Voceditenore (talk) 07:59, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I have little experience with CCI work, but I tend to agree that most necessary work can be very effectively done without admin tools. I also have a vague impression that reducing our collective level of copyright perfectionism could help in dealing with the backlog. I don't think that going the extra mile by revision-deleting offending content adds much of value: As long as the problem content remains hidden in the history, it no longer exists for most practical purposes. Also, while close paraphrasing is a big deal to some, I find it hard to get excited about it: as long as there is a citation attached to the text that makes it clear where it draws inspiration from, I prefer close but accurate paraphrasing to an original but inaccurate representation of the source's meaning.  Sandstein  13:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

If any admin fancies getting roundly criticized and deafened by indignant protests and wrathful recriminations, please head towards the AE arena where your services would be appreciated. Ankh.Morpork 16:25, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Draw another goblet from the cask of 43... I guess I'll do what I can, but we definitely need at least a couple other admins; I've commented in one discussion already, and I don't want to close that myself because it's not a particularly straightforward problem. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

<grunt>We really aren't being paid enough for this... T. Canens (talk) 05:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I stopped participating in AE after, when I made an AE block and another administrator undid it without discussion, I found that the Arbitration Committee was not interested in effectively and rapidly enforcing its rule which forbids such reversals - it took the Committee a ridiculous two months of full arbitration proceedings (WP:AESH) to come to a non-result consisting of ineffectual advisements, cautions and reminders. Based on this hugely time-wasting experience, combined with the tendency of regular AE work to attract the undying hatred of editors from all sides of all nasty ethno-religious conflicts that play out on Wikipedia (as noted by AnkhMorpork), I've come to the conclusion that AE is not a time-effective way of contributing to improving Wikipedia (although, of course, the experience of others may vary).  Sandstein  12:58, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

NOTICE The AFD nominator has reverted this administrator change without consensus.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:35, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

What actions are appropriate against an AFD nominator who won't give up the fight. He needs to await consensus through the proper channels.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I've restored the page to the version as of the close of AfD and protected the page for three days. --RA (talk) 21:52, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm working on a project that will require me to download large amounts of pictures from Wikipedia. I've been trying to find some advice about the best way to do this without breaking any Wikipedia rules or guidelines, but have had no response to my question on the help desk. I have heard that using Wikix is the best way to do this, but some people have reported being blocked from Wikipedia by using the utility. There is one such example here. Can anyone here advise me on whether using Wikix is allowed? And if it is allowed, are there any restrictions on download speed or time of day? Thanks,Nozzleberry (talk) 11:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Let me ask what sort of numbers your talking about...a couple hundred or a couple thousand? IS there a certain category or filter your using to determine which ones you want? That might help to get a better idea of how best it can be done. Kumioko (talk) 19:10, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for your response. I think it will probably be around 10 thousand or so pictures but it may be less. It will be pictures from a large spectrum of different articles, not just a whole category or anything. I do want to download only pictures that have a copyright tag allowing re-use though. RegardsNozzleberry (talk) 13:50, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

From Wikipedia or from Commons? For example, if you look at the article Cancer all of the images except File:Breast cancer gross appearance.jpg are actually at Wikimedia Commons (and even that file may be moved before long). Most re-usable images are stored there instead of at the English Wikipedia. We mostly kee non-free images here. If you want to download images from anything except those few stored directly at the English Wikipedia, then you'll need to ask for advice where the images are actually stored. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I see, it sounds like I may be able to limit my downloads to only files from Commons then. Is there a need to notify anybody or ask for permission if I wanted to complete regular downloads of up to 10,000 images (say once a month) from Commons?Nozzleberry (talk) 20:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• I've never seen a requirement for that, as part of the CC-BY-SA license is that permission is not required. Just be sure that you follow the individual license requirements for each image. (There may be a bandwidth issue, but you'd have to ask someone more technically minded). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:49, 11 July 2012 (UTC)#

Many thanks to all for the advice :) I'll probably just give it a go and see how I get on, but will use a low download speed so as to not hog the bandwidth. Regards, Nozzleberry (talk) 22:40, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Is the question here about the use of bandwidth that downloading 10,000 images would cause? I think that's a question for the foundation's tech guys maybe? Commons would know better.--v/r - TP 16:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the bandwidth is the main issue I was wondering about. Is there a place to post a question to the 'tech guys'? Or do you think I should just post it on the commons discussion page? Thanks Nozzleberry (talk) 17:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Ask your question here and specifically mention that you are concerned about bandwidth misuse.--v/r - TP 17:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll do that now...Thank you very much indeed for your time! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nozzleberry (talk • contribs) 23:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

(first paragraph) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_A_Rock

Tee Hee... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.64.185.117 (talk) 13:49, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Fixed and warning left for the editor in question, thanks. Bencherlite^Talk 14:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I noticed a page with suspicious content today, and tried to get some help at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China#Problem_article_-_possible_fraud.3F and Wikipedia:Help_desk#Problem_articles, but so far no useful suggestion. I apologize if this is not the right place to raise this issue, but since wiki may be used here to commit fraud, I thought the administrators might be interested in the matter.

I will repeat here what I said in the other pages. Many of the items (possibly all of them) shown in the Ancient Old Jade page appear to be fakes, some of them obviously so. For example the figure of a servant girl holding a lamp is a copy of a bronze figure discovered in a tomb - second picture, while the warrior figure is copied from figures of the Terracotta Army (these figures are never found to be made of jade in ancient China). Since many of the others also have similar appearance, those are also likely to be fakes. It seems that the pieces used for illustration in these pages are sold at auction, for example the piece at this site (which I traced from the editor/uploader's own website here ), the same piece is used to illustrate the article here (the last one in the section). There is a very strong suspicion that wiki is being used to commit fraud here - the pages are created and the images are posted in these pages to give spurious authenticity to the items which are then sold to the unwary. Other suspicious pages I found are Jade carved WuengJonq and Mutton fat white jade (although this is a legitimate term for a certain kind of jade), all involving the users Orionandhsu, Orionwebmuseum, and OrionHsu (all likely the same person, one of these accounts is blocked indefinitely). I don't know what the rules are for these and what should be done to the article or the users, I have placed a warning on Ancient Old Jade although I don't know if this is the right way of doing it. Hzh (talk) 23:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there really is a right way to do it, so this was as good as any. I too am finding those images extremely suspicious, and I'd fully support their mass removal at least for the time being. Better to discover some of them are real and reinsert them than have misleading images in articles. I don't want to screw with the formatting, so I'll let someone who's better with such things handle it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The discussion is about the topic Ancient Old Jade. Thank you. Only bronze or earth works of art would be used to copy jade carved works of art, because jade is much more expensive than bronze and earth. In ancient China, jades are the privileged items of Royal and Noble families. So they would not have been used to copy other works of art and became Fakes. Besides from the carvings of the jade, we can easily judge the finished years and dynasties of jade carved works of art. How can you find an Ancient Old Jade and an ancient imperial jade carving master to do the Fake in modern world? The carvings of Ancient Old Jade can tell the truth. Modern Fakes have no natural earth soakage colors at all. How can you create the extremely firm and solid jade soakage colors over 2000 years in modern world to cheat those trully experienced jade experts existing everywhere in the world? --Orionandhsu (talk) 03:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Authenticity aside, the number of images in that article is clearly excessive. We don't need five different images to show a single colour of jade, let alone five images of the same object at different orientations. One image of each colour would be perfectly sufficient. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 04:42, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

They are not authentic. The originals of two examples I have given were created for specific purposes - the terracotta warriors were used to guard the emperor in his after life, the servant girl holding a lamp is exactly that, a lamp. Note the odd placement of the right hand of the figure in the bronze original, that's because it serves as a chimney for the smoke. The form serves a function. The fact that the jade figure has the exact same form suggest that it is a copy because it has no function in jade. Also note the difference in quality of the sculpture, the jade one is clearly inferior when it is supposed to be more valuable. Note also the red outline in the jade figure, which I have never seen that in jade. No figures of warrior in jade has even been found in China (nor in terracotta before they were found), so the jade one is likely to have been a copy, if the jade warrior is real, it would have made the news, and I have never heard anything like that. There are plenty of images of ancient jade in the web, and none of them look remotely like some of the pieces shown in the page (for example the pieces next to the girl holding lamp), that that would suggest that those aren't jade at all. Hzh (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• I have nominated Ancient Old Jade for deletion. See here. Silverseren^C 07:11, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Can the other pages likely to have been created by the same user, Jade carved WuengJonq, be nominated for deletion as well? It is also suspicious, and serve no purpose apart from advertising for the creator of the page. Mutton fat white jade, while a legitimate term in jade, may no warrant its own page, but I'll leave it to others to decide. Hzh (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC):::

I've also nominated these for deletion.  Sandstein  13:13, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Left a comment at the Commons AN asking for Special:Nuke. Nyttend (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• I have filed a sockpuppet investigation request at WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Orionwebmuseum. -Zanhe (talk) 18:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
• This [14] looks like a possible legal threat to me. DarkAudit (talk) 09:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Even though Jim Parsons has skipped "I'M GAY" on Time magazine cover User:Bbb23 removes LGBT cats and removes referenced content [15]. See talk page I added 12 secondary references for coming out of Jim Parsons but there is too much WP:WL:)Ladsgroup^بحث 18:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• As you know, there is plenty of discussion on the talk page, some of it contributed by you. It seems that you have not carefully read the comments made by other editors, which seem to lead to this consensus. At any rate, this does not require any admin attention, IMO. Drmies (talk) 21:41, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
• This is a sad indictment of some Wikipedia editors. We have a NYT article that tells us biographical information not in the Wikipedia biography — such as that the subject at one point wanted to be a meteorologist and took a course in it at university, and the occupations of his parents — and all that editors can edit and talk about for almost a month is a meta-issue about sexuality. Stop obsessing over homosexuality and start writing an encyclopaedia. Uncle G (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Note to admins who patrol/sometimes patrol WP:PERM...due to some issues with non-admin commentary and closing of PERM requests, we're trying to gauge the need/possible roles of non-admin clerk-type work on WP:PERM. Your input would be appreciated at Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions/Archive 4#Policy / process development area for non-admin assistance in RFP (✉→BWilkins←✎) 12:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

• Please briefly explain the issues you're referring to and provide diffs. Nobody Ent 12:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Go to the talk page Bwilkins pointed to and simply look upwards. Uncle G (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I've come across a situation and I am unsure how to proceed. In broad strokes, a current reality tv series contest has a loser at the end of the show, the reveal at the end being one of the major draws of the show (ie. why people wait until the end of the program). Someone posts that uncited result within scant hours of the show's broadcast. I get that we don't do spoilers and we aren't censored, but doesn't posting the results of such a series infringe on its copyright, or interfere with its ability to draw its intended audience?
Should there be a waiting period or something? What is the imperative on posting immediately? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 03:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Facts cannot be copyrighted; a claim that just writing so-and-so won this reality show infringes on that show's copyright is about as valid as claiming that writing the Detroit Lions won the Superbowl infringes on the league's copyright. Too much detail, on the other hand, may be a violation. As for spoilers, generally it is accepted to post them as soon as possible. When The Dark Knight Rises is released we will have a fully plot summary within a day (if not hours), at which point the worry will be to avoid putting too much detail in (for copyright reasons). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Jack Sebastian's concerns are related to posts that he made insisting that immediately posting the results of The Glee Project somehow violated copyright because of advertising revenue.[16][17][18][19] --AussieLegend (talk) 04:24, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
• Regardless of whether the fact is copyvio or not (it isn't), if it's unsourced it should be removed. Watching the episode then writing the final result here unsourced is original research. – NULL ‹talk›
  ‹edits› 04:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The episode itself, with {{cite episode}}, is a perfectly appropriate source (assuming the citation is actually provided). It's a primary source, sure, but fine for reporting straightforward facts. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:14, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Exactly. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Jack mentioned the fact was 'uncited'. That said, as per WP:RS, 'material based purely on primary sources should be avoided'. It's my view that an episode with no supporting secondary sources is not sufficient. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:21, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• The question above was not if it should be in the article, but if the inclusion is a copyvio (it's not). Primary sources in an article about the subject are fine (think of film plots, for example). They are not allowed for establishing notability, but for content it's okay. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

For content, especially mundane content, primary sources are fine. They are the exception to the rule. If the content definitely improves the article, and neither its neutrality nor its interpretation are in question, then there's nothing wrong with citing a primary source. Saying who won a contest is definitely an improvement to the article on that contest. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Crisco: Primary sources for film plots is not fine, though. That's a question that was raised in the archive at WT:RS here. Plot summaries necessarily require analysis and interpretation, which must be done by secondary sources.

Someguy: I don't agree. WP:RS is policy, and 'should' is a deontic imperative that denotes obligation. We're an encyclopedia, not a newswire; there's no rush to get to-the-second information in our articles. Given a day, I have no doubt there'd be plenty of reliable third-party sources available for us to make better quality use of. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:44, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Null, you'd be arguing against consensus. The plot summary has long been established as not needed secondary sources (or even footnotes). Analysis of the plot, themes, and whatnot does need references. Check out pretty much any film or episode featured article. Primary sources are, by consensus, acceptable for mundane facts and to fill gaps. Do we really need a secondary source to show that Bruce Wayne masquerades as Batman, when the primary sources already have it? No. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of secondary sources backing that fact up. We're talking about using a primary source where no secondary sources are present. That situation should not occur in our articles. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:56, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

• Feel free to open an RFC on that if you wish, but I doubt you'd get anywhere. The issue will not be resolved here. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Also the WP:RS discussion mentioned is almost 5 years old and had little participation. This discussion happened a few years later and while it was primary about spoilers the primary sources were discussed and most of the people in that discussion agreed that primary sources can be used. The discussion is Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Spoilers. Since this discussion happened at a later date and had vastly more participation than the other one I think it should take precedence. There are likely more discussions that support this.--70.49.83.93 (talk) 06:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Also the discussion Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 75#Perhaps revisit this "perennial proposal" in light of new comment by Jimbo from April 2010 came to the same conclusion against requiring secondary sources for plot sections. Also like the previous discussion it had a greater participation that the earlier discussion mentioned. To get the use of primary sources overturned we will need more that a sparsely covered discussion from 2007.--70.49.83.93 (talk) 06:21, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

As long as the show has aired under normal broadcast situations, any normal summary of the contents is fair game on WP. --MASEM (t) 05:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The broadcasted episodes are acceptable primary sources for plot summaries that do not require interpretation or analysis, and plot summaries tend to consist of uncopyrightable facts (of what happened on screen). The issue of spoiling viewers' entertainment, or limiting a show's commercial prospects, are not concerns of ours.  Sandstein  13:17, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. It has been well established for years that straight-forward description of the plot of a show or book is acceptably and usually best sourced from the work itself, and that if it is reported in one's own words it is not copyvio. Analysis must be taken from a source; I do not think it is established whether the show's own summary of motivations and similar basic analysis is an acceptable source, but I think it would be--if used as a source, not for for a copypaste. That said, 90% of our plot descriptions are directly copied from the program's own descriptions,and this is not acceptable: first, it is copyvio, and second the program's summary is almost always deliberately a teaser that avoids giving the outcome, and is often written in such a way as to not say the specifics of what actually happens. That we do always give the conclusion if we know it has long been settled, and to persist in removing it is vandalism. DGG ( talk ) 20:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

That seems a pretty definitive answer, and I appreciate it. I brought the issue here because I thought there was something that I had only dealt with peripherally before. I realize that I was misapprehending the copyright guidelines we had in place. It seems wrong to ruin the reveal of a program/movie/whatever (in that it essentially steals their ability to generate, unimpeded, their income), but I am not sure how to see a way past SPOILER to do so. Thanks for the multiple responses clarifying the issue.- Jack Sebastian (talk) 20:21, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment:. I remember hearing on the radio that Ken had lost is marathon winning streak on Jeopardy months before the show was aired. I wish they hadn't as they stated his total but didn't know the exact air date. Would it be out of WPolicy to put a big 'Spoiler' warning on article sections that do this? It may be too late for some, but others may appreciate it. If it is reverted then it can be discussed on the talk page?--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Used to be like that. Not anymore. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Also the consensus to delete the spoiler template shows that this is no longer the way things are done Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 8#Template:Spoiler. A few months later a similar template Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_December_15#Template:Current_fiction was deleted as well and that is pretty much where we still stand on this issue. Finally Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles is relevant to the no spoilers rules.--70.49.83.93 (talk) 06:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

It looks like Celtic supporters have managed to edit the Rangers F.C. to refer to the team in the past-tense, gotten the page locked, and created a new page at Newco Rangers to reflect the demoted team. This is the same as many recent financial actions - and the entire thing is still in flux. There's huge crystal ballery going on here. It's quite clear that there should only be one article on the existing team, at this time. However any attempt to fix the situation is quickly reverted. Suggestions? Nfitz (talk) 18:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Rangers F.C. is thataway; I suggest you keep there rather than trying to escalate this situation. PS what evidence these guys are Celtic fans? GiantSnowman 18:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

PPS - forum shopping is not cool. GiantSnowman 18:08, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• There seems to be full consensus in recent discussion at the Talk page at Rangers F.C. and still redirects back to that page are reverted. Forum shopping? Everyone seems to want everyone to be notified by everything. I was trying to make sure I'd notified correctly. Violating WP:GOODFAITH isn't cool. Nfitz (talk) 18:12, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• AGF doesn't really apply when your opening gambit is to make such broad assumptions about editors you might be in conflict with. GiantSnowman 18:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, okay, there's no need for this to escalate into a heated argument. I've already created an AfD for the article, so things can be resolved smoothly and civilly there. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 18:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)trust me if there was clear consensus i would be happy to follow it, this is goign to request for ocmmetn which i hjave just complete i have gather evidence for both sides of the argument nd there comply evidence that the club probally is alive but there nearly equal amount of source says the club is dead and liqudited wikipedia cant ingore sources we have to present it the wya it says in the sources. i am only reverting because ther eis no consensus yet teh request for comment hopefulyl will solve this final and hopefulyl the sitution in the media for sources will eb cler this week--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 18:21, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

the last afd was for keep penguin so i doubt it will change easilyAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 18:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

oh nfitz i dnt liek be regarded as celtic fan because i dnt support you, and wher eis the discussion look at the ranger fc page there is about 100 threads ont eh subject not once is there a consensus--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 18:25, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

There seems clear consensus in the final, most recent thread. I never called you a Celtic fan. I called the person who created the new page a Celtic fan. He's been quite open about that. Nfitz (talk) 18:41, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

The afd is coming to a close, and the Newco Rangers article is likely to be deleted, so I believe that the problem has been solved. I believe, however that this case should have been issued at ANI, not AN. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 23:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm reading it as likely a no consensus close, with delete most unlikely. And I don't think this should have been at AN or AN/I. This is clearly a content dispute, telling us that "Celtic fans" did this or that or the other thing wasn't likely to impress admins in the first place.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

While my contribution to the debate has been as constructive as possible (as can be seen from my indepth posts, evidence & sources within the talk pages) I don't want to threaten my own credibility with the "the celtic fans done it!" arguement. However, Nfitz does have a point, the creator of the 'newco page' is a user called "superbhoy1888", and another contributor, adam, has a badge on his own wikipedia page "this user is a Celtic fan" and his only contributions that are non-celtic related seem to be negative contributions on Rangers pages. He even suggested an edit on the 'newco' page to read 'Rangers although a enw club are followed by the same set of fans who hate catholics". Like i said, i don't want to call my own creidbility into question when I've put forward alot of well sourced evidence and objective points, but I don't think it's an unfair comment to say that self-confessed Celtic supporting contributors have essentially vandalized the article with edits that are fuelled by agenda and bias POV. Ricky072 (talk) 16:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Have any other admins received emails from someone claiming to be an actress who played a child in the Doctor Who episode, "Dragonfire (Doctor Who)"? She emails asking if she can talk to me, then doesn't reply to my good faith responses. After some Googling, I see she has previously emailed 23skidoo -- but she turned out to be a hoax. The JPS^{talk to me} 09:07, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

If someone - not currently blocked, I think they're having a self-imposed WikiBreak following some heated debates with numerous editors last night - e-mails me saying "happy to disrupt wiki using multiple accounts if i have to", is that enough for an indef block? Never encountered the situation before & seeking guidance to get the best solution. GiantSnowman 16:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

No it is not. If they actually do it that is a different story. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:46, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Further e-mail - "No I'm telling you what i am going to do. Its not a threat its what i will do" - I'm trying to dissuade him from socking, come back as normal and discuss whatever issues he has. GiantSnowman 16:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

It is probably a good reason to block them from your email though. Tell them to be a drama queen elsewhere. Incidentally the merits of their "case" change the appropriate response, at least imo. Egg Centric 19:24, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocking Edinburgh Wanderer (talk · contribs) is not a particularly good way of stopping him from carrying out a threat which is predicated on his being blocked. Nevertheless, thanks for the heads-up. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I deliberately didn't name the editor in question to avoid potential drama. GiantSnowman 11:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

PS I've notified EW... GiantSnowman 11:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello, please could this get undone, as the rename was not needed, and unable to be undone (matches some rule that prevents it from being renamed " It matches the following blacklist entry: .*[T₮ŢŤṬΤТЋҬtţťṭτтŧ][OÓÒÔÖÕǑŌŎǪŐŒØƏΌΟΩῸὈὉὌὊὍὋОӨӦӪọóòôöõǒōŏǫőøόδοσоʘǿọ].[Ccċĉ¢сćĉçčUÚÙÛÜŨŮǓŪǖǘǚǜŬŲŰ].{50,200}.* <moveonly> "?).--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 21:37, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

• Y Done Not sure what problem you were experiencing; you might have accidentally typed in a character somewhere. Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:49, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks, No mistype as It was a copy paste 1st attempt, typed in 2nd attempt, copy paste/typed into wordpad copy/paste comparison, etc... I am not an all powerful "administrator" on Wikipedia, and do not have access to the same tools and unrestricted access!--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 22:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
    • PS, On sites/systems that I am a superuser/administrator/root etc... I always have a standard account to use in order to "repeat"/"replicate" the problem, in order to "verify"/"see what they are seeing" etc...--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 22:06, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
      • It sounds like a problem with the title blacklist. Graham87 00:03, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Anyone got any idea what that blacklist entry is supposed to block? "to?c" or "to?u" looks rather innocent to me. T. Canens (talk) 02:48, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
          • And how in the world it blocked this title?--Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 03:12, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
• It's more than "to?c". It's "to?c" that is followed by anywhere between 50 and 200 other characters, and it thus matched "to change the rules of royal succession in the Commonwealth realms". You can find out what this was (and probably still is) blocking by looking at the edit history of MediaWiki:Titleblacklist, and looking at the page move log of the administrator who added the entry dated just before xe added the entry. Uncle G (talk) 08:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

My guess is this. Meh...is a blacklist entry still needed? T. Canens (talk) 12:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Probably not, but if you remove it, you risk having NawlinWiki yell at you the next time a pagemove vandal targets that pattern. --Carnildo (talk) 23:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to make a request/plea for more admins to be active at WP:AN3 in reviewing and closing reports. Twice now in the last couple of months I've had the experience of reporting a clear-cut 3RR violation and having the report go stale for lack of administrative attention (29 May, 14 July). It is difficult enough to edit controversial topics like abortion or biographies of presidential candidates under the best of circumstances; when blatant edit-warring goes unaddressed despite being reported, it makes these articles essentially uneditable. I suspect I'm not alone in the experience of having reports declined as "stale" because no admin looked at them for 2 days.

I'm not looking to have the recent "stale" closure readdressed (although I will note parenthetically that after escaping a block due to administrative inattention, the user in question has unsurprisingly continued to edit-war). I just want to encourage more participation by admins. I am an admin and I will take responsibility to help address this problem by more actively reviewing reports at WP:AN3, but I also need to know that if I report a clear-cut case, it will at least be looked at by another admin before it goes "stale". MastCell ^Talk 20:35, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

• Slightly off-topic, but WP:RFPP generally suffers from that, as well. It does not help that most of the ones over at RFPP generally deals with disputes and what not. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 02:53, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

This may be too bureaucratic, or maybe it was already rejected before, but maybe some experienced non-admins could volunteer to clerk these pages? Rgrds. --64.85.216.91 (talk) 03:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• The issue is that both page-protection and blocking requires Admin tools, which naturally means that there's not much non-admins can do. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 03:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• What makes this an issue? Are there people cited in the stale reports still edit warring or have they ceased the edit war? It makes a big difference in deciding if this is a problem. If a report is stale, but no one is edit warring by the time that someone finds it stale, then there isn't a need for action anyways. If the edit war continues while the report sits stale, then that is a problem. Do we have evidence one way or the other which case we have here? --Jayron32 03:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• I think the issue is that a lot of blocking admins will use the block log as a primary source to determine the duration of the block. Stale reports naturally means there are fewer blocks (Because most admins will not block then), which also means that the block doesn't fit the level of disruption. At least that's what I'm reading, anyway. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 03:57, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Blocks are solely meant to stop active problems. If a report is stale, and there is also no active dispute, then there shouldn't be any blocks handed out, even if the nature of the dispute would have warrented a block had it been acted on at the time. If the disputants have solved their problems (or at least backed off to a neutral corner for the time being) then one shouldn't block them just because there was some report lying around somewhere. To block people who aren't actively disrupting Wikipedia is purely a punitive block; "punishing" them for their prior actions. I don't see such blocks as productive or warrented even if they would have been warrented had the person been "caught". That is, if a report is stale, and no one is still edit warring, there's no reason to hand out any blocks. If a stale report allows an edit war to continue, however, that needs to be fixed. It is the existance or non-existance of an active edit war that warrents a block, not the existance of a report on some noticeboard. --Jayron32 04:46, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Well, what happened in the case I have in mind is that the editor in question continued edit-warring, but at a 2RR or 3RR level. So I haven't bothered re-reporting it, because a) it will probably be declined as not-quite-3RR, and b) it's actually a lot of work to file a well-formed 3RR report (as anyone who's wrestled with the cumbersome forms knows), and I don't want to waste my time if it's likely to end up being dismissed as "stale" anyway. In the case in question, a timely block would have prevented additional edit-warring, absolutely. At a more global level, my concern isn't bureaucratic; it's practical. These noticeboard reports are the officially endorsed way to deal with edit-warring, but that official way isn't working because of a lack of staffing. Honestly, if someone is faced with an edit-war, I can't really recommend that they spend 20 minutes filling out a confusing report template if it's likely to be dismissed for lack of administrative attention. MastCell ^Talk 05:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• Let me try to answer this from a personal perspective then. My disdain for the 3RR rule, and its use to protect (rather than stop) persistant edit warriors is well established. That noted, if I came across a report which explained, using unambiguous evidence, that a person was engaged in a slow-moving edit war, or was making a deliberate attempt to edit war while gaming the 3RR rule, I would block them regardless of whether they met the letter of 3RR. It has always been, and as far as I know still is, the established policy that the use of reverting to force through one's actions is a blockable offense, regardless of the speed at which that happens. Once the intent to edit war is established through evidence, a block should be coming, and I wouldn't decline a report merely because we can't find 4 reverts in a single 24 hour period, if the intent of the disruptive editor is clear. Furthermore, I've never been one to stand on ceremony or bureaocracy. You don't have to fill out a form correctly to get your point across. All you need is diffs and an explanation. --Jayron32 05:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• I think that's the right approach, and one I share in how I appch edit-warring as an admin. But my experience is that only a minority of admins are comfortable and/or confident enough to block for "slow-motion" edit-warring that doesn't hit 3RR. It's pretty routine in my experience for reports of clear-cut edit-warring to be declined at WP:AN3 because the technical 4-reverts-in-24-hours limit hasn't been breached. It's also common for reports to be declined because they're not properly formatted.

  When I personally look at these things as an admin I don't need to see a perfectly formatted report and I'm comfortable handling slow-motion edit-wars. But when I, as an editor, try to get an outside admin to deal with egregious edit-warring, I haven't found this process to work. MastCell ^Talk 05:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• That's why I reference the talk page/block log while looking at AN3 reports. A recent report made me yell "Gaming 3RR is gaming", but then I looked into the issue and found something bigger. The issue at AN3 is the fact that the form is rather troublesome, and majority of the time a cursory glance at the history of the article should have brought the violation to light. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 07:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• In my mind, AN3 is for 3RR violations and not for slower edit wars. The whole setup is formatted to show violations of the 3RR bright line (or edit warring that just barely avoids breaching 3RR, such as four reverts in 24 hours and 5 minutes), which can be done simply by linking a few diffs. Such is not the case with slower edit warring, which needs more explanation and potentially more discussion, and for that reason I don't see it as being appropriate at AN3; it's better suited at WP:ANI. Nyttend (talk) 02:14, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes, I wonder if admins have a hard time blocking established, long term users or getting involved in nasty ethnic debates. A couple of times, I've had to pull the trigger on an editor who I've seen around and generally thought of as a net positive (c.f. the AN3 report I just handled a few minutes ago), which is never fun. Conversely, I've also had to block someone who I know is going to try wikilawyering using all kinds of acronyms, which will in turn require me to go through everything point by point for clarification. And I know a lot of administrators (and regular editors, for that matter) who won't go near any major ethnic disputes, especially the ones covered under arbitration cases that are cited so frequently we've had to come up with shortcuts for them. If I had any ideas on how to get other admins to take on these sorts of thorny problems, I'd say something, but I guess the best suggestion I have is to find people with just the right combination of ASD traits to take up the fight, because that seems to be the majority of people willing to run head-on into this (I know if I didn't have said traits, I'd never go near AN3). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Indeniseli and [][User talk:Indeniseli]], deleted from some wikipedias, thanks--Musamies (talk) 17:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why you refer to it as spam, it seems to be a copy of a legitimate article in another language. If you feel it does not belong here, talk to the user or nominate for WP:MFD. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Not an administrator issue. Keep this on the talk pages and at the AFD discussion.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Summary: On the 14th of June, 'The Rangers Football Club Plc', a company formed in 1899 entered liquidation proceedings. Liquidation is the process of selling of the assets of an insolvent business to recoup as much funds as possible to raise funds for the companies creditors. Charles Green led a consortium which purchased the 'history, business & assets' (as sources show) from 'The Rangers Football Club Plc' as a means to continue 'Rangers F.C' within a new company (NewCo). So what is the debate? Well, this process has thrown up some questions. Is it the same club, or an entirely new club? Does this club retain it's history? Does a club operate within a company, or are they as 1? And should the club have a seperate Wikipedia page to be represented as a new club, or do we recognise it within the 1 Wikipedia page as teh same club but simply under new ownership? 1. What Do the Sources Say? Many journalistic sources have taken the viewpoint from both sides, the 'Talk' pages on the articles are littered with thm from each side of the arguement. The tabloid newspapers have often described the 'new company' as a "new club". Some ex-Rangers players even described it as so. However, many others have reffered to them as the same club, including Neil doncaster (SPL chairman), and even HMRC (whos decision to reject a CVA caused the liquidation). The 'new company' has often been refered to 'Rangers F.C' (the club name) within official documents from the SFA & SFL. Although it could be argued that the sources in favour of the "new club" arguement have only ever been journalistic view points and therefore documents from official governing bodies should take precedent, it is still a gray-area in regards to how the situation is being represented within the media. Therefore we need to evaluate further evidence. 2. Is 'A Club' a seperate thing from the company, or are they 1 and the same? 1 arguement being put forward by the "new club" camp, is that a club IS a company. That they are 1 and the same. It's a reasonable arguement as many official documents and sources purposefully define them as so, by stating the company name, and placing in brackets (the club). But perhaps this is simply to clarify to the readers that when they speak of 'the club' they are talking about the company. So what is 'a club' exactly? Well the FA in England produced this document on club structures: http://www.sportandrecreation.org.uk/sites/sportandrecreation.org.uk/files/The%20FA%20Club%20Structures.pdf says "The FA does not have any rules or requirements that specify that a club must be structured in one legal form or another." The term 'Club' is actually a pretty lose term, infact 2 people getting together to form any kind of association coudl call themselves a 'club'. Most professional football teams however are formed as companies. On page17 of the same document cited above, it details the process of turning a club into a corporate entity. After creating & registering a company, you then proceed to transfer the assets which make up the club, into the new company. If we move on to page20, it then outlines the rules regarding the transfer of membership from 1 legal entity to another. In other words, there is nothing to stop owners of a football club transferring all the assets out of 1 corporate entity to another, (if approved by the regulatory bodies). So, from that we can guage that a 'football club' is made up of certain assets (normally player contracts, a stadium, intellectual property), and these assets can be moved into a company during it's initial creation, and it can also be moved out of 1 company, and into another. So even if you take the viewpoint that club/company are 1 of the same, there is no evidence to suggest they cannot ever be broken apart, (otherwise a simple corproate restructure would be impossible without creating an entirely new club). 3. Precedents. Ofcourse, this is nothing new, it would be naive to believe Rangers F.C were the first club to suffer such fate. So what precedents can we draw upon? All of the following clubs have either been "liquidated" or "dissolved" and now function under new companies (NewCo's); Leeds United AFC Luton Town Charlton Athletic Middlesborough FC AFC Bournemouth Rotherham United There are also examples of Clubs within Wikipedia which document clubs on different pages, such as;FC Halifax & Chester FC. So what's different? Well these are 2 examples of what is often described as 'Phoenix clubs'. When the old clubs were wound-up, fans groups got together and created these new clubs. The greatest fundamental difference is they did not acquire 'the business & assets' from the old clubs in liquidation. Therefore they have no legal link what-so-ever to the old clubs. They cannot lay claim to any of the intellectual property, use the same 'club name' or use the same cub badge/crest. In theory these clusb could have been created while the old clubs still in existence. So which sets precedent for Rangers F.C? Well since the NewCo purchased "the history, business & assets[1] " of the old company, it is NOT a 'phoenix club'. There is 1 other issue regarding the sale of assets. Within the sale of the assets was membership to the SFA. Even though it was sold, it still must be sanctioned by the governing body, and we await that decision. 4. History & Goodwill Another arguement made by the 'new club' camp is that the history ends with the old company, and the 'new club' is starting a fresh. Well as we can see from the above precedents, this certainly isn;t the case of Leeds United AFC or Charlton Athletic, who lay claim to their respective histories even though they present companies operating them were formed in 2007 & 1984 respectively. A more robust piece of evidence however is this Interim Creditors Report produced by Rangers Administrators Duff&Phelps, which details the transaction of assets from the OldCo to NewCo. "4.2 The continuation of trading operations enabled the Joint Administrators to put the CVA Proposal to the creditors of the Company and after the CVA Proposal was rejected by creditors, the Joint Administrators were able to secure a going concern sale of the business, history and assets of the Company to Sevco (see Section 5 for further details)." "4.4 Following the sale of business and assets of the Company, the responsibility for maintaining all trading operations passed to Sevco which continues to operate the Club." So within this document the administratos clearly state the new company has purchased "the history" aswell as the assets. It also goes on to state that "the club" is no under ownership & operation of "Sevco" (the new company). If we move onto appendix 2, the document then details the transaction with exactly what was sold and to what value. It is here we can see the transaction of "goodwill". what is 'Goodwill'? Goodwill is an intangible assets, which aims to encapture the value of a brand, inclusive of history. If i were to purchase 'Fanta' the soft drink from it's owners 'The coca-Cola Company' this would allow me to continue to trade as if nothing changed (same name, label, intellectual property) lay claim to the soft dirnks history, and ultimatly keep the same customers & same market share. Without the goodwill, i'd still have the manufacturing rights & recipe, but i'd need to come up with a new name, and be percieved by as a new product, thus likely to lose many customers & the current market share of Fanta. Even though "Goodwill" may be a concept hard to grasp, it has been common practice in business for a long time and applies here, with clear record of it's transaction. 5. Conclusion with the above evidence provided, it's difficult to see how a case for 'new club' to be substantiated. The above evidence has dealt with the 3 main arguements heard from otherside of the debate, which thus far have been; Sources in the media describe it as a 'new club'. All of these sourcesare simply a journalistic point-of-view, and each one is contradicted by another source which states it's the same club. Where is the evidence beyond the wording of a news article? Club & company are as one and cannot be broken. We have disproven that with a document from the FA and with the fact, such an opinion would mean even a simple corporate restructure would be impossible without forming an entirely 'new club'. They are the same as Chester or Halifax. We have ruled these clubs as precedents as they did not acquire the business & assets as a going concern from the insolvent company (oldco), but instead are 'phoenix clubs'. You cannot buy history, there is no such thing as goodwill. you cannot simply state goodwill does not exist because you dont fully understand it. I have provided evidence in the form of a formal administrative document which states the history was sold & goodwill was purchased. The wikipedia article Rngers FC was changed to reflect the club in the past tense, as if no longer in existence, and a new article set-up to describe a new club (in the same manner as the above named Chester or Halifax). such change was done WITHOUT concensus. In order to make such a drastic & hotly disputed change without concensus, the onus is surely on those who believe we are dealing with a 'new club' to prove as a matter-of-fact, and beyond all doubt, that this is a new club. So far there has been very thin evidence, if any at all to lead us to believe undoubtebly we are dealign with an entirely new club, and this arguement seems to be based almost entirely on point-of-view. Ricky072 (talk) 23:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC) This user has posted the same argument on the AfD page, which I have reverted. See WP: FORUMSHOP. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 23:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Sadly a few editors continue to roadblock any attempt to get the article fixed which has been locked on a grossly inaccurate version for weeks. People have spent hours on the talk page providing endless sources showing the media and the authorities view it as the same club, numerous examples of precedents have been shown on wikipedia which treat the club as the same despite new companies. But no progress is being made because of the actions of a few editors. 1 of whom posted a sectarian video and the other posted a link to an opposing fans forum too. Its hugely problematic and something needs to be done. the article is grossly misleading and this is bigger than a mere content dispute. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC) When it inevitably gets there, this may well become one of the silliest arbitration cases we'll have ever seen. I have to admit that my understanding of the Rangers FC case is shallow, but if it is basically "team went bankrupt, was sold to a new owner", then god help me, because I have to go split half of the National Hockey League team articles, as well as a couple baseball ones. Resolute 23:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Regardless, this is not a WP:AN issue. I'm closing this. The merits of any action can be discussed in the appropriate fora. Which isn't here. --Jayron32 00:02, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I considered bringing this to 3O and to various noticeboards, but I think we're past the point where it's a content problem and significantly into user-misbehavior territory. At Secular Islam Summit, after discussion on several subjects mostly relating to RS-sourced criticism of the article subject, an RFC was held, as was subsequent discussion. Over a month afterwards, with a lengthy comment from myself explaining my reasons for preferring particular edits as the last comment on the talk page, I assumed that no one had any points to make against these arguments, and implemented the results of the RFC, which included minimizing the "back and forth" aspect between the summit and the Council on American-Islamic Relations and removing quotes from footnotes.

I was immediately reverted by Kwamikagami, whose refusal to compromise was what made the RFC necessary in the first place. Kwamikagami's edit included the restoration of original research about a living person (commenting that a person we quote in the article didn't say anything about the summit, which isn't in the source), the re-organization of the article to restore the "back and forth," the removal of sourced critical material (which s/he's been trying to remove since day one, in spite of a strong consensus for it), and, interestingly, the restoration of a quote to a footnote (which s/he opposed before, making it seem as though this is more about reverting my edits than actually reaching a preferred version of the article).

I responded on the talk page, pointing out that my edit had implemented a consensus that was the result of a discussion and asking Kwami to explain the reasoning behind certain parts of hir revert. Kwami refused to answer. I asked again. Kwami again refused to answer.

Consequently, we are at a standoff where Kwami will arbitrarily revert edits to the article, restoring problematic material such as original research about living people, while making it literally impossible to build a consensus for or against them. I would appreciate it if an administrator would step in to warn the edit warrior and let the normal process of consensus progress. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Roscelese has a history of thinking that if she leaves off the argument for a while, that the resulting silence is somehow consensus. I'm happy with the result of the RfC, she's simply resuming the POVs that she didn't succeed with at the RfC, and I'm not looking forward to resuming the nitpicking edits required to tiptoe around Roscelese's BLP problems. — kwami (talk) 05:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

• Kwami has hit 4RR and shows no signs of stopping. If I take it to EWN, I'm fairly sure an admin will full-protect the page for a day and blithely walk away, leaving the problem in no way solved. I ask again that someone come in and actually deal with this editor. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
  • User has hit 5RR (again) and was finally blocked. However, please do not consider this report closed, as I expect the edit warring will resume in 24 hours when the block expires. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

There's still time to jump in as a closer if anyone's interested. Progress is hard, and is going to get harder. I asked around at Wikimania, and it was roughly 50-50: "doing it will kill us" vs. "not doing it will kill us". I asked everyone if they would be willing to settle for some middle position or accept trying to get there in half-steps; the mildest response I got was "certainly not". I asked people to participate; they don't want to (until, of course, we get to some big vote, at which point I'm sure many will be more than happy to oppose the bits they don't like). One problem: although there's general support for The Blade and me as closers, I'm finding that I'm having to give this a bit of structure, and if the people who have strong opinions keep sitting this out, I'm also going to have to interject some kind of summary of opinions in order to keep this from crashing and burning at the RfC stage, which means I'm not really a closer, yet, I'm too active. My plan is to just do what I have to do, keep talking with people publicly and privately, have the first mini-vote, and then have another quick vote to approve the closers for the next stage (and I won't be offended in the slightest if people feel I've crossed a line and don't want me to close). - Dank (push to talk) 13:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I second the request for a fresh closer. For all you may have heard about how much it really sucks at times, you'll find it surprisingly engaging and thought-provoking. All we need is one willing admin. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually ... considering the conversation below ("there is no circumstance wherein it is appropriate to simultaneously participate in and close a discussion" and other comments), plus the stuff that I felt I had to say at WT:PC2012 today, plus some information that I think it would be helpful to add, I'm stepping down as a closer. I'll continue to be active, and I'll continue to support both sides because I think a lot of good people are doing good work on both sides. I apologize for any inconvenience, and obviously, anything that's been said in confidence will remain in confidence. So now I'm guessing Blade would like a couple more closers. It's a tough problem ... but I agree with Blade, it's a fun problem to tackle, and the current supporters and opposers are working quite well together. - Dank (push to talk) 23:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Has someone (perhaps inadvertently) oversighted edits to QRpedia In the last few days, Interwiki links in Estonian and Swahili were added, but I no longer see them in the page history. Or do we have a caching problem? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I haven't looked yet but I can tell you right now that if there was an oversight action, even one with errors, nobody is going to talk to you about it on wiki for the simple reason that we are not allowed to. The first rule of oversight is.... you gwt the idea. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Now I have looked and I see nothing in the suppression or deletion log. The only recent edit does not seem to have touched interwiki links so I am at a loss as to what has happened to them. I'm also not sure I would recognize either of those languages, it may be helpful if you could see if you can still see them in old revisions of the page. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The Estonian one has was added months ago, and there is no Swahili interwiki link. Mogism (talk) 19:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It's one thing to describe an oversight action, but if it had been performed, what would be wrong with simply confirming its existence? I can't imagine that being a problem except in the case of an offensive pagename, which obviously isn't the case here. Nyttend (talk) 05:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

We just don't do that. We have a mailing list and the audit subcommitee specifically for review of oversight. If there had been a supression action here I most likely would have removed this entire thread and taken the whole conversation offline. See Streisand effect. Talking about something that is supposed to have been hidden only draws more attention to it. I've only even said this much because there isn't one here. Oversight basically means reviewing all sorts of innapropriate material, (most of it rather boring actually) removing it, and then promptly forgetting you ever saw it. This message will self destruct in ten seconds. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

An arbitration case involving the article Perth has been closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. JHunterJ is advised to respond calmly and courteously to queries regarding Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions.
2. Deacon of Pndapetzim is admonished for use of administrative tools while involved, and for reversing another administrator's legitimate administrative action without first entering into discussion.
3. Kwamikagami is desysopped for use of administrative tools while involved in an editing dispute, and for reinstating a reverted administrative action without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. He may regain the admin toolkit through a fresh request for adminship.
4. Gnangarra is admonished for use of administrative tools while involved in an editing dispute, and for reinstating a reverted administrative action without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision.

For the Arbitration Committee, Lord Roem (talk) 14:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

A merger I proposed at Talk:Ram Kishore Shukla was closed within hours by a non-admin who had voted on the issue. This wouldn't be appropriate for a deletion discussion according to WP:NAC, does the same policy apply to mergers? Also, there is an issue about whether the page is violating copyright. It's a bit confusing and it would be great if a veteran editor could stop by and take a look. Tdslk (talk) 16:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that the page had copyright problems under investigation and that issue is being sorted out. However, that has nothing to do with the matter brought up here. As for the NAC is concerned, I shall look forward to response. VIVEK RAI :  Friend?  16:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

This edit is the one in question - if no-one else picks it up then give me 15 minutes (about to leave the desk!) and I'll sort it out on my return. GiantSnowman 16:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry - longer than expected but yeah, the close was 100% inappropriate and I will revert momentarily. GiantSnowman 17:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Completely agree, there is no circumstance wherein it is appropriate to simultaneously participate in and close a discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

... at WT:PC2012. We're especially looking for the input of people experienced in page protection. - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Howdy. Back in April I posted a suggestion regarding the Admin noticeboard navbox. Expectedly, but unfortunately, nobody responded. I thought that this might be the next logical place to point out my suggestion. Anyone have any thoughts regarding my suggestion? If this isn't the ideal place to bring this up, I apologize.--Rockfang (talk) 02:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for page protection has a backlog that could do with sorting. Mr Stephen (talk) 20:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Would commenting on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Be_Bold.3F help at all?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I've gone through about a third of the backlog (the most recent requests), but I'm getting tired and need to go to bed. The backlog is still very long, with some requests two days old now, and it would be good if someone could finish it off. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 21:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems not to be backlogged any more. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

See the page history at WP:BN and WP:AN. A checkuser may also help with finding a rangeblock, but an edit filter should help with the immediate damage. The filter should be easy to set up for anyone with the knowhow (i.e., not me). --Jayron32 05:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the need if CU can stop the socking. For an edit filter I'd suggest conditions like "new_wikitext rlike '\=\= (Y|y)eah [\.{3,}] =='" and "new_wikitext rlike 'Password\:[\ ]\#[A-Za-z\d]', but let's wait for CU.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Whatever works. Whackamole gets tiresome after a while, and I'm off to bed anyways. --Jayron32 05:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Well, I have located the range, but there is likely to be a fair amount of collateral damage for non-account good faith IP addresses. However, we have reason to believe that the passwords that are being posted are faked, so this may not be quite the serious situation that it appears. Thoughts on a short-term rangeblock, knowing this is more a trolling than a hacking? Risker (talk) 05:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• More than one range at play here, but the one I checked is too busy also. I'm going to throw up the filter Jasper sugguested. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 05:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

A motion on annotating changed usernames in arbitration decisions has been proposed. Editors may comment in the general discussion section.

For the Arbitration Committee --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 12:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This user is aggressively removing my comments from his talkpage.Also, he has replied in very bad faith and rudely at Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Confirmed. He has posted a wrong message at my talkpage.I mean when I was engaged in edit war? He is removing without any reason or bothering to answer.Please reply respected admins and take a look at my request at Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Confirmed. Myownmilkshake (talk) 00:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Also, he said on my talkpage that I reverted.but,in fact he reverted my edits. Myownmilkshake (talk) 00:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• I think that he has made a correct decision by declining your request Xentram (talk) 00:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • He's quite allowed to aggressively remove your comments at his talk page. If he deleted it, he had to have had the opportunity to read it. Please don't reinstate something on someone else's user talk page once they have deleted it. It is rude. Otherwise, the best thing you, Myownmilkshake, is to just back down and go work on something else at Wikipedia. I don't forsee this as a productive conflict. --Jayron32 00:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but why not provide reason? what about warning on my talkpage that I had reverted and what about my confirmed permission? Myownmilkshake (talk) 00:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Sure, it would be nice if he provided a reason for deleing your message from his talk page, but he's under no obligation to do so. Let me state this again unambiguously. Drop this matter and find something else to do. There is no potential good that can come from pursuing this any further. --Jayron32 00:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, there is the reason. I don't discuss private matters with other users, especially if they ask about it. Armbrust, B.Ed. ^{WrestleMania XXVIII} _{The Undertaker 20–0} 00:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Dump that into trashbin.I want an admin to review my request of confirmed. Myownmilkshake (talk) 00:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • It's been reviewed and declined already by Armbrust. If you accumulate 10 edits, once your account is 4 days old, you get autoconfirmed. I suppose repeatedly ignoring advice that you drop this matter and do something else is a novel way to accumulate those 10 edits... --Jayron32 01:04, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) - Sorry to but in here, but I think Myownmilkshake, you are taking things a little out of context from what I have noticed upon checking edit histories. You sent a post to Armburst's talk page which he then deleted. A user has the right to remove content from their own talk page without giving a valid reason. Although you will find 99% of the time the user will state their reason in the edit summary, or the user will just archive it. When Armburst removed the comment you should have really assumed that he had read and acknowledged it. But instead you reverted his actions, which means you were in the wrong really. Armburst then removed it again, and quoted WP:BLANKING in his edit summary, which highlights the fact that he provided an explanation to his actions. You then re-reverted things back again, by which time you have stepped into edit warring territory. The fact that Arburst has removed your posts twice doesn't mean he has done an edit war, he has rightfully removed content from his own talk page, and explained in his edit summary why he has done so. The only thing that I can suggest to do, which is rather fair really, is to post some useful hints and tips on your talk page for you. Take time to have a read of them, and if you have any questions then just ask someone - we are all here to help each other at the end of the day, and to work on building a massive on-line encyclopaedia for people to visit, we shouldn't be bickering over minor little things. Wesley Mouse 00:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay pal forget it and review my confirmed request.Myownmilkshake (talk) 01:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I've indef blocked Myownmilkshake for being a disruptive single purpose account harassing Armburst. His first edit makes that conclusion eminently clear. MBisanz ^talk 01:03, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I would have blocked Myownmilkshake myself if MBisanz hadn't beat me to it.I have no doubt whatsoever upon reviewing this "new" account's edits that they created the account solely to troll Armbrust and/or cause disruption. Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 01:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I do sincerely apologise for butting into something that I haven't been involved in here. This page is on my watchlist and the user name amused me, so I thought I'd come and see what was going on. After reading the accusations I felt as if I needed to at least say something but calmingly (which I hope my comment came across that way). Hope I haven't offended anyone by stepping in here. Wesley Mouse 01:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Nope, you didn't butt in and your advice was perfectly sound. Those sort of reasoned comments are greatly appreciated and encouraged. Just after five years and 180,000 actions, I can spot things a bit quicker then many others. MBisanz ^talk 01:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hey, it's a free Wikipedia. You're quite allowed to make any good-faith comment anywhere you wish. No one has the right to object. Not that anyone here has. If you have something to contribute to any discussion, anywhere on Wikipedia, feel free. We appreciate your comments! --Jayron32 01:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Phew, that's OK then, I'll get back to packing my luggage ready for my big London 2012 Olympic Volunteering adventure. Thanks for kindness. Wesley Mouse 01:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Xentram and Myownmilkshake are  Confirmed as each other, as well as at least a dozen other socks. --MuZemike 23:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh I feel a little bit shaken by this now. Both the users literally had a conversation with each other at the start of this thread, as if they were two different people. Not only that, Xentram sent me a message on my talk page stating he was also a volunteer at the Olympics. I trusted him at word value, and now I feel mortified that I have been tricked. Xentram even emailed me, and I told him my role at the games and where I would be staying. Now I feel stupid in trusting someone and divulging so much information. Is there anything that can be done? Wesley Mouse 00:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Certainly, one can endeavor in the future to be somewhat less naive, to learn from one's experiences as an editor, to makes better use of one's intellectual capacity to judge other people's actions, and not to jump to unwarranted conclusions – positive or negative – about other editor's motivations. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to give a head's up. I've removed a song listing from this article per ticket:2012041610008218 which violated the original synthesis rule. Basically someone correctly guessed song ids from ASCAP about this upcoming album. (The song database does not say these tracks will be on this album). Not only does this addition violate the original synthesis rule, the publisher has become so agitated they delayed the album release and cancelled this artist's world tour. See [20]. Someone's already reverted my deletion once. But until the track list has been mentioned in a third party reliable source, they should not be on Wikipedia. -Nard (Hablemonos)(Let's talk) 01:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Just to clear something up - no "world tour" was ever cancelled. As the linked article (apparently sourced from a short announcement on Adam Ant's official website) makes clear, only a *US* tour was *postponed*. This was not surprising at the time as reports had been circulating of possible US visa issues for Adam relating to his mental health issues and 2002/2003 convictions for affray.

As far as album delays go, there has been a constant stream of delays since 2010. That particular delay was no news story at all.

For what it's worth, I've made some inquiries and been reliably informed that the Wikipedia album page was *not* the cause of the postponement - in reality the removal request ticket:2012041610008218 - whatever its send may have claimed - was sent due to concerns about the accuracy/up-to-dateness of the song list ... 95.144.241.149 (talk) 20:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

My original account has been blocked for 24 hours in violation of 3RR rule.So, I have created this account temporarily with being aware of Sockpuppet policy just to ask would it be evasion of my block if I put a You've got an e-mail template on another user's talkpage? Laughifyouplay (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes it would be, as is your posting here. In the future, if you have questions while blocked, ask on your blocked account's talk page, and add an {{adminhelp}} template. Monty₈₄₅ 01:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I submitted a dispute resolution request here [21] regarding an issue on List of countries by beer consumption per capita. Shortly thereafter one of the editors involved made a pointed comment about my personal life. I removed the attack and another editor, whose edits are borderline meatpuppetry, reverted my removal. I reverted again and the orginal editor restored the talk page yet again [22]. This is not the first time these two have gone 1-2-1 with edits/reverts on this particular wiki [23] [24]. It's worth noting (as I did in my request for dispute resolution) that the debate is over whether or not to sort the list of beer consumed per capita alphabetically or by volume consumed. Each is easily sorted, but there seems to be a lack of good faith for the "average reader's" ability to discern how to best do that. The issue started within the past two days, altering an article that had been established for about six years. All of that aside, the #1 concern I have is that these two editors are going 1-2-1 with reverts to avoid 3RR, throwing out personal attacks needlessly, and canvasing across unrelated wikis looking for support. [25] Erikeltic ^(Talk) 02:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It is always astonishing to me how much emotion people can invest in issues that are so utterly trivial. Looie496 (talk) 03:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Oddly enough, this is something well noted in all walks of life. See Parkinson's Law of Triviality and Sayre's law. --Jayron32 03:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Why do you think this discussion was the latest of many to top 300,000 kb of text? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment. It was not a personal attack by Jbening. It was a question. See diff. I have not been canvassing. I have been leaving the {{rank order}} template on various list and table pages, or their talk pages, for awhile now. The other issues belong on the article talk page. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• Eh, it was a bit over the line. Casting aspersions in question form is still casting aspersions, and saying it could only have one result: to insult the recipient of the question. It wasn't the worst thing I've read at Wikipedia today, but in general it is best to avoid personalizing discussions like that. It only serves to steer the discussion off course, and minimize the chance of having a satisfactory result. Simply put: don't do things like that, because it makes it harder to work collegially with others. --Jayron32 04:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Hey, for what it's worth, I think coming to the drama boards for such a small thing is, as Erikeltic would say, "NONSENSE". Note his use of capital letters. But what do I know. ;) --Timeshifter (talk) 05:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between a personal attack and saying an edit is nonsense. Erikeltic ^(Talk) 01:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the whole paragraph that Jbening wrote that contains the sentence in question (in italics):

Erikeltic, can I ask you please to dial it back a bit? I've tried to be civil in all my comments, even though I do confess to some frustration that it doesn't seem like you're hearing what I'm saying, while you keep coming out both guns blazing in your replies. Absolute nonsense? It was an attempt to be helpful. If you disagree with it, fine. I'm not wedded to it. But I think you're being a bit over the top in calling it absolute nonsense. Are you this way with your friends, or only online?

Out of context, it may be as Jayron32, the admin, said. That is if you stretch it as far as possible, this may be "casting aspersions". But that even that is far from a personal attack. In context it is not remotely a personal attack or even casting aspersions. It is about as civil as one can be in pointing out another person's tone. Admins should know better than to take things out of context. I think this lack of admin ability to understand and deal with both personal disputes and content disputes is why there are more articles, but less editors. I can understand why average editors may get lost in all the disputes, but I do not see admins getting to the meat of issues by dealing with the content disputes. But that is a long story with many causes. See my link. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

User Erikeltic has escalated to removing talk page comments

It seems User:Erikeltic is now tag-teaming with User:Chipmunkdavis in removing my talk page comments on various page. This is a violation of WP:Talk. Specifically, they are removing a banner I created saying that it only belongs on articles. {{rank order}}. I mean I created the banner, and I know where I want to put it. I have been putting it on talk pages when people remove it from articles. Many people will not notice talk page banners, and so that is why I put it first on the article. If someone removes it from the article, then I know at least someone is probably also paying attention to the talk page. So I put it there to initiate discussion. I put it in a new talk section too so that discussion is possible. User:Erikeltic is blocking this discussion from happening. This is more of his pattern of obstruction. He has driven away Jbening from further editing of List of countries by beer consumption per capita. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Here are some of the talk pages involved:

Talk:List of national capitals by population

Talk:List of countries and dependencies by area‎

I notified both of the above-mentioned users. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a no-brainer and gets but one response, so here it is. Editor Timeshifter and I had an encounter on another article. I look at his recent contribs and noticed that he was still canvassing and disrupting other articles to make a point about the first wiki. I reverted two of these edits, both of which were inappropriate templates that didn't belong on a talk page. He added no comments at all, just templates that didn't belong where he stuck them. That's it... the end. Erikeltic ^(Talk) 01:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You obviously did not read or understand my reply concerning canvassing higher up. I think this illustrates the whole problem. And as for getting only one response, I would point out that it was you that started this whole thread on the drama boards. Over a trivial one-sentence remark from Jbening. --Timeshifter (talk) 06:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm only responding to your "removing talk page comments" silliness once. I've done that. Responding to the reasons we're here initially is quite different. The second reason I came to ANI was because you and another editor were going 1-2-1 on reverts and perpetuating an edit war. And yeah... I read you reply, I don't accept it. Creating your own template about sorting and then posting said template across a bunch of articles is, IMHO, canvassing and exceedingly pointy when you're in a "discussion" about sorting elsewhere. Erikeltic ^(Talk) 10:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You really don't get it, do you? As I said, I have been posting {{rank order}} for awhile now. Well before our interactions. See WP:CANVAS. That tag does not mention our interactions. Maybe it is a vast plot to undermine the reality distortion field of Wikipedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:31, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I took a look at your contribs, and I concede that you were not canvassing. My apologies. However, you were still engaging in an edit war and doing reverts 1-2-1 over ownership issues. Are you willing to no longer do that type of thing, except in cases of gross vandalism? Make that promise and I'll drop the ANI here and now. Erikeltic ^(Talk) 10:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You were the one doing the reverts of the only editor (Jbening) to have done a major update of the list in a long time. There have been no reverts since your revert of Jbening on July 20. See diff. You have driven away Jbening. On July 19 he wrote this in reply to you: "Also, you went 15 months without doing anything about the major update you noted the need for back in February, 2011, which doesn't bode well. But looking back over the number of words spent discussing this piece of triviata, I grow weary, so I think I'm going to check out. Maybe I'll have a look at the page after the 2011 numbers come out, to see if you or anyone else has actually updated the table. Cheers!" --Timeshifter (talk) 10:47, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll buy you a beer and we'll drop it. The ANI discussion here has nothing (in my opinion) to do with the content. My issue was with your actions during that dispute. I will consider the matter closed. I only hope that in the future it doesn't happen. Erikeltic ^(Talk) 10:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• PoppingCorns (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User making some rather strange comments on a Talk page, claiming to be an admin. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

My guess is that he has placed a {{subst:User admin}} in his signature, which is against WP:SIGN to begin with. However, the bigger concern is that he is trying to impersonate an administrator. I have removed the subst'd userbox from his signature and the top four misleading userboxes on his userpage. --MuZemike 23:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Update! They have released a statement at User talk:PoppingCorns#Official reaction. I think this is resolved. Rjd0060 (talk) 00:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the comment by Beeblebrox on the editor's talk page, it looks to me like this editor simply copy-pasted a bunch of userboxes from some admin's user page -- all those userboxes showed up at the same moment. Even so, past experience says an editor who behaves this erratically is destined to be indef'ed within the very near future. Looie496 (talk) 01:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Since they included when he was made an admin, it was easy to determine that he copied the page from Nightscream. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 05:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Especially since one of PC's userboxes said to contact him by "Leave a message here". Nyttend (talk) 13:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Hmm the editor concerned apparently inherited the account with their laptop (with the blessing of the former owner but still....) Nil Einne (talk) 17:55, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

He reminds me of CrustyPores = LustyRoars, bless him. Just sayin' Sean.hoyland - talk 18:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you know, he does me as well. As do the other new accounts on that IP - User:StrikingSimilarity and User:ShanklyMyDear User:Bonfondles and User:RugitVigoureux --Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Rollbacker_and_Reviewer_Cabal seems to be an obvious snowball closure. Any admin have the balls to close this thing? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 15:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Deleted per WP:SNOW. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 17:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

An arbitration case regarding Falun Gong has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Homunculus is banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces, for a period of one year.
2. Ohconfucius is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing topics related to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed, across all namespaces.
3. At the discretion of any uninvolved administrator, editors may be placed on mandated external review for all articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed. Editors on mandated external review must observe the following restrictions on editing within the designated subject area:
   1. Any major edit (defined as any edit that goes beyond simple and uncontroversial spelling, grammatical, and/or stylistic corrections to article content) must be proposed on the article's talk page. This proposal must be discussed by interested editors until a consensus to make the edit is formed.
   2. Once consensus has been reached in support of the edit, the proposal must be reviewed by an uninvolved editor for neutrality and verifiability of the information presented.
   3. When approval is received from the uninvolved editor, the editor subject to mandated external review may make the edit to the article. Violations of these restrictions may be reported to Arbitration Enforcement.
4. Upon the expiry of the applicable ban, Homunculus is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.
5. Should the applicable ban be lifted, Ohconfucius is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.
6. Colipon is subject to mandated external review as outlined in remedy 4, with respect to articles relating to the Falun Gong movement and/or the persecution thereof, broadly construed.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 14:41, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

Take a look at ongoing thread which may require attention on poor judgement and very bad adminship of User:GB_fan. Thanks! Olenglishaway (talk) 16:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

GB fan should have checked that User:OlEnglish had made the edit supposedly confirming the alt account, but since I've already blocked User:Olenglishaway I don't think there is really anything to see here. SmartSE (talk) 17:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

And I just hardened the block. T. Canens (talk) 17:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah yeah - thanks for that! SmartSE (talk) 17:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• Closed WP:PERM/C request. (NAC) ⇒TAP 17:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I made a mistake. GB fan 17:17, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah, Thanks for blocking as I had already requested a harder block.But, My point is that I had played with system to insure that All admin task is correctly done.It's all safe now because it was a mock drill.But, what if a real vandal just impersonated another senior contributor and passed safely through confirmed rights and vandalized massively? What if same thing happens at rollback rights or any other flags? What about massive vandalism via Huggle? It would be damn harder to revert all those edits.I'm sure that You have learned a lesson to double check every request.Thanks.59.161.16.210 (talk) 17:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Given the minimal privileges that come with Confirmed status, this is just a silly waste of admin time. Looie496 (talk) 17:24, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• For the record, that was definitely not me. But I have strong suspicions on who it might have been. -- œ^™ 17:23, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
• Think about what if vandal was able to pass through rollback just like this? 59.161.16.210 (talk) 17:27, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Think about WP:Block evasion max.. you only had 1 month to do.. now your main account can be blocked indefinitely, nice going. -- œ^™ 17:39, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Somce this IP has admitted to being the engineer of this " breaching experiment" I have blocked it as well Wikipedia is not a toy and it is almost certain this is some sort of returning blocked user or troll. I think we have wasted enough time on their games. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:37, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I started a SPI before the block on Maxviwe. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Maxviwe. Could be useful. Thanks! ⇒TAP 17:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

•  Confirmed by CheckUser; Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Maxviwe. ⇒TAP 18:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You mean  Likely? T. Canens (talk) 18:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Facepalm; yep. ⇒TAP 18:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

An arbitration case regarding User:Fæ has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Fæ is admonished for making personal attacks and making ad hominem attacks on others based on perceived affiliation.
2. Fæ is hereby limited to one account, and expressly denied the option of a fresh WP:CLEANSTART. Should Fæ wish to change the name of the one account he is allowed to use, he must receive prior permission from the Arbitration Committee before editing under any other username. Fæ must provide a list of all accounts they have controlled to the Committee, with any objections to making the accounts publicly listed. The Committee will then advise Fæ of whether they will need to list the objected to account(s) publicly.
3. As Fæ likely would have had his administrator status revoked as a result of this case, his resignation of tools is considered as "under controversial circumstances", and they cannot get the tools back without first standing for a fresh request for adminship. Should they run for RfA again, they must publicly link to the statement on their user page announcing the accounts they have used previously.
4. For numerous violations of Wikipedia's norms and policies, Fæ is indefinitely banned from the English Language Wikipedia. He may request reconsideration of the ban six months after the enactment of this remedy, and every six months thereafter.
5. For creating a page on an external webpage designed to harass another user, Michaeldsuarez is banned indefinitely from the English language Wikipedia. They may appeal this ban one year after its enactment.
6. Delicious carbuncle is severely admonished for posting another editor's non-disclosed private information on an external website and warned that should they do so again, they will face sanctions, up to and including an indefinite site ban from Wikipedia.

For the Arbitration Committee, Lord Roem (talk) 22:34, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

For some reasons the non-existing page MPK Engin­eering is restricted for administrators only. As an engineering subsidiary of Itera, I would like to redirect this page to the Itera article. Thank you. Beagel (talk) 19:34, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• That's very odd. As far as I can see, the page has never existed, nor been protected. Still, I have created it. Black Kite (talk) 19:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Probably the title blacklist. Hut 8.5 21:50, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Unless I've forgotten how my regex tester works, it doesn't match anything on the blacklist. --Carnildo (talk) 23:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that significant part of Leonid Michelson article is copy-pasted from rumafia. com / person. php?id = 69 (the url should be without spaces). However, I was not able to add this link to the maintenance tag as this site is blacklisted. Beagel (talk) 10:18, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Leave it out of the space on the tag for it, go back and edit the tag to add it just as plain text. Or put the info on the talkpage, but put the url on as plain text as you have done here. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yehuda Falk (talk · contribs · count · api · block log)

An IP added a deceased notice to Falk's user page. The IP then requested semi-protection of the page. I removed the deceased notice and declined the request per WP:DWG.

My concern is whether more needs to be done to find out if the user in fact died. He didn't edit very much, nor has he edited since February 2012, so it's unlikely anyone here knows him. Should we just wait to see if better confirmation is forthcoming (from his family or colleagues)? (I will continue to monitor his user page.)--Bbb23 (talk) 18:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course whenever this happens we all hope it is not true. The crux of the issue, as with anything alse here, is verification. A claim from an IP is not considered verification. He used his real name and identified his places of residence and employment so there should be an obituary forthcoming if he has indeed died. Unless and until we have such verification there shold be no tagging or administrative action taken. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Admins: I just got a note on my talk page that response time at WP:ERRORS has been slow. That page exists to correct mistakes on our welcome mat. Please watchlist WP:ERRORS and help us respond quickly. Thanks.--Chaser (talk) 18:28, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The wikipedia article on Amar Mitra is on a separate person named Amar Mitra Peddireddy. Amar Mitra is a reputed writer in Bengali and a Sahitya Akademy award winner.

Due to this problem of linking, the link Amar Mitra in List of Sahitya Akademy Winners in Bengali opens up with the Biographical details of Amar Mitra Peddireddy

Please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.163.17.114 (talk) 09:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• I fixed the references, now you can start the article about the writer.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe that parties have been changing the information about Ted Patrick and Deprogramming to portray Patrick and the process in a negative light. This has been happening over time and if you search under those heading and read them, I think you may be able to conclude why. There were some excellent links under Ted Patrick's name regarding testimony he'd given to public inquires on cults and some very good newspaper clippings that portrayed him in a more positive light. There're gone and a lot of negativity is creeping in. If Patrick were bad how come hundreds of parents hired him? Someone is distorting history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephennorth (talk • contribs) 21:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Insofar as this request concerns the article Ted Patrick (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) it does not seem to involve anything that requires the intervention of administrators, but rather the article's content, and is therefore outside the scope of this noticeboard. For general advice that may apply, see WP:BLP, WP:NPOV and, for how to address any disagreements about the content, WP:DR.  Sandstein  21:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

This review process about non-free content, after slow traffic and disastrous MFD, has been picked up again and needs more administrators if help is wanted. Fortunately, it is becoming busy with editors, and I think I want some reviews to be resolved once and for all... appropiately. --George Ho (talk) 00:42, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I had just started moving Syrian uprising (2011–present) to Syrian Civil War (2011–present) as per the consensus on the talkpage - after about 4 minutes of "waiting", I got a Wikimedia error ... now I'm not even sure this will post. Obviously, I've been unable to fix the additional tasks (double redirects, formally closing the RM discussion) because I'm now getting more site failures ... can anyone finish it off who is not getting these errors? (✉→BWilkins←✎) 11:00, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't find the RM to close it, but I fixed the double redirects and posted a message at the talk page pointing people to this section of WP:AN so they understand what's going on. Nyttend (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the RM was Talk:Syrian_Civil_War_(2011–present)#Requested_move_2 EatsShootsAndLeaves (talk) 15:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you mean to leave "(2011–present)" in the title? The proposal was simply for Syrian Civil War and I can't see anyone in the whole discussion mentioning "Syrian Civil War (2011–present)" as an option. Jenks24 (talk) 16:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I see a couple of references in the discussion adding it to the title, and a strong similar/related argument at the very bottom of the talk page dangerouspanda 16:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Just read over it again. Could you point out any comments that mention it besides Master&Expert at the bottom. In any case, if people were advocating for "(2011–present)", their votes should have been given very little weight per WP:PRECISION. Jenks24 (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Just to complicate this further :-) shouldnt' that be Syrian civil war, lower-caps, as with Libyan civil war and per WP:CAPS? I don't see the point in adding the parenthesis, as there is no other Syrian civil war that needs disambiguating.  Sandstein  21:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

No, unless you first get consensus to move the long-established American Civil War, Irish Civil War, and English Civil War. Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps these are capitalized because they are long-standing appellations and have thus become proper nouns? That's probably not the case with these newer civil wars.  Sandstein  06:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, my understanding is that it would be lowercase until the war is finished and Syrian Civil War becomes the official (or unofficial) name of the event. Until then, Syrian civil war is descriptive, not nominative, and is therefore probably more accurate. That's just my opinion though, not really based on much of anything. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 10:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/op5_Monitor appears to be salted. Cannot find any record at AfD. This iteration of the article appears to be ok, albeit a stub. Help please? David_FLXD (Talk) ^{Review me} 05:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It was salted after several speedy deletions for being blatant advertising (G11). These were all in 2008, so I'm inclined to unsalt it, but it's very late in the US so I'm going to go to bed instead of using the tools and not seeing something important. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 05:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

See its log. I wouldn't be open to unsalting randomly, but since there's an AFC ready to go, I've removed all protection. Nyttend (talk) 21:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Nyttend. I will go ahead and create it, and then keep an eye on it just in case this is the thin end of a wedge! David_FLXD (Talk) ^{Review me} 11:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

This page-move request has been open 15 days and now has a consensus to proceed. Anyone wanna take care of it? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Last time I looked the queue for requested moves was over 200 ... any reason why this one is more important than the others that it needs a rush? dangerouspanda 19:28, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done Secretlondon (talk) 22:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

But yes there were others ahead of it, but it looked simple. Secretlondon (talk) 22:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Dear administrators:

I have come to this forum in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines. The Dispute Resolution Noticeboard directed me here because my complaint is about another user's conduct.

To be brief: I have been participating in the User Talk page of the Intelligent Design article in recent weeks in an attempt to improve the text, and I observed the following posted by Raeky in an exchange regarding peer-reviewed sources:

"The first one, Kuhn 'Dissecting Darwinism', the front page of Baylor University states 'A top Texas Christian University.' If this publication by that university is properly peer reviewed I'd eat a copy of it."

I informed Raeky that this is a clear violation of policy against non-discrimination, and gave him the link to the policy. Baylor is a nationally accredited university, and as another user pointed out, the publication in question is peer-reviewed, although we don't know yet if the individual article in question was or was not. The fact that the university has a confessional status and is Christian in its self-identity is no reason to discard a source. If a user were to write that a nationally accredited university's secular nature disqualified its science, it would not be tolerated either.

Raeky reaffirmed his open discrimination against Baylor for being Christian in his response: "There's no reason to retract, the first is a journal from a Christian school, that right there calls into doubt it's scientific status, then the content of the article calls into doubt their standards."

Moreover, he also expressed his contempt for the non-discrimination policy, falsely claiming it isn't a policy: "Please note that that is not a policy, but an essay, and a failed essay at that, so it carries with it almost no power..." (I retract this statement about the falsehood of his claim -- in my rush to deal with this I did not see that it is not a policy --MatthewCHoffman (talk) 18:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC))

Raeky has repeatedly refused to retract or delete his statement. Moreover, not a single objection, other than mine, has been registered against his openly discriminatory statements, which indicates to me that the users who edit this article do not take this policy seriously and have motivations other than objectivity in editing this article. I respectfully request enforcement of the non-discrimination policy. Thank you. --MatthewCHoffman (talk) 16:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) IMHO this is not a case of religious discrimination, and there is no question about the formal status of Baylor University. The question seems to be more "philosophical". Christian Faith-based institutions already have a particular bias towards creation a la Genesis. Their in-house journals would be forced to continue the creation story, and not permit Intelligent Design/evolution on the whole. As such, the question of the reliability of the source comes into play when trying to use it - how scientific is it if it must conform to faith-based teachings? dangerouspanda 16:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

(e-c) First, I believe the editor who started this thread should perhaps know that this material more reasonabaly would have been placed at WP:ANI rather than here, as it is about a specific incident. Secondly, it is worth noting that the Kuhn "paper" mentioned above is, as per recent discussion at Talk:Intelligent design, an editorial in the publication. As is already said on the talk page in question, editorials are in general not subject to peer review, so the claim that it appears in a peer-reviewed journal is misleading. I do agree that some of Raeky's comments are less than optimum, but I also note that the editor above seems to be actively misrepresenting things himself. Specifically, Wikipedia:Discrimination is, as per the template at the top of that page, an essay, and, as per the top template on that page, "Essays are not wikipedia policies," and is even marked in the second template on that page as a failed proposal. Therefore, there is no policy to enforce. I respectfully urge the editor who started this thread to familiarize himself a bit better with wikipedia's policies and guidelines as per WP:PG before filing such comments, on the wrong page, again. John Carter (talk)

Religious discrimination isn't OK, regardless of whether the page in question is an "essay", "guideline", or "policy". I wouldn't dismiss the original poster's concern on those extremely narrow and technical grounds. That said, I don't think this is really an issue of religious discrimination. On the one hand, the focus of the talk-page discussion is off-base. Baylor is a reputable university, and I don't think that its Christian affiliation is a rationale for discounting scholarly work published by its faculty. It's not really productive to focus on Baylor's religious affiliation. The focus should be on the source itself, which presents a number of red flags discussed (appropriately) on the talk page. MastCell ^Talk 16:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• In this instance the fact that it's an institution describing itself as Christian is irrelevant, we've discussed the paper extensively before and found secondary sources commenting on it, as well as noting that the paper in question wasn't peer reviewed science. The user name Matthew Hoffman also sounds familiar from the topic area, but that may be a coincidence. On a broader aspect, Christian affiliations can be a red flag, as in the Oral Roberts University medical school which the BBC's Mark Mardell called into question.[26]. That may be unfair to ORU, another more blatant example which springs to mind is the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary flood controversy where ID wasn't YEC enough. . . dave souza, talk 18:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • As far as I know, the Oral Roberts medical school closed in the 1980s and never really participated in the scientific or scholarly communities. Baylor is well-established, and researchers there do excellent mainstream scientific work, collaborate with scientists elsewhere, receive NIH funding, publish in reputable journals, etc. It's a typical large academic medical center, and not in any way the same kettle of fish as Oral Roberts University or a theological seminary. Contrarians or people with odd, unscientific ideas can be found in virtually every reputable academic institution, but that's not unique to Baylor nor, as best I can tell, a product of its institutional religious affiliation. MastCell ^Talk 18:21, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I did err in my statement that the policy is clearly-defined (and I have stated my retraction in the original, see above -- I missed the statement at the top in my rush to deal with this), although I must say that if Wikipedia really doesn't regard this as bias then I have no place here, and neither does anyone else with integrity. One could claim that we shouldn't trust secular institutions either because they tend to have a bias against any conclusion that could be helpful to religion.

What I would like to know is: does Wikipedia regard it as acceptable for users to disqualify a publication because of the confessional status of the institution with which it is affiliated, even when it is a nationally accredited institution? Is this not evidence of serious bias, or is this kind of talk permitted on the talk pages? --MatthewCHoffman (talk) 18:31, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

In this instance Baylor medical school published an anti-evolution opinion piece by a rather eccentric surgeon, and ID proponents quickly claimed it as peer-reviewed proof of ID pseudoscience. Rogue papers slipped through without adequate peer review process do occur in controversial areas, as in the Sternberg peer review controversy. There have also been instances of Bible colleges requiring pseudoscience as an article of faith, it was reasonable of an editor to question this but in this instance everyone can be assured that Baylor has a sound reputation for good quality peer reviewed science. If the confessional status of an institution requires all its staff to reiterate YEC beliefs, as in the Dembski affair, then its publications would not be reliable sources on evolution or on geology, though they could be reliable primary sources of YEC views. . . dave souza, talk 18:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @MatthewCHoffman: You have your answer; you're correct that the paper shouldn't be disqualified on the basis of Baylor's institutional religious affiliation. At the same time, people have identified numerous concerns about the paper that have nothing to do with Baylor per se, and the most productive approach going forward is probably to engage those concerns at Talk:Intelligent design. MastCell ^Talk 18:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

One could claim that we shouldn't trust secular institutions either because they tend to have a bias against any conclusion that could be helpful to religion - That is simply a plain wrong argument. "Secular" means "not affiliated with (any particular) religion". It does not mean "opposed to religion". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually "secular" means "not religious in nature", it has nothing to do with not being connected to specific dominations, nor does it carry the connotation of "anti-religious". Secular institutions are non-religious institutions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

This is just pettiness. The lack of a religious confession can be a result of anti-religious sentiment. That is all I meant. I live in Mexico, where terms similar to "secular" ("laicista," and the related "laicismo") are used often in an anti-religious way. Besides, there are no explicitly anti-religious universities, but many secular ones seem to have a a bias against western forms of theism. --MatthewCHoffman (talk) 05:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

This is just pettiness. No, this is using words to mean what they mean, not what one would like them to mean. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Affirming the consequent? Good universities educate students. This will necessarily result in a critical questioning of the more stupid forms of literal interpretations of religions. But that is not a sign of bias, its a natural outcome of teaching people to think and question - the core purpose of any educational institution, religious or secular. Most secular universities do e.g. have departments of theology or even divinity. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:24, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Still haven't really been "officially" notified of this yet, Matthew edited my user page not my talk page with the notice but that was apparently well after the topic was started. My point I was trying to make, hopefully it was clear, is that for a scientific source a source from a professed christian organization may not be the best source. I said this mostly after reading the article in the Baylor journal, which was just basically the same old ID arguments, so I called the journal into question, if they'd allow that in there, even as a review article. Sure Baylor makes scientific contributions and publishes in real journals. But that doesn't mean we accept anything they say as scientific truth or that we don't need to take closer look at some of their publications when used for making scientific claims. As was pointed out by numerous editors at the ID article that these sources are not peer reviewed, and I don't think it's controversial to state that publications from a professed christian school that makes pseudoscientific claims in those publications need to be carefully checked and weighed before you use them in a scientific article or to make a scientific claim. — raekyt 18:56, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

As indicated above, it's unfortunate that this particular publication reflects badly on an otherwise reputable publisher. Your questioning of the source was entirely reasonable, and your opinion is supported by the expert views of Jerry Coyne who described the paper as "an embarrassment to the author, to the journal, and to the field of medicine as a whole. I call on the journal to retract this paper, for if it doesn’t, then the Proceedings of the Baylor University Medical Center will be forever tarred as a vehicle for creationist nonsense."[27] . . dave souza, talk 19:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Now if only we could get as much editorial effort devoted to the also Baylor-related question of Tryon Coterie (AfD discussion) …. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 19:17, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Baylor is not at the level of the other institutions mentioned. It's just not true that because a publication publishes once an anti-evolution article as an editorial, it condemns everything else they may publish, and JC was presumably speaking as a participant in an argument; certainly what he said is hyperbole. Good and sensible people have believed in ID. They're in my personal opinion objectively wrong, but they can't be treated as evil or ill-intentioned. Some outside Wikipedia do, and they do not in my opinion help the cause of science. Rather they just reinforce each other and convince the ill-informed that evolutionists are insufficiently reasonable to be taken seriously. DGG ( talk ) 03:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

DGG, I can't comment on the goodness or sensibility of people who believe in ID, but the claim is that ID is science and the Proceedings is presented as a scientific journal, not a faith based publication. As the Kitzmiller conclusion states, "while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science."[28]

It was entirely appropriate for an editor to question the suitability of this source for a scientific claim: Baylor Medical School had in this instance published unscientific speculation. Curious wording "that evolutionists are insufficiently reasonable", who are these "evolutionists" you seem to be disparaging? . . dave souza, talk 05:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think DGG is disparaging anyone. He's just saying that overly strident arguments against intelligent design can backfire by making their authors seem shrill and unreasonable. In real life, as on Wikipedia, people often judge the correctness of an argument by the superficial civility of its proponents rather than by its objective merit. That's one reason why counterfactual movements like AIDS denialism, climate change "skepticism", vaccine paranoia, and intelligent design are so persistent. Such is life. MastCell ^Talk 16:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Funny, I thought this page was for resolving issues over the application of Wikipedia policy, not opining about the subject matter of an article. Your personal opinions about ID, which have no authority in and of themselves, are not relevant to the article, and especially not to my point. My point was about disqualifying a source because it is published by a nationally accredited confessional university that self-identifies as Christian, simply because it is Christian. That was my only question. Yet we see all of this open bashing of ID. Not all scientists agree about ID being non-science, although a majority certainly reject it. The ID article should indicate the views of the majority among scientists, and not give undue weight to minority positions, but it should present the subject matter accurately and not be an editorial for or against ID. Can we at least establish that? --MatthewCHoffman (talk) 17:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a bit unclear whom you are replying to. Anyways, given that in the concrete case the source was an editorial, neither peer-reviewed nor a reliable source for anything but the author's opinion, is there anything left to clarify? The source is bad - not because Baylor is a Christian university, but because its published as a non-reviewed opinion piece by a non-expert. This board does not make policy, nor sanction opinions, even if mistaken. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it has been well established that ID comes firmly under the Wikipedia:Fringe theories guideline:

Wikipedia summarizes significant opinions, with representation in proportion to their prominence. A Wikipedia article about a fringe theory should not make it appear more notable than it is. Claims must be based upon independent reliable sources. An idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea, and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner.

AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I need to clarify & expand my comment. ID may be a fringe opinion, but Christianity is not. There have frequently been arguments that no Christian source can be a reliable source about the New Testament. This has also been used even for other less central subjects in which a Christian may be interested that relate in some way to religion. And it has also been used in--in the discussion above and elsewhere --to say that nothing in a publication from a college affiliated with Christianity is a RS for anything which relates in some manner to religion. Such claims about other religions are rarer, because they could easily be interpreted as one of the taboo anti-'s, but I've seen them about both Islam and Judaism, and the various branches of each. To put this is perspective, in some religions believers hold the exact inverse, that unless on is a believer in the religion, one can not be a RS about it. I consider all versions of this to be either examples of bigotry, or the self-defensive fear that one's opinions will not hold up to logical neutral argument. DGG ( talk ) 20:17, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

DGG, you appear to be demanding that religious organisations be given unquestioning credence on a science topic. Organisations are entitled to hold views, but they are not entitled to obscure the overwhelming majority scientific opinion. We've been bending over backwards to give credence to Baylor's record as a university with reputable credentials in science, but looking a bit further they've had a rather chequered past record with specific regard to ID: their Michael Polanyi Center was apparently the first center at a research university exclusively dedicated to intelligent design study, though they may have had their finger burnt a bit with that. Your comments on bigotry are verging on personal attacks against other editors, please accept that logical neutral argument might not support your religious views. Of course religious colleges can have their place as sources on religion, for example the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is no doubt well informed about theology. . . . dave souza, talk 20:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about this particular Seminary, but, from my experience with some Souther Baptists, your last sentence is far from being a given. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:58, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, they really just came up because they threw out disciplined ID proponent Dembski for not toeing the YEC line: undoubtedly they'd have different theological views from evangelicals who accept modern geology. Perhaps best treated as a primary source. . . dave souza, talk 21:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC) amended 21:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Responding to DGG, I think I might see his point. His statement was basically that ID is a fringe theory, which I think we all agree, but that Christianity (or, for that matter, other religions) are not. Granted, I am a Christian as well, and some of you might question me on that basis as well. And, as he says, we should not discount any and all information relating to a subject which might broadly qualify as "religious" from a publication associated with a religious institution just on that basis. Christianity is one such example. Elsewhere on this page recently we have had disputes about apparently religious reference books, which some assume to be biased on that basis. Honestly, in some cases, they might be, and I hope we develop articles about the more clearly biased ones to make that easier to see. But, I do have to agree that it makes no sense to dismiss otherwise probably acceptable sources simply because of their association with an institution which is of a religious nature. Like with ID, there might be other reasons to consider them FRINGE or something similar, but that is a separate matter. But, as has been said elsewhere above, this particular source in question is an editorial in a peer-reviewed magazine, and I believe the consensus here is that the editorial in question probably does not meet RS for reasons other than pure religious discrimination, and on that basis the matter here is not actionable. SO, while I agree religious discrimination per se is a serious issue, this is not a clear example of religious discrimination, but more of WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT, and actions in accord with those principles regarding this particular source is acceptable as per guidelines and policies. John Carter (talk) 21:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks John, well said. The point is that we have to be free to discuss and evaluate all references to meet WP:SOURCES policy. If I can illustrate the point, the Southern Baptist controversy discussed above is reported in the Florida Baptist Witness – a fascinating perspective, clearly Christian but probably a fringe view among Christians. Useful as a primary source, very questionable about geology. In contrast, I have to hand The Bible, Rocks and Time which covers the history of geology from the evangelical Calvinist viewpoint of two geologists at Calvin College – in my view, an excellent source on the history of geology, a useful source on Biblical and philosophical perspectives on the topic, to be treated with awareness that it's from one religious viewpoint. Critical assessment of sources is not religious discrimination. . . dave souza, talk 22:28, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is too generic. If it were at WP:RSN the first response would have been to ask for the article text that is in question, and the source that is claimed to verify that text. Of course documents from a Christian university are not automatically disregarded, and the issue cannot be resolved without considering the details; that should be done on the article talk page. If there is a problem on that page which needs to be addressed at a noticeboard, the precise problem should be identified. An editor may have made an incorrect claim about a source, but the important issue is the actual text proposed for the article. Johnuniq (talk) 03:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that's why this dispute sounded familiar. This paper was discussed at WP:RSN earlier this year: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 116#Baylor paper. It also got a hearing at WP:FTN: Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 30#Baylor paper on Irreducible complexity. Self-serving comments by the forum-shopping editor who filed both requests notwithstanding, the consensus in both discussions was the the article raised a number of red flags. While it would serve as a reasonable source if we wanted to characterize the author's opinions on the topic of intelligent design and irreducible complexity, it was not held to be a particularly reliable or important source to represent widely-held views on those topics. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Can we please call a moratorium on deleting file redirects on sight until there is an actual policy that supports this? This has been brought up several times with no progress made; admins are still doing it. If this should be done, we should have a policy that supports this. For those interested I'm hoping to start a dialog at WT:CSD. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Who is (are?) doing the problematic deletions, and what rationale is being given? Redirects are cheap, and there is not often a good reason to clean them up. I have, however, had files renamed without redirection on Commons per OTRS tickets expressing apparently legitimate BLP concerns. Jclemens-public (talk) 20:03, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

While I've not checked the deletion logs, I'm continually declining other people's attempts to get old filespace redirects deleted under R3 (recently created implausible redirect), and by their anger and persistence (one person is attacking WP:RFD#HARMFUL on my talk page, for example), it's obvious that they're surprised at having these deletions declined. This is not the type of reaction that I'd be getting if most admins were declining these attempts. Read on if you care about my analysis of the situation. What happens is as follows: (1) Editor #1 uploads an image. (2) Because we don't have any policy or guideline saying when a pagemove is appropriate, editor #2 comes around years after upload, doesn't like the name, and moves the file to a name that he prefers. (3) Editor #2 observes that the oldest entry in the history of the redirect page is now just a few minutes old and thus figures that it's new, and because nobody is likely to look for the image under such an absurd and unlikely title, he tags it for speedy, either under R3 or G6 (housekeeping). (4) I come along and decline the deletion because the filename has been a blue link for several years and because deletion would cause problems such as linkrot, as noted by WP:RFD#HARMFUL. (5) Editor #2 begins arguing with me that the page is new or (despite my opposition to deletion) that deletion is noncontroversial, and discussion keeps going until someone is worn out. Nyttend (talk) 02:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If you take a look at Wikipedia's most visited pages, you'll notice Special:Export/Robert L. Bradley, Jr and Special:Export/William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr at #5 and #7, respectively. Now, most people don't even know that Wikipedia has namespaces, let alone have knowledge of the export feature. So, what's going on? They seem like fairly ordinary and innocuous articles. Why would 58,317,471 people be interested in getting their XML files? I'm guessing that there's some sort of weird automated process going on that I'm not aware of.—Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 03:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• You saw that those statistics were for December 2010, did you not? Uncle G (talk) 07:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

  How are you able to discern that? Does 201012 translate in some number system to 2010?—Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 16:27, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Never mind, I figured it out. :D I'm still curious about the weird stats I noticed, though. And why don't we have an up-to-date page of article traffic statistics?—Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 16:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Those pages are listed almost certainly because a script on somebody's website malfunction and fired 100 requests a second for them for several days in December 2010. Not sure why that page doesn't update automatically, presumably because its creator didn't make it update automatically. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 18:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Funny, I'd assume the servers would lock you out if you tried to request pages that fast. Someguy1221 (talk) 18:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm very impressed by the resilience of our servers; the Bradley page got 6.8 million hits in one day, which is 25% more than Main Page and 60% more than Special:Search got on the same page. Nyttend (talk) 02:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I deleted the original version of this page last year as a BLP attack page. I'm now thinking that may have just been bad translating/self analysis by the user. The new version is rather perplexing. See the user contrib history. I'm half inclined to delete it and half inclined to think that would be a bitey over-reaction. But on the other hand, is bite really apposite when dealing with someone who's been around for a year and contributed only to their own userspace? Views? --Dweller (talk) 10:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Can't speak of the old version but the new version looks to me just like an autobiography in both Indonesian (which I can partially understand due to some mutual intelligibility with Malay) and English. No comment on what to do with it. Nil Einne (talk) 13:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTHERE seems appropriate. Either that or just ignore them. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 17:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

can a non involved admin please close this straw poll and decide if a consensus has been reached Talk:Rangers_F.C.#Question this will help move this major dispute onAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 10:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

In Wikipedia:WikiProject_Israel#Assessment, I have added the FL tag and created the categories like the FA does but when putting the class=FL in the talk page of the articles I only get ??? (like in here Talk:List of Israeli football champions) and an empty note in the FL-class category. After using the toolserver updater the FL was removed. Can an admin see what I did wrong and add FL correctly to the Assessment of WikiProject_Israel so we have it aswell. PS: I have added it here cuz I belive it might be something only an Admin can add.
  – HonorTheKing (talk) 13:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Answered at Template talk:WPBannerMeta#Adding Quality (FL) to the Assessment table. The page to be amended is semi-prot, so no admin is required. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

A WP:BLP article of a (circa) 17-year-old that I'm watching has recently been edited by a new user account whose name matches the name of the subject of the article. The edits do not indicate to me that this is likely an attempt at impersonation; they are attempts at noting the exact year of birth (which has not been reported in reliable sources and is therefore not in the article).

My question is, what is our current practice with regard to WP:IMPERSONATE? Do we routinely username-block all accounts with an username that matches that of an article subject, or only in cases where we suspect impersonation? (I'm not indicating the name of the user or the article here so as not to have to notify the user, which may confuse them if they are the article subject.)  Sandstein  21:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• I say let another administrator handle blocking if there is to be blocking. You're far too close on this one, and would be adopting too many rôles if you blocked the user accounts as well. For what it's worth, the subject's precise date of birth is verifiable, and is what both of the accounts are changing it to. See Margaret Fuhrer's profile on page 72 of the April 2012 Dance Spirit magazine. Personally, given that neither account has been disruptive, and have actually (given what turns out to be the case) attempted to provide more information that is verifiable, I'd suggest that there's room for being nice to the article subject, here. Uncle G (talk) 22:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Hm, I can't find the date of birth in the online version of the article you mention. If you have a source that contains it, can you add it to the article? I agree with the rest of what you said, but that doesn't answer my question about what our practice with respect to WP:IMPERSONATE is.  Sandstein  06:04, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Use Margaret Fuhrer's own WWW site. It has the complete page. Or buy the magazine back issue, of course. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 06:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks, this has now allowed me to insert the sourced date of birth.  Sandstein  07:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• I'm not an admin but my old experience at WP:BLPN is if someone said they were person whoever the subject of an article (or someone else like a parent or friend) we usually just accepted what they said at face value and tried to help them as best possible without blocking them (unless they did something else to merit a block). Occasionally someone may have suggested they verify their identity but I don't think this was common, it didn't actually generally make much difference to what we could do given our requirement for sources. Although if the info wasn't that well sourced, but was sourced and the person claiming to be the subject suggested it was wrong or otherwise wanted it removed some people may have been more willing if the person verified their identity. Sometimes (well one time that I remember) we did get people apparently impersonating or trolling (e.g. they claimed something of the subject) but all evidence suggested they were lying) but generally I think it was felt unnecessary to worry too much about particularly with not that well knwon subjects. (If say Obama or Bill Gates or Britney Spears came to complain, we may be more suspicious.) AFAIK we did the same even if the person's username had part of their allegedly real name. I haven't really been involved recently but looking at BLPN, from what I can tell this still seems to be going on. Nil Einne (talk) 14:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
  • You need an actual suspicion of a problem, not just a match on the name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Judge a user not on the color of their username, but on the content of their character. -- Avanu (talk) 17:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
  • It all comes down to cases. For example: I've been dealing with Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Cliff Stanford. Cliff Stanford (talk · contribs) claims to be the subject and AkaSylvia (talk · contribs) claims to be his girlfriend. I've not blocked them for impersonation because that would be unproductive. (I've not blocked the both of them and Hullaballoo Wolfowitz for a nine month long edit war at Cliff Stanford, either, because I stopped the edit war, the purpose of such blocks, in another way.) Although I don't know that they are who they claim to be, their actions are consistent with being Wikipedia novices who are who they say they are. I'd rather that their first brush with the Wikipedia community at large, rather than just one person, not be an immediate Kafkaesque block for having the straightforwardness to state who they are.

    On the other hand, there are cases where the accounts behave rather differently to M. Stanford and M. Wrigley. They are dishonest, disruptive, wikilawyering, combative, and in general just smell wrong. Experienced Wikipedians do, as said above, judge upon behaviour, and bad behaviour does add up to an impersonation block. Having the name of a real person is a contributory factor. If you want another way to think of this: We don't, in practice, block solely for having the account name of a real person. We block for doing so where it brings the impersonated person into disrepute or where our experience/information tells us that this isn't who it is claimed to be. Witness the discussion of Countess of Lucan (talk · contribs) at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 110#Lord Lucan for an example of such decision making.

    This is why the policy says "may". It's a warning to the account holders that this may happen. But it's not a requirement upon administrators. We are expected to consider the case at hand, the circumstances and the consequences, and decide whether it's an appropriate course of action; rather than apply a rule like thoughtless robots. I actually did this for the two accounts that are not named above. I considered the circumstances and the consequences, came to the conclusion that these people are very likely who they claim to be and are Wikipedia novices whose interests lie in what is said about them in a biography of a living person, and decided that I wouldn't be exercising my blocking tool, and that Sandstein's exercise of the talking tool was quite the right thing to do instead.

    There are numerous people who straightforwardly log in under their own names here. It's not wrong to do that, and we do not have a rule that forces us to make their lives difficult to no purpose.

    Uncle G (talk) 08:48, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I do a lot of dispute resolution at 3O and DRN. All current DR forums require talk page discussions prior to requesting DR and requests are routinely rejected when they are made without prior discussion. It is not uncommon, however, to find a discussion where one editor has attempted to start discussion in good faith, with solid requests on the article talk page and, often, requests or notices on the other editor's talk page as well (I'll call that editor the "requester") but with no response of any kind from the other editor (who I'll call the "reverter"). (It's also common to find that the reverter also does not use edit summaries.) If the requesting editor can get nothing out of the reverter and cannot get DR, what are they to do? By the time a complaint at WP:EWN is appropriate, the requester is more often than not vulnerable to a WP:BOOMERANG. In many, if not most, cases page protection will not solve the problem because the problem will simply resume after the protection goes away. I made an attempt (see here and here) to modify WP:RFC to allow it to be used to try to get community input in this situation, but that attempt was reverted by a user who believes that continuing to revert after a discussion request has been made is either (I'm afraid that I cannot quite follow his logic, so I'm not quite sure which is right) itself a blocking offense which can be reported to WP:SPI WP:ANI or, alternatively, somehow immunizes the requester from accusations of edit warring. Is he right? If not, what should a requester be told to do? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If I'm following this correctly, and I know you said you have trouble following it yourself, so I'm not blaming you, you're asking if it is acceptable for someone to engage in reversion after a discussion request is made, right? By "discussion request," I'm assuming you mean RfC? Regarding the claim that reversion is subject to investigation at WP:SPI, frankly, I don't see that making any sense whatsoever. Regarding the contention that discussion immunizes someone from being subject to edit warring claims, I don't see that as being necessarily valid, although it might be useful to know the situation before the discussion started.

I know this isn't necessarily a lot of help, and I'm sorry about that, but it would really help to know some more of the relevant details. John Carter (talk) 16:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry for being somewhat obtuse. No, by "discussion request" I mean this situation, stated here in its simplest form: A makes an article edit, B reverts, A requests discussion on the talk page and drops a talkback on B's talk page, B makes no response of any kind. (A more typical situation is this: A makes an article edit, B reverts with no edit summary, A reverts with some explanation in the edit summary, B reverts with no edit summary, A reverts with an edit summary requesting discussion on the talk page and explains their edit on the talk page, B reverts with no discussion and no edit summary, A files a dispute resolution request at 3O or DRN, A's request is rejected because there's not been any talk page discussion.) Is A immune from EW'ing (presuming that B isn't reverting for a 3RR exemption reason) or does A have cause for a SPI an ANI complaint? If not, what should A be told to do? For a current example (though I don't want to focus on it) see This is PiL. Sorry about the reference to SPI; that should have been ANI, and I've fixed it above. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC) PS: I don't think that A is immune nor do I think that there is a complaint to be made to ANI, though I think that it should be a reportable offense. As it is right now, unfortunately, in light of WP:CONS#No consensus I think that A is simply out of luck, he has no recourse, and his edit cannot go in. I don't think that's right or the way that it should be, but I do think that's the way it is. — TM 17:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Under the circumstances, it seems to me that A is, basically, screwed out of luck, as you put it. There might be reasonable cause, depending on the specific circumstances of the edit war, to maybe question whether B is trying to game the system, or might be seen as engaging in willfully disruptive editing, given the lack of communication, which could maybe give cause to raise questions here or elsewhere about that behavior. I can also see how it might be useful to add something to WP:EW to specifically cover non-communicative reversions. But, right now, things being the way they are, there is a very good chance A would be subject to sanctions of some sort, depending on the disposition of the admin in question. John Carter (talk) 17:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who refuses to engage after a reasonable request for an explanation is not acting in good faith. They should not be allowed to "win" through attrition. If they will not engage in a discussion, the other user should attempt to engage other parties in discussion so that a consensus may be reached. If the reverter doesn't deign to particpate in that discussion that is their problem, and if they keep revert warring later it will only end with blocking. However, edit warring is always the wrong thing to do. Unless you are dealing with blatant vandalism there is no "right" in an edit war, anyone who engages in one is wrong. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• A should just find someone in Category:Sensible admins, who will tell B that if they revert without discussion again, they will be blocked for disruption. Actually finding someone in Category:Sensible admins is left as an exercise for the reader. --Floquenstein's monster (talk) 18:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll tell you the solution I reached a long time ago. I came to the conclusion that in one-vs-one disputes, victory goes to the stubbornest party. The only way to get anywhere against an uncooperative editor without being even more uncooperative is to convert it to an n-vs-one dispute, where the isolated editor always loses if the other editors are competent. So, whenever I get into difficulties with an editor who won't play ball, I go straight to the appropriate WikiProject and post a message on its talk page, asking for additional eyes. Looie496 (talk) 18:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:09, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

That was what I was trying to do with the RFC exception (not that RFC doesn't have it's own set of problems). Maybe I'll try it again, but the WikiProject idea is a good one, too. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:26, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

This is not what you were doing with the RFC exception. The language was not written like that asking for other input in a relevant wikiproject talk page; it is quite standard, and not obligatory prerequisite for initiating anand rfc.Curb Chain (talk) 06:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

TransporterMan, if the person files a discussion on the talk page, this makes them eligible for a DRN file. Problem solved.Curb Chain (talk) 06:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC) ::::This is not what you were doing with the RFC exception. The language was not written like that asking for other input in a relevant wikiproject talk page is quite standard and not obligatory prerequisite for initiating and rfc.Curb Chain (talk) 06:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC) And if indeed the requester is vulnerable to WP:BOOMERANG, he is probably not bebeing scrupulous in his editing conduct.Curb Chain (talk) 06:30, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid it does not. The DRN instructions say, "[This] is not a place to discuss disputes that are already under discussion at other dispute resolution forums - but the issue must have been discussed extensively on a talk page - not just through edit summaries." (Emphasis added.) (Until recently it said "substantial discussion" rather than "discussed extensively", but that's the same idea.) 3O says, "Before making a request here, be sure that the issue has been thoroughly discussed on the article talk page. 3O is only for assistance in resolving disagreements that have come to a standstill." (Emphasis added.) Neither formulation would permit a single editor's talk page explanation or discussion request to be sufficient to start a case and, indeed, requests at those forums are ordinarily removed or rejected when there has been no back-and-forth discussion. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Occasionally, someone will edit an article solely to change Persian Gulf to Arabian Gulf or vice-versa. I've read some of the controversy in various places here, but it's kind of scattered so it's unclear whether there was a clear consensus. Is there a policy as to what to do about these, if anything? I imagine that a revert will almost certainly start a (brief) edit war if the user is paying attention. Of course, it might happen anyway if anyone else is paying attention :) —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 13:37, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Mnap25 (talk · contribs)

This user has been frequently updating the statistics on baseball pages without bothering to update the date. This makes it harder to know when the stats in the infobox were updated and makes the articles appear more outdated than they really are. Here are this user's four most recent edits, 1, 2, 3, and 4. There are plenty of other examples of his failure to update the date. Furthermore, the issue has been mentioned on his talk page three times, but to the best of my knowledge he has made no response. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 17:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

That has the effect of introducing errors into the text, since, for example, Harrison's record was not 42-24 as of 15 July. I would say that this isn't a big issue except for the user's apparent unwillingness to discuss; even good-faith addition of errors is problematic and needs to stop. Accordingly, I've built off the three previous notes and left a final warning (seeing this as being akin to the various levels of vandalism warnings) that further edits of this pattern will result in a block. Nyttend (talk) 17:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your intervention. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 17:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

This user page contains mainspace categories that goes against WP:USERNOCAT. Because the page title ends with .js it generates the user page as a javascript page so I'm unable to edit and remove the categories. --Mika1h (talk) 16:38, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Has the thought even crossed your mind of asking them about it or at least informing them you were asking for admin intervention? Beeblebrox (talk)|

Who is "them"? --Mika1h (talk) 17:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

User:TheoA, of course. dangerouspanda 17:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I left a notice on the talk page. --Mika1h (talk) 17:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you discuss the issue with them first, before coming here so that they could fix it? AN/ANI are last resort, after you have attempted to resolve it with the user first dangerouspanda 17:46, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

PS: and the last post on their talkpage was June 26. That said, they have not edited since June 19 dangerouspanda 17:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, nevermind then, I didn't realize this was a major issue that needs discussion. P.S. Why are you all using plural form, it's confusing. --Mika1h (talk) 17:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

P.P.S I had left a notice on User talk:TheoA/Three.js. --Mika1h (talk) 17:52, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Always best to discuss on their usertalk, not the the subpage talk. Oh, and "they" (and therefore "their") is singular. dangerouspanda 17:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

No, "they" and "their" take plural verbs; use "he" or "she" or "s/he" or something like that if you want to have subject-verb agreement. Nyttend (talk) 04:09, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The subpage in question is the original source of an article draft (looks like it was copy/pasted to an actual article). As such, the subpage can be deleted. Of course, I can't add the MFD tag :-) dangerouspanda 17:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

• Perhaps we need yet another noticeboard (WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Don't snap at me, or WP:ANDSAM?) where people can ask for simple admin help with something, without being accused of dragging someone else to AN or ANI. AN or ANI should be a last resort for conflicts, but don't land so hard on the guy for asking for simple admin help here. He's not trying to get TheoA in trouble. When I run across article categories in userspace drafts, I usually comment them out myself, and leave a note for the editor, rather than asking the editor to do it themselves. No discussion needed, and no editor has ever complained about this. All Mika1h is asking is an admin to do something he would usually do himself, but can't because the userspace draft is accidentally marked as a .js page. I'm sure he'll leave the explanatory note on TheoA's talk page if an admin will do the commenting out. --Floquenstein's monster (talk) 18:47, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
• I note that the user in question has removed the text; I think we're fine here :). I agree with Floquenstein that we need to get a lot better at assuming good faith of the people who bring issues to AN. Now, I understand why AN and ANI are places of last resort - practically-speaking, it's because they're hellish, dark, satanic mills filled with snark being used as an area denial weapon. But at least part of that stems from people telling users off for bringing other contributors to these venues - perhaps if people were nicer about it, their reason for being annoyed by it would partly solve itself? Ironholds (talk) 10:25, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I've currently got a text file with an article on A. B. Colton; however, I cannot create A. B. Colton. It isn't protected it appears to be on a blacklist of sorts. I also can't create User:Ryan Vesey/A. B. Colton. What is my best solution. Can an administrator make it so I can create the page? Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that I can't create it because colton appears at MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that colton was added to the page by MuZemike with this edit. I left a note on his talk page. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:37, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Created the userspace page for you. Nyttend (talk) 04:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

As noted on my talk page, I removed the entry from the blacklist, as I know why I added it, and the abuse regarding that entry is no longer there. --MuZemike 07:15, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Good morning chaps - it seems there is a bit of a kerfuffle brewing on the old social networks about this young lady and her prediliction for shooting zebras - a few extra pairs of eyes on the article might not go amiss, there's already been a couple of rather nasty comments inserted. Quintessential British Gentleman (talk) 12:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment that:

The India-Pakistan case is supplemented as follows:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, broadly construed.

For the Arbitration Committee, NW (Talk) 18:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Discuss this

Occasionally, someone will edit an article solely to change Persian Gulf to Arabian Gulf or vice-versa. I've read some of the controversy in various places here, but it's kind of scattered so it's unclear whether there was a clear consensus. Is there a policy as to what to do about these, if anything? I imagine that a revert will almost certainly start a (brief) edit war if the user is paying attention. Of course, it might happen anyway if anyone else is paying attention :) (2nd try - is this the right place?) —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 15:06, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The only relevant rule I can think of is "use common English". In this case, this would apparently imply using "Persian Gulf" or simply "the Gulf" in most situations, depending on context, as the "Arabian Gulf" usage has apparently not gained much currency outside the Arab world itself. I'm aware some editors have invested the issue with a very overblown ideological significance, spending a lot of time arguing why "Arabian Gulf" is historically wrong and evil and why its use must not only be avoided but actively deprecated, but that's really nonsensical and beside the point. What counts is just established usage in English. I don't think we've ever had any kind of formalized decision procedure over it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Our article is at Persian Gulf. Articles should link directly to the other article, and very rarely is there good reason to pipelink a proper name with another proper name. Any disputes about what to call the entity being talked about, in this case the Gulf, should be discussed at that page, and solved at that page. This isn't explicit in any policy, but seems a logical way to preserve NPOV and consistency. There is a precedent; Sea of Japan, which is called that throughout the wiki (although there is an odd clause to note it's also called the East Sea on articles specifically relating to Korea). CMD (talk) 15:33, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I've just removed some pipelinks today which seemed to be pov (on another subject entirely). Piping shouldn't be done as a way to get around an article's name. Dougweller (talk) 20:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I just looked at some sample NA-class articles from WP:BIO project, and they all look to me like talk pages of redirects. As far as I know, it is pointless to tag those within projects; and some I noted have improper classifications (as stubs and such). If there is a small number of articles that should be retained (and off the top of my head I cannot think of what could be classified as NA, which seems like a pointless use for a blank page classification), a deeper review may be needed, but as things stand, I'd be tempted to say that this entire category is due for a mass deletion, and we should probably look at other NA-class articles, with anything tagged as NA in the future coming up for a review for speedy deletion alert (or, if nobody can present any arguments for keeping this category, simply coming up for speedy deletion). PS. To be clear: I am not suggesting we delete the redirects, just their talk pages, which are useless and falsely inflate the article counts for WikiProjects. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 19:14, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Some projects like to keep track of redirects incase someone changes it to redirect elsewhere or incase someone puts it up for deletion. The project tags often work in conjunction with automated bots to warn the project that this has happened. As such some projects do very much rely on these even if you find them useless. I would also note NA pages can also be anything that isn't ranked by the project in question as it stands for Non-Article. For example in a project I am involved with anything that isn't an article gets tagged NA. Such as templates, images, project pages etc. -DJSasso (talk) 19:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The other issue is that sometimes those pages were articles at one point and did have discussions. We generally don't ever delete a talk page if the assosciated content is still here. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

A new editor, User_talk:Eric mit 1992, (125 edits) appears to be wikilawyering (just look at the last 5-6 threads) at Talk:Blacklight_Power, a company based on pseudoscience. Not sure how to proceed. Any admins or experienced editors want to have a look and provide any advice, or the best way to handle it? IRWolfie- (talk) 22:31, 30 July 2012 (UTC) Attempts to engage on the users talk page did not go well: [29]. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC) The editor just got blocked for 24 hours for 9 reverts as well: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Eric_mit_1992_reported_by_User:Bhny_.28Result:_24_hours.29; the topic is under discretionary sanctions. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

An editor who also posted to Talk:Rangers F.C. got lost on the way to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football and thought that it was here. Uncle G (talk) 15:08, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Could we have a few more eyes on Syria and related articles? Obviously there's quite the dispute about them at the moment in real life, and a couple of users (one whose entire talkpage just says "FREE SYRIA!" have managed to slowly edit war in their preferred infobox with no consensus on the talkpage (and most of those reverts, along with others, were without edit summaries). As well as steady admin hands, a few more opinions on talk wouldn't go amiss either. CMD (talk) 14:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

• Protected: see section "Question about protection" below. Drmies (talk) 17:11, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Could someone please take a look at the last few edits on this that weren't me, and look through the contribs of the obvious socks, maybe get a SPI together to block the originator? It's obviously someone taking the piss, mostly, though one of them did put a correct image of Hubbard's wife on her article at Sara Northrup Hollister. I don't have the time for concentrated investigation right now. Thanks. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I've semi-protected LRH for now. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for removal of adminship

Comments welcome. - jc37 03:50, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

• • I'm a bit confused about asking for comments on that when Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept is still open. Shouldn't that be settled first? Dougweller (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
• See also: Wikipedia:Request for Admin Sanctions. There seems to be a theme here. Chedzilla (talk) 12:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I guess it's because every other proposal for a similar process has been shouted down and maybe people think that if they propose several processes at least one of them will stick? Or maybe they can eventually be merged into one good solid process. In any case, it's long overdue. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:51, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

This appears to me to be massive, bureaucratic, unnecessary bloat. What we definitely don't need is for everyone to waste ungodly amounts of time on re-RfA'ing an admin every time he/she screws up. There is already a process for removal of adminship (it's called arbcom), and no one has provided solid evidence that it is dysfunctional (to my knowledge). Yes, it is time-consuming and the bar for desysopping is currently high, but again, there is no solid evidence that it shouldn't be high (e.g. there is no evidence that a significant number of admins are causing damage to the project and need to be stripped of the bit, but can't because the process has failed). -Scottywong| gossip _ 18:40, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The current method is just as bureaucratic. Ryan Vesey 18:44, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

So, two overly bureaucratic methods are better than one? What is wrong with the current bureaucratic method that requires such major changes? -Scottywong| confess _ 18:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Scotty.

• "What we definitely don't need is for everyone to waste ungodly amounts of time on re-RfA'ing an admin every time he/she screws up. "

The RRA proposal is specifically designed to avoid that actually.

As for arbcom, yes. And it still is at the final stage of this proposal too. What this does is stand in for the many WP:DR steps in between. The path to having arbcom review an admin's admin actions is a LONG, drawn-out, often drama-filled process. So the idea is to make this a straight-forward simplified process, while making sure there are safety-valves to avoid "pitchforking" and wasting the community's time.

If you have suggestions after looking over the proposal, I'm all ears. - jc37 19:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I've looked over the proposal, and the only change from the current process that I can see is that it makes it far easier to initiate proceedings against an admin. The "long, drawn-out" process you describe is the current safety valve that avoids pitchforking and wasting the community's time. The intermediate dispute resolutions on the way to arbcom are not necessarily useless drama-fests. They serve as a venue for voicing complaints about an admin's actions and offering an opportunity for the admin to defend or correct their behavior without the immediate, looming threat of desysopping. Again, there is no reason for spending our time inventing new processes. You are trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist and/or has already been adequately solved, and all of the proposed solutions (including yours) just create different problems. -Scottywong| communicate _ 21:01, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The intermediate discussions are pretty much only a paper trail creating process. (It's been discussed several times about how RFCU has no teeth.) That same process can be done through the nomination/certification.

the point of having three admins certify is exactly to stop this from going beyond "attack page" status if it turns out that that's all that particular nom is. Similar to how such threads on AN/I are dealt with. - jc37 13:32, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Part of being an admin is occasionally making difficult and unpopular decisions. The nature of difficult and unpopular decisions is such that a lot of people disagree with the decision. If all it takes is 3 admins to disagree with a decision to force a week-long re-RfA on an admin, then I think you'll find that there will be a major shortage of admins who are willing to make difficult or unpopular decisions, for fear of having to deal with the giant pile of bullshit that comes along with it. We've all already been through RfA at least once, I certainly have no desire to go through another one (especially since all the previous unpopular decisions I've made in the past will come up at the re-RfA, and anyone who disagreed with any of those decisions will be calling for my head). If I make a mistake and 3 admins came to me and told me they thought it was the wrong decision, then I would probably discuss it with them and reverse my action in most cases. No giant bureaucracy required. If there are admins out who are causing damage to the project, then they can and will be taken to arbcom. Just last week, arbcom desysopped 2 admins. The current process works just fine, let's stop wasting our time on inventing a new one that has no additional benefits apart from making it extremely easy to initiate (which is not a benefit, in my opinion). -Scottywong| communicate _ 19:03, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

  The three admins would be certifying a nomination filled with evidence similar to an RfC/U. - jc37 20:19, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Which basically makes it a mini-ArbCom... except any admins can chime in. That makes it far more likely we'll get into these debates, for no real gain. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
    • No. because it's very limited and very specific in outcome. (Any thing more would and should require a full arbcom case.) And... if arbcom does not review, the process is overturned automatically. Arbcom is still at the top of DR, including this process. - jc37 13:32, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Scotty, the whole idea behind any of these new plans is to reduce bureaucracy, not increase it, as well as deal with issues in short order, with less drama and headaches, with a lot of checks and balances to protect admins from false claims. One or more of the plans requires a very high bar, multiple ways to be shut down instantly and sanctions given to the certifying parties if they made a bad faith case, and allows for the admin to themselves to stop a proceeding if they have an epiphany. I would suggest reading through all of the information available before jumping to a conclusion, as it would appear you haven't. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:34, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't feel it's necessary to read through thoroughly until someone demonstrates that there is actually a problem that needs solving. -Scottywong| chat _ 18:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

That is certainly within your rights, although your opinions about the plans would have more weight if it were based on the actual information therein. As many, many others have expressed an interest in such a plan, and this discussion has been ongoing for many years, I'm confident that a great number of people are already convinced there is a problem that needs solving. But again, you certainly aren't obligated to join in the discussion, only invited to. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:15, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:ANI is protected from editing, so I can't put this there, and I'm not really sure where else this should be reported. I listed Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/addisoning for speedy deletion as a personal attack, but my db tag was removed by another editor because the article is supposedly not easily identifiable. That may be true to the general world, but not to the person who is being attacked. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 00:50, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

And I have discovered that the editor who removed my deletion tag also removed the warning of creating attack pages from the IP Talk page of the editor who created the attack page. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 00:54, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

• I am the editor who reviewed the initial AfC and declined it (as a neologism). I then noticed the atack warning on the user page in my watchlist (auto-add). I contested the CSD (by removing the tag) and deleted the warning from the creator ip's talk page (as the CSD, and reason for the warning, were both contested). The article seemed simply an unreferenced new term. While the name "Addison" was used, and in a likely negative way, there was no way of a visitor determining which "Addison." As I pointed out, it could have even been referring to the author as a vanity page. I will suggest it is even something certain people might be proud of doing. --Nouniquenames (talk) 01:06, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

It may be useful to understand how these things come about: kids teasing each other. One kid creates an article making fun of another kid's name, and then tells the other kid to look at it, and starts laughing hysterically, and maybe tells his friends to look at it too. The sensible response would be to ignore it, but since we're dealing with kids here, sensible responses are too much to expect. When you see something like that, you really should just delete it. Looie496 (talk) 05:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Nounique, I think your understanding of the speedy deletion process is a bit flawed. Being contested does not in any way negate a speedy deletion nomination. You may be confusing that process with proposed deletion. If you are not familiar enough with the criteria for speedy deletion to evaluate whether a nomination was correct or not it is probably best that you leave it for others to evaluate. I have deleted that page as blatant vandalism. The removal of the warning from the IP talk page is also completely inappropriate. You should never be removing anything from somebody else's talk page unless it is clear cut vandalism, which this obviously was not. Reviewing AFC subbmissions is great, we need those backlogs cleared put, but you should be able to recognize vandalism when you see it. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:22, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Attack pages must be deleted summarily, whether they originate from schoolmate teasing or something more serious. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:05, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Per the template itself, "If this template does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself." I did not create the page. Perhaps my wording (calling it contested) was incorrect, but the procedure of removing the template was entirely within established guidelines if the template is improperly applied. An attack page is a page that attacks. My logic would dictate that such would require both an attack (arguably present, see my last comment) and a target. I disagreed with the tag in both respects. The "attack" allegation might be sustainable if (and only if) it were made against a defined target. A quick search at the US Social Security Administration shows the name "Addison" to have been within the top 13 female baby names since 2007. Were there an indication of a last name, then it could properly be called an attack. (To give a real-life example, a punch is only an attack if it either hits or is clearly intended by observers as intending to hit another person. Punching open air, such as in celebration, is not an attack.) As for the note on the talk page, it was inexorably tied to the validity of the CSD tag. If the CSD is invalid, the note (which is formatted as a warning) is also invalid. Further, note that the history of the user page in question did not show any previous warnings, supporting a stance of WP:AGF. --Nouniquenames (talk) 05:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you're taking things a bit too literally. We regularly delete "[insert some common first name] is a dweeb" and such, despite the fact that we don't know which individual is the recipient of this attention. It was quite clearly vandalism. Not necessarily hateful vandalism, quite possibly it was all in good fun, but it's not the type of thing we need to keep around in an encyclopedia for posterity. 28bytes (talk) 05:54, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. You might want to consider the possibilty that the admins here telling you handled this incorrectly know what we are talking about. The page was in no way a serious attempt at creating an encyclopedia article. It was at the very least vandalism although it can easily be considered an attack page despite your somewhat novel attempts to argue that it is not. As such the warning was entirely apprpriate and should not have been removed by anyone but the user whose page it was posted to. Relevant policy on that subject is at WP:TPO and reads, in part, ". The basic rule—with some specific exceptions outlined below—is that you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission." The CSD was valid, the warning was valid, your decline of the CSD nom and removal of the warning were incorrect. As such I have deleted the article and restored the warning. Those are the facts. I would hope you could accept that and learn from it instead of continuing to argue to keep obvious vandalism. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

My apologies, I was only looking to provide the logic behind my actions. --Nouniquenames (talk) 04:36, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I would like to report this user since he no intentions to stop removing important part of article. In the article List of Presidents of Serbia hes non stop removing section Since independence i don't know whats problem Serbia gets there independence from Union of Serbia and Montenegro. That part should stay in article and the use is non stop removing with out explanations in my edits i explain to him but he refuse to listen. ^{Snake bgd} 13:53, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Sundostund blocked for ARBMAC-related edit warring, Snake bgd warned about edit warring and formal ARBMAC warning issued. Block and warning logged. Toddst1 (talk) 22:09, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Sundostund

Unblocked with the consent of the blocking admin. T. Canens (talk) 17:44, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Proxied over to AN on behalf of the user Hasteur (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action. To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED). Appealing user Sundostund (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Sundostund (talk) 13:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Sanction being appealed Banned from editing for 1 week, for edit warring and breaching WP:ARBMAC rules Administrator imposing the sanction Toddst1 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) Notification of that administrator The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification. Notification. Statement by Sundostund I am completely aware that I made a mistake when I entered an edit war yesterday. I also know that I am blocked because I breached WP:ARBMAC rules. I completely recognize my guilt here. All of that was very stupid thing to do, and I promise that I will not continue to do that. If you look my edit history, you will see that I am not a vandal, but constructive member of this community, and that I only want to improve this encyclopedia. I just want an opportunity to continue my work here. Cheers! --Sundostund (talk) 13:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Statement by Toddst1 I support unblocking as editor has acknowledged issue and there is no indication that it will continue. Toddst1 (talk) 17:27, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Statement by (involved editor 1) Statement by (involved editor 2) Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Sundostund Result of the appeal by Sundostund This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above. Unblocked with the blocking admin's consent. You could have just done the unblocking yourself, you know... T. Canens (talk) 17:44, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

My own request and someone else's request have not been answered by anyone there. Can there be eyes on that page?--Jasper Deng (talk) 18:27, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I have just fully protected Syria for a week as a result of an content dispute. However, the article was previously semi-protected until October because of persistent vandalism. I have no intention to remove the semi-protection that is already in place, as the full protection is for a different, shorter-term issue. However, when the protection expires, the semi-protection will also be lost (as happened at Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories). Is there a way to prevent the current semi-protection from expiring when full protection expires? If not, is it worth talking to the developers about? Thanks. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 15:37, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The logical solution would obviously be to reinstate the semi-protection once the full protection has expired. I take it you're specifically looking for a technical peripheral where you can fully protect an article for a specified period of time, and upon its expiration will revert to semi-protection until a pre-determined date? I'm thinking it might actually be a good idea to speak with the developers about exploring the ramifications of enabling such a feature. Master&Expert (Talk) 01:38, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• It is manual Zippy. I'm guessing they are different states of the same bit, not different bits, so you are changing the state, not adding a new state. That comes up all too often, actually, and you have to remember to check back later, read the log, apply the semi-protection back, etc. It is not an optimal system. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:49, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I thought it might be manual; that's annoying. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 15:13, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I have already reported User:J77890 in the sock investigation archive of User:Mughal Lohar here. But no action has been taken from last two days. Request for a quick action. Milescoast.wiki (talk) 06:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

That's because you edited the archive and nobody noticed. If you have evidence of sockpuppetry, please file a case at WP:SPI. Thanks ​—DoRD (talk)​ 11:04, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I wanted to nominate StuRat, as I am impressed with his answers. but, he hasn't responded to this nomination (And, his contributions show that he has seen notification on talk page) Therefore I am asking any admin to delete that page. Thank you. GiantBluePanda (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I've asked on his talk page for him to explicitly accept or decline the nom. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello. Please, place in the java code that stops me from logging in for at least two years. I want to go on a break.--Kazemita1 (talk) 21:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that such a thing exists. However there are a few admins, including myself, who are willing to consider self-requested blocks. My conditions for doing so are rather limited, you can see them at User:Beeblebrox/Self-blocking requirements. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:40, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Assuming that Kazemita1 meant to say "javascript", there is a temporary wikibreak enforcing script that can be placed in one's common.js here. →Σσς. 22:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is indeed what I meant. Please, go ahead and do so.--Kazemita1 (talk) 00:30, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Done. Enjoy your break, Kazemita1. Jafeluv (talk) 06:03, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This post related to a specific problem, dispute, user, help request, or other narrow issue, and has been moved to the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents (ANI). Please look for it on that page. Thank you.

Do we generally allow editors who are not admins to decline requests at RPP and RFPERM? --Rschen7754 05:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Define "allow". Are they making decisions that the average "reasonable person" would not? That is, if an admin had made the exact same action, would you object? If you wouldn't, then you have no basis to object when a non-admin does it. If you would object had an admin made the decline, then the basis for the objection is that the objection is faulty, not the status of who made it. Either way, it doesn't matter who commits the action: if it is a good action it should stand regardless of who made it, and bad actions should be likewise dealt with regardless of who made them. Since declined requests don't need the tools to enact, I see no problem in principle with any long-standing editor with a good standing in the community declining them. --Jayron32 05:45, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

There was a discussion last week about declining unblock requests: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive238#Unblock requests being handled by non-administrators. The consensus was that non-admins should not be declining unblock requests to ensure that users are given a "fair hearing." --Rschen7754 05:52, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you're comparing apples to oranges here. I agree that non-admins should not be handling unblock requests, but that is because of the nature of the block itself. Our default should always be "everyone can do it", and we should only careful restrict non-admins from doing tasks on a careful basis. I agree with the crux of that discussion, as it applies specifically and only to that situation, because of what a "Block" is; unlike deletion and protection, the damage done by a poorly handled block (and that includes a poorly handled unblock request) are permanent. The social problems of a block go way beyond a minor inconvenience, messing up a block one time will cause irrevocable damage to the relationships between the blocked person and the encyclopedia at large. Not protecting a page that maybe should have been protected is not an issue. If a few more vandalisms show up, it can always be protected later. A declined unblock request is like a second door slammed in an editors face. Not all mistakes are equal. I don't really have any problem with a non-admin declining a protection request as I would with an unblock request. So the fact that the community made that decision doesn't surpise me, and I endorse it. However, I would vehemently oppose any further attempts to imply that admins get special access to most tasks that a non-admin could do; especially where the penalty for being wrong is trivial. Let's rephrase this. Show us a diff or diffs where you believe a specific person has made errors in judgement. If you can't, this isn't a problem. If you can, lets deal with that one person. There's no need to set arbitrary rules just to have them. --Jayron32 06:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

The arguements are precisely the same: since a non-admin cannot protect a page or authorize a new permission, they should not be declining one either. As was said in the previous discussion "Never take a 'No' from someone who is not authorized to give a 'Yes'." Were I turned down for either of these by a non-admin, I would have restored the request immediately, since the closer had no authorization to answer "yes". That's not what we want, we want a close to be a close. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

An editor who puts in a good faith request for permission is, IMO, entitled to have his request reviewed and determined by an administrator. Besides, RFPERM is hardly overburdened. T. Canens (talk) 11:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Just a note: before I got rather tied up with an aggressive defense, I was soliciting input on WT:RFPERM in order to determine a) non-admin "clerking" requirements, and b) what limitations those "clerks" would be working under. More input from admins would probably be good there. dangerouspanda 11:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

• I've recently been working at RFPP after not doing so for quite a while. The new thing I am seeing there is "clerk notes." They will comment on a request but usually don't actually close it. As an admin I am responsible for investigating the need for protection myself so I can't say I find that particualry helpful, but it does no harm either. I would disagree with expanding the concept of non-admin closures to request for permissions or protection. Unlike AFD, most of these are not community discussions where what is needed is a correct interpretation of consensus. These are requests for specific admin actions and admins are vetted by the community based on their perceived ability to make such decisions. It is only fair to the person making the request that a user who is properly vetted in that manner and has the technical ability to grant the request be the one to make the call. That is why have admins in the first place, if it was just a matter of robotically responding to requests based on some formula we woildn't need admins to make these decisions. Hell, we wouldn't even need real people, a bot could do that. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with T. Canens and Beeblebroz - editors are looking for a review by an administrator and should be given a reponse by an administrator. Dougweller (talk) 17:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

• Admins are just regular editors with extra tools. If an action can be performed by an editor without additional permissions, the default should always be that they are permitted to perform it. If you request a response from an administrator, and a non-admin gives you the correct response, whats the problem? That said, Unblock requests are different, most other times if you dispute a quasi administrative action by a non-admin, you have a variety of ways to request review, such as raising the issue with them on their talk page, or heading to AN/I. Blocked editors have no such ability, and so its particularly important that they not be on the receiving end of a bad non-admin action. Likewise there is clear consensus that the rules at WP:NAC apply to closes of deletion discussions. But otherwise, until clear consensus to the contrary is developed, the default should remain that no permission is required. If there are specific editors taking bad quasi-admin actions, they should be individually corrected. Monty₈₄₅ 17:51, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see anyone saying permission is required. I think the point is that the non-admins cannot directly act on the requests so any "commentary" is simply the non-admin spending their volunteer time in an unproductive exercise. I can see the possibility that an admin may overlook something important in a request; at that point input from others would be helpful, from any party. Tiderolls 18:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Some of the comments above suggest that a non-admin may not reject certain things, for instance an RFP request. In other words you can't do it without the admin right. I'm disagreeing and saying that be default any editor can. Sorry if there was any confusion from my use of permission instead of userright. Monty₈₄₅ 18:14, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Requests for admin actions should be responded to by persons who can actually fulfill the request and who have been vetted by the community to determine if they have the judgement necessary to make such decisions. anyone can comment on anything they like but they shouldn't present themselves as persons who can actually take action on the request. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

That said, "anyone can comment" leads to ridiculous comments like "I don't think this person should get it" (with no policy-based argument to follow), or worse ... or engaging a horrifically WP:COI/WP:PROMO editor with a WP:UAA violation over a period of 7 or 8 posts that sometimes just gets ugly. Non-admin comments in those locations need to be properly worked with in order to set expectations, and ensure quality of responses dangerouspanda 18:59, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is consensus that someone needs to be able to accept a request to reject it. Any editor can reject a CSD, only an admin can delete. Any editor can perform a WP:NAC keep close at AfD, only an admin can delete. It seems there is consensus in favor of allowing non admins to act in exactly the type of situations you object to. Why is an RFP request different? Also, if anyone shows up and says they don't think someone should get a permission, given how rare that is, it deserves investigation to determine if it is founded, even if the rationale isn't stated. Monty₈₄₅ 19:38, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Read NAC again. Note how it specifically says that NACs are only appropriate in cases where there is an unambigous consensus. Requests for page protection are not discussions and adjudicating them does not require a consensus, it requires a proper understanding of the protection policy. Of course any responsible admin will take into account any good faith comments made by other users, but ultimately they are charged with actually making the decision to protect or not. This is because the community has explicitly said it trusts them to do so. The same cannot be said for self-appointed clerks. They may provide some extra detail or insight, but they are not entrusted by the community with the responsibility of making such decisions. We need to get it straight here, what is being asked is if we are going stretch the definition of NAC to include decisions currently not covered by that essay. And it is an essay, not even a guideline, so cotiing it as an excuse to do something not even mentioned there is not going to cut it. If you wish to seek consensus for NA closes in other venues, open a proper RFC on the subject and ask the community, we can't just shoehorn it in based on a few comments here. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_91#Non-AfD_NACs, where an RFC was held. While it was not formally closed, my reading of the consensus there was that it supported the broad use of NACs. Monty₈₄₅ 05:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Monty, if you ever raise anything like this again at the Village Pump, this board is the first place you should notify. ANI is for actions, this is for " issues affecting administrators generally – announcements, notifications, information, and other matters of general administrator interest." Like non-Admin closures. The closure statement simply asks that the guidelines be clarified. Dougweller (talk) 06:24, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not the one that notified AN/I, and generally it should be enough to add an RFC tag, though that one was mentioned on WP:CENT as well. Monty₈₄₅ 06:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I think there's 2 portions to this... First is the question about mop level activities (Blocking/Unblocking/Page protecting/Permissions/etc.) and the other is users opining on requests that do end up with a mop action. I know I've recently taken to trolling the Category:Requests for unblock for the purpose of trying to cut down on some of the bogus requests that get filed or to help get the appealing user the information they need to make a successful unblock. As such I see it in the same vein of commenting on a WP:AIV or WP:RFPP request, to justify and help the administrator figure out what the community conesnsus is. This has the side benefit of helping me get a feel for the spirit of Wikipedia to ensure that some time in the future when I do decide to make a bid for the mop, my viewpoint won't be that far out of line. I think I removed one "Request for Administrator" template from a blocked user's talk page because it was obvious to me that they were having a tantrum and not willing to work collaboratively. I noted this in my response and waited for anybody else to revert the striking of the template to as to learn, but as far as I know, the action has not been reversed.

TLDR: Admins are busy. Having Gnomes/Clerks scurring around to help is not a bad thing. Hasteur (talk) 19:25, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed at WT: PERM. Non-admins are allowed to help out by confirmed, as many of the requests there do not actually require an admin. There are also a few admins who work in conjunction with non-admins at confirmed. Best, Electric Catfish 21:18, 6 August 2012 (UTC).

Hi! I'm seeking feedback for the configuration of user rights on the revised version of the Education Program extension, which we're hopeful can be deployed in the next few weeks. The user rights configuration will be rearranged to avoid a Wikimedia staff role as bottleneck or control point for the user rights. Please take a look at the proposed configuration and give feedback. The nominal plan would be to have bureaucrats control the "Education Program administrator" flag, which would be the main right for controlling other user rights and administrative features within the new "Education Program:" namespace. Thanks!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

(As the signature suggests, I'm now working for WMF. I'm essential the community liaison for the education program, so please feel free to bring related issues and frustrations to me. -Sage)

What administrative action or issue are you asking for? Do you realize that this board is for issues which require administrative review and action, not for general discussion? Simply because you work for the WMF (this is yet unproven) does not mean you can violate policies of the English wikipedia. 65.96.75.57 (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

This page is for "General announcements, discussion of administration methods, ban proposals, block reviews, and backlog notices." In other words, issues that you'd like to bring to the notice of administrators as a group. The Education Program extension and its configuration is such an issue, and I don't see how my posting was inappropriate.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 02:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, this board is for administrative action, not for you to WP:canvass for support for your pet project. In addition your supposed position within the WMF is still uncertain. 65.96.75.57 (talk) 02:23, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

• Two points. The first is that the IP above, as well as the main account, have been blocked for WP:SCRUTINY reasons. This was done by other checkusers, but I think it only fair to note this.

  My second point is that I believe it's inappropriate for the WMF to create its own namespace on this project, and further to institute user rights over which this project has no control. This namespace is going to be used only for the administration of WMF-certified education programs. They have their own Outreach wiki to do this, making interwiki links where necessary. I can think of a few possible additional namespaces that this project might want to consider. Having a separate namespace, with its very own special user rights attached to it, for the purpose of administering a WMF program, is very far down the list of "good reasons for creating a new namespace" in my mind. Although this is probably a fait accompli, I will still point out that Wikipedia is not a hosting service, not even for the WMF. I've also commented at the link added by Sage. Risker (talk) 04:50, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

• This does seem a bit odd. As our policies extend to every portion of this site, are we to assume that our existing admins, functionaries, new page patrollers, etc will be expected to do maintenance for this new namespace that has not been approved by the community? Just tacking on a whole new namespace without even asking us first seems like more muscle-flexing by the WMF. Why here? Why not their own wiki that they already have set up, as suggested by Risker? Beeblebrox (talk) 23:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
  • See update here.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 13:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Please, protect the article of Ivan Gašparovič, because a noname user (here permanently deletes a sourced text from the article. Without discussion. Thanks forward. --Norden1990 (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I was tempted to block both of you, and the reason I chose instead to levy full protection for 24 hours is that the IP, unlike you, was attempting to engage in sustained discussion. It would have helped had you heeded the big bold notice and notified the IP, whose talk page has never been created. Nyttend (talk) 00:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The discussion to the question is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:The_Banner#Re:_Gasparovic_revision 89.173.110.130 (talk) 06:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The offending section been removed, and the protected article, as it stands is better for it. However, once the protection is lifted, I assume the section will again be added. What can I do to ensure that changes are not reverted again?89.173.110.130 (talk) 13:41, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

[Rearranged your comments for readability, but without changing anything] All I can say is that you need to obtain consensus, because discussion by itself is not enough to keep you from being blocked or the page from being protected with the content instead of without. Nyttend (talk) 13:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

And where can I get this consensus? Whom must it include? 89.173.110.130 (talk) 13:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

You need to gain it at the talk page. Perhaps you could post a request for input at the talk page for the Slovakia Wikiproject? Or perhaps the Slovak noticeboard? Remember that any notices you post must be neutral, according to our canvassing policy; you're free to ask people to offer input (although please don't bombard lots of pages with requests), but you may not make a "Vote for my position" request. Nyttend (talk) 14:01, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I have done so in the two pages you recommended. If I have not been neutral in representing the dispute, please feel free to rephrase it. If there is anything else I need to do, please let me know. I am a bit worried that the pages are dead, but perhaps it will be fruitful. 89.173.110.130 (talk) 14:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if this has been brought up anywhere, or if this is the right place to mention this, but I find this CNN article to be very interesting. So who's it gonna be? It appears we will decide :> Doc talk 12:12, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

• Village Pump is probably more suitable. Safe to say that the articles of anyone remotely linked to it should be getting watched for speculation / trolling until it's announced. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:18, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Interesting indeed, and this article has a little more information. Personally I think the spike in edits in 2008 was the result of information about the selections (which had already been made) having become known to staff members (who need to know so they can help get the two running mates together for the announcement the following day) who then try to sanitize the article of the person selected. What we are seeing here, involving multiple candidates, may be something different, where the selection has not been made yet and the staffs of the candidates are trying to improve their boss's chances by clearing any discouraging words out of his/her article. Neutron (talk) 17:26, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
    • That article also points out that it's just as likely that fans of candidate X who happen to see anecdotal evidence of the sort elsewhere on the Internet are responsible. It would be daft for any staffer to go editing an article on his boss from a government IP in the circumstances today. But again, not an AN issue. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
      • There was a flurry of vandalism edits to a few potential candidates last night, so a few of them are semi-protected anyway. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:59, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
• Politically-motivated alterations to biographies of living people? That's bread and butter for the Project:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Uncle G (talk) 20:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Can an admin respond to me at Talk: Arab (rapper)? I left a message. Jawadreventon (talk) 20:17, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Why did you create a talkpage for a deleted article? A non-existent page does not require a protected tag on it dangerouspanda 20:23, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Administrators may be interested in a rename discussion at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts#Administrators' noticeboard?. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:37, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi Administrators. WP:TFD has quite a backlog at the moment. User:Plastikspork, who's been doing many of the closures recently seems to be away at the moment. Is anyone able to help out? Thanks. DH85868993 (talk) 02:00, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello, everyone. Any administrators or users who are knowledgeable about blocks are invited to please comment on a proposed change to the username policy, which would affect how administrators assess a decent chunk of blocks on the English Wikipedia. There has been little participation so far, making consensus-building difficult. See this section. NTox · talk 21:35, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

An editor has tagged Humboldt Cave for AFD, following a dispute with another editor over an unrelated AFD. I've asked at the first editor's talk page for him or her to remove the tag, but it looks like the AFD for Humboldt Cave should be closed, as it does not appear to have been made in good faith. It hasn't been added to today's AFD log page yet. Lone boatman (talk) 10:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the bad-faith AfD tag from the article and deleted the associated AfD page. Will explain on the talk page of the editor concerned. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 11:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. The name pretty much says it all. Angryjo2012london (talk · contribs) is mad at some Olympic boxing judges and created a spate of one-line articles on judges concerning their "controversial and scandalous" decisions. Unfortunately, the references don't actually name the judges in conjunction with the press coverage of the dispute - the names were derived from the match scorecards. I deleted them all as unsourced negative biographies. Rather than create a policy-compliant article on 2012 Olympic boxing controversy (there's probably been one for every Olympiad) as I advised, they've chosen to argue. Having failed to gain traction at WP:DRN, where they were told to go to WP:DRV, they've chosen to start a retaliatory AfD on Humboldt Cave, one of my recent articles. Acroterion (talk) 11:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• Since the AfD was speedily deleted, I removed the AfD tag from the article. Hope that's alright by everyone pbp 13:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
• They're at it again [50], [51]. Acroterion (talk) 13:29, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Have re-removed, and will block if it's added a third time. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:31, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that Angryjo2012london has not been notified of this discussion. This should have been done when the first report was filed, as it says in angry red letters at the top of this page.... I have now notified and I hope the user concerned steps back now. Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 13:58, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

If past experience bears out (and this CNN article can attest to) we're likely going to see a lot of activity on Paul Ryan's wikipedia page over the next 24 hours. There is already some edits/reverts being made dealing with the rumors that Mitt Romney is going to name him VP tomorrow. Still just a rumor and nothing is getting out of hand, yet, but this may be a page that a few admins will want to put on their watchlist real soon. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:50, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

In addition, there are claims that Stephen Colbert has asked his viewers to vandalize articles on Romney and his VP candidates. Robby The Penguin (talk) (contribs) 04:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Not claims, it actually happened. [52] --MASEM (t) 05:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:BLANKING says the following may not be removed by a user from their own Talk page: "Declined unblock requests regarding a currently active block, ArbCom-imposed edit restrictions currently in effect, confirmed sockpuppetry related notices, and any other notice regarding an active sanction." Does the phrase "any other notice regarding an active sanction" include an active block notice?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:17, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I would think so. If we wanted to allow removal of active block notices, I think we would need to make a specific exclusion. Ryan Vesey 16:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I recall this question being raised some months ago. I think consensus was in favour of prohibiting removal of active block notices, but I'll look for the discussion. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 16:32, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Here is the discussion. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 16:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much, Lothar, very helpful. I can now see in the edit history where the phrase "any other notice ..." was added. FWIW, the sentence should be reworded in my view as the added phrase encompasses the first phrase. It was that redundancy that gave me pause.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

How does that work with normal talk page archiving? Obviously you can't create a talk page archive if you're currently blocked, but people with active Arbcom topic bans who aren't blocked are able to archive their talk pages. Nyttend (talk) 21:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

It's unnecessary. Checking user's contributions clearly shows active blocks, no need to force editors to maintain a badge of shame on their talk pages. Nobody Ent 00:31, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Why not? People don't generally go to the contributions page to find out about an editor, they go to the talk page first. A block may or may not be a "badge of shame", it all depends on the circumstances, and the talk page can provide a lot of additional information which can help put the block in context. The block log has no context, just the naked facts - and strictly from the admin's point of view. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:22, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Am I correct that any comments related to the block but not in a template can be removed? Ryan Vesey 04:35, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Excluding the block notice if it wasn't given in template form. Ryan Vesey 04:35, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

That's my understanding -- only the block notice itself cannot be removed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:48, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

In my case, the user blanked the entire Talk page. I restored ONLY the current block notice. I haven't seen an answer to Nyttend's question. I also agree that current block notices should not be removable. Checking the log isn't an easy matter for most users, and I don't see why we should have to. It only has to stay in place while it's active.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:07, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

How do you know what people do? All I know is what I do -- user or talk page then immediately bounce to user contributions. Look at page of last contributions (what have they been up to?), then go to earliest (see how old account is) and then down to the toolserver edit count (total number and distribution). That's all real data.

If an editor is blocked I don't understand why vultures editors need to be circling around their talk page -- they can't do any harm to the encyclopedia. Nobody Ent 19:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• Nobody Ent is 100% correct about how it should be, but as I recall there was no clear consensus on this issue the last time it was discussed. I know that for blocks that I make, I don't care if the user blanks the block notice, and if some Rulz Enforcer comes in and replaces it, I'll revert them. For cases like this where there's no consensus, I guess deferring to the blocking admin seems a reasonable compromise (even when, if they disagree with me, they're wrong). --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

• Heh, I'd be happy to agree with you when you're right.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:40, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I have been accused of edit warring on a controversial article Liancourt Rocks and so I would like a review by an editor that has had no previous involvement with this article or any related article. I have removed text from this article which claims administration of the islets by South Korea as none of the sources given actually state this. My reverts are based on Wikipedia guidelines, however I will not make any further edits to prevent an edit war. Thanks. Clover345 (talk) 11:54, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

It's a valid warning -- at a minimum, you should be explaining your reasoning at Talk:Liancourt_Rocks Nobody Ent 12:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the warning. I'm asking for a review of the edits I've made and I've just added a section on the talk page. Clover345 (talk) 12:16, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Divineabraham (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Divineabraham is requesting the removal of his present indefinite block, which was levied a year and five days ago after an SPI. The user seems to have socked more after the block; he last posted an unblock request in January, after the most recent discovery of a sock, but was given WP:OFFER and told to wait six months. After not editing for more than six months, he just now posted a request for unblock:

I believe that I deserve to be unblocked, its been more than 6 months. I think I have gained some maturity as well.

I declined the request procedurally, since I don't think that this type of block should be removed unilaterally, but I promised him I'd submit his request to the community. I am neutral on this specific situation. Please offer your input so that we can have a solid consensus on this user's future. Nyttend (talk) 14:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Generally commensurate with an SO response, I expect the user to explain what they did wrong that got them blocked in the first place, what the intend to do differently, and what areas of Wikipedia they intend to contribute to. Saying "I've waited and now I'm not going to be bad" isn't usually enough. If he can make it clear that he knows why what he did was wrong, and can explain why Wikipedia needs him around, that would go a long way towards gaining my support for an unblock. --Jayron32 20:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I wonder about the vague assertion: "I think I have gained some maturity". There should be a greater certainty expressed that maturity has increased, what the previous bad behavior was, and that the behavior will not be repeated. Binksternet (talk) 22:45, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Divineabraham produced several unblock requests between August 2011 and January 2012; you may want to read them to understand his thinking more fully. I've invited him to participate by using the {{helpme}} template, so it's possible that he'll respond to what you say here. Nyttend (talk) 00:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Unarchived, since this probably should get more discussion. Nyttend (talk) 18:19, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Generally, lack of discussion = lack of community interest in unblocking. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:59, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I virtually never participate in these things, and to me it seemed right to get someone to close it, among other things. Nyttend (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

They've repeatedly been told to review WP:OFFER, I don't see any indication they have done so. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 20:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Don't know if I am right or wrong, but I think this needs to be clarified. I am stating it in good faith.

• Looking at the support section of above WP:RFA, I can figure out that it has a devoting effect of regionalism. As, the candidate is from India. Major supporters are also from India, who are supporting with a formal rational.(i.e. Voting in the RFA after long time, or more perfectly voting for the first time) I think these activity could change the results of RFA and also the consensus. Possibly, I could be wrong about this perspective. but, It is the thing that needs to be clarified. GiantBluePanda (talk) 07:36, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that this best belongs at WP:BN. Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

At least say few words about it. GiantBluePanda (talk) 10:53, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

As long as nobody is engaging in canvassing or sockpuppeting the votes are perfectly valid. I trust that the bureaucrats can distinguish between "Support - He's Indian", and "Support - <other reason>". (Disclaimer: I supported Ekabhishek.) Reaper Eternal (talk) 11:56, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• But, It could be non-wiki canvassing. (Please I am not assuming bad faith) You can easily figure out that half of Indian users have voted in support, while they have rarely voted to any RFA in past. GiantBluePanda (talk) 12:02, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, please ban editors from WP:INDIA from participating in any RfA related to members. It's a simple solution really. —SpacemanSpiff 12:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure why you think this is an issue. Obviously editors monitoring the talk page of the candidate and/or the various nominators would know about the RfA and would be motivated to !vote in it. If this brings more editors into the RfA process, that's a good thing. And, should we really be monitoring ethnicity of editors? --regentspark (comment) 12:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
      • No, we shouldn't. Rfa's are some of the more highly watched WP areas so I don't think any action is necessary. Nobody Ent 12:18, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Wow, please say you were being factious with that comment, I literally choked on my coffee when I read that. I find that patently offensive to even suggest (joke or not), and certainly a violation of policy and common sense. I can confidently say that we will NOT be monitoring the ethnicity of voters, and not barring good faith votes based on any Project the participants belong to. That is a strike-worthy comment. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:17, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
      • No more offensive than the OPs suggestion that I supported the candidate because I'm Indian. —SpacemanSpiff 12:26, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
        • Ah, I wasn't aware of your ethnicity, so the sarcasm wasn't obvious. I would agree that both are equally offensive, yes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:30, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• I have to say this all seems in bad taste to me - if someone works extensively in India-related areas, they will be well known to other people working in India-related areas, who will be more likely to !vote in an RfA than people who don't know the candidate - and (surprise, surprise) a lot of those will be Indian! Although a candidate's ethnicity does not play a part in my decisions, I am pleased when I see good candidates from other parts of the world than the Western/American/British culture that forms the great majority - it's the best (and probably the only) way to address the systemic bias that is unavoidable in a project dominated by one culture/ethnicity. What matters here is whether Ekabhishek will make a good admin, and people's !votes should be assessed on their actual words, not on their ethnicity. (Mind you, did you see the number of Americans who supported Dennis, and Brits who supported me? What a disgrace!) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:01, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• GBP, how do you determine that many of the supporters are from India? Simply their activity? You'll notice that I've done a good deal of work on Liberian topics this year, but I've never been to Liberia and am ineligible for citizenship there. The whole RFA appears to be devoid of problems. Nyttend (talk) 13:11, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

User:GiantBluePanda

Furthermore, GiantBluePanda (talk · contribs) appears to be some sort of troll intent on disrupting RFA, RefDesk, and Bwilkins (talk · contribs). See especially these edits: [56] (he claims to be a cleanstart account; he should know this), disruptive question, disruptive question, disruptive user talk post, disruptive question, questions BWilkins's autochecked alt account, CU violates privacy policy, nominating people for adminship [57] [58], desysop Bwilkins #1 & #2, and more in his edit history. This is in addition to the initial CU misfire (visible on his user talk page, which he currently has at MFD) and bumping into checkuser blocks. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:20, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• You are correct in that this is an odd looking contrib list, the question on user rights that you linked [59] is particularly telling, as that isn't something you stumble across accidentally as a new user. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:28, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That's a false alarm. Please see [60]. I asked Bwilkins' advice on my behavior. I was confused whether my behavior was disrupting or not. GiantBluePanda (talk) 12:29, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict)It's a cleanstart account, not a new user. Nobody Ent 12:31, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
      • That doesn't preclude them from being a a troll, and his added diff doesn't disprove that either. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:32, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• Yeah, I have e-mailed Coren my previous account name. User:Reaper Eternal has fired too many questions at me. Dennis! I am willing to explain all your doubts, if you have. GiantBluePanda (talk) 12:38, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• [61] This isn't a disruptive post, neither [62] is. You can call this [[63]] a adult question. Ask the user himself about [[64]] whether it is disruptive or what. GiantBluePanda (talk) 12:49, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I held myself back from using the word "troll" to describe GBP more than once. Their unhealthy fascination with me (on both of my accounts) indeed has raised some concerns. Unrelated to that, I actually believe the original block on them was correct, based on WP:DUCK alone. Clearly, they have been around awhile - whether it's a valid cleanstart or a block-evasion, someone else can find out. Overall, they're a pain on the project so far - an unfortunate net-negative based on their entire editing pattern - not including the surreal attention I have garnered from them dangerouspanda 12:50, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't have intention of disrupting the project.If I had, I wouldn't have asked advice from you.My problem is, I am trying to adjust my self returning after 1 year. GiantBluePanda (talk) 12:53, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• I've dropped a note on Coren's talk page. I'm not inclined to offer any more good faith in this situation and think his input as CU is required. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I've seen talk of getting checkuser input, but what exactly is it that you want us to do? --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 14:00, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• • The user started their career with a checkuser block, which was then reversed due to a possibility of it being in error. I was wanting a second review, per contribs. Since Coren has received an email from the user and knows the circumstances best, I was thinking he would be the best to re-review. The contribs here are quite arguably trollish and Coren might be able to shine some light on the situation. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 14:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

• I have very little confidence that this editor is legitimate. The user contacted me after my original block giving a plausible explanation and naming an account as his past account after a clean start. His story was just coherent enough to give an AGF unblock – and no more. There are a number of other indicators of trouble and connected accounts that make the situation smelly enough that I had discussed the case (after my unblock) with the other functionaries in case someone recognized a long-term abuse pattern. While nothing concrete popped up, it's not clear how reasonable continued good faith remains reasonable at this point. — Coren ^(talk) 14:48, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
• Blocked - Based on the evidence here, including the opinions of ES&L, Reaper, myself and Coren, I have reinstated the original indef block. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:04, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the block, unfortunately ... but expect a loud whine in 3...2...1... dangerouspanda 15:10, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

And he requests an unblock, while not logged in, and geolocating in the exact same geolocation and ISP as previous socks, thus further proving the sock issue. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:16, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Cleanstart revocation

From the above, is it a reasonable assumption that this isn't a CLEANSTART candidate? If so, how does one go about piecing together the paper trail from whatever account was abandoned under a cloud to start trolling as GiantBluePanda? Is it as simple as assuming he's a sock of the puppetmaster that he geolocates to? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:17, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Coren know his past identity. GiantSnowman 10:21, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

More precisely, I know of an abandoned account GBP claims to have been his. I'll be keeping an eye on it, and I'll pipe up if it wakes up, but I see no way to reveal a link that may or may not be true between the accounts at this time. — Coren ^(talk) 12:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Just a heads-up that over 40 cases are now piled up at WP:SPI, some dating back about 3 weeks. A few mops would do well to clean things up around there.... ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 15:30, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I wished I could help. Don't have the tools. Kumioko (talk) 20:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Try this backlog, then... no tools required! 28bytes (talk) 21:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems like this might meet the criteria for a edit summary deltion. Kumioko (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Two things:

1. It is generally contrary to the idea of revision deletion to post in the most public possible forum to ask for it. Email or the talk page of anyone in Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests is preferable
2. I don't see how this would qualify, it is the phone number and email of an organisation, not a minor child or unrelated private citizen.

I,am going to revert the edit though, something being known to members of a semi-secritive organization is obviosly not proper verification. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:35, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought that having the Phone number and Email address was sufficient to del the summary. Thanks for the link to that Category. Kumioko (talk) 23:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Request for Page Protection has a larger backlog than normal. Can someone try to clear it out? Ryan Vesey 21:07, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

• - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Youreallycan#YRC Proposal

Hi - looking for wide as possible input - I have made an offer and hope to resolve this with that offer without returning back to the drawing board - imo - its a good offer for me/you and the en wikipedia project in general - please review and comment - thanks - Youreallycan 17:55, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Hatting off topic comments
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I am missing context here, who is this aimed at and what is this about? →Yaniv256 talk contribs 18:27, 15 August 2012 (UTC) Actually, I'm much more interested in some context on Yaniv256, who shows up a month ago with apparent full knowledge of Wikipedia (yeah, I know, you edited for a long time as an IP) and then is suddenly very prominent on the noticeboards. Very interesting, and worth watching to get that context. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:38, 15 August 2012 (UTC) No, I actually edited as an IP just 3-4 times and signed in as soon as I was reverted and asked to. I'm just fast. Is that so hard to believe? BMK, why don't you go over my contribs, start from the first ones, understand that this is my summer break and it will be over quite soon, and that human beings come in many varieties. And civilly apologize for the bad faith that is implied by your last post. Oh, one last thing, please ask for a check user on me. I would do it myself, but that would get me blocked. Trust me, I would be grateful if you do. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 21:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC) Just one request. Please don't out me. It should be quite easy to find out who I am, but it would hurt my career if my colleges knew how I have been wasting my time. They are quite under the impression that writing papers is the meaning of life. →Yaniv256 talk contribs 21:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC) It's easy to link Yaniv256 to an IP with around 35 edits, but not particularly helpful to do so. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC) Would you mind sharing that IP with me so I can check if they are really mine? I am on a university network, which I think is dynammic. You all know which university, but don't say! →Yaniv256 talk contribs 22:53, 15 August 2012 (UTC) BMK, is there anything you would like to share with the community? →Yaniv256 talk contribs 23:36, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

This discussion has been static for two months: only the proposer favoured the merge and three editors rejected it. There seems to be clear & well-founded arguments against merging, but as one of the involved editors I feel unable to close the discussion. Thank you Jpacobb (talk) 00:50, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

- needed for an SPI closure here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I think I will never be editing Wikipedia again with this account.So, I am requesting you to block my account permanently to avoid misuse.BiologyArtist (talk) 10:06, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Please review WP:BLOCKME. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 10:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done. For several reasons besides user's own request. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

the ip user who has been posting here Talk:Rangers_F.C.#Rangers_rivalry_with_Celtic and has said the same thing on ANI at one point in the last month

quote

"How can The Rangers have a rivalry with Celtic if they have never played them before or are even in the same division ? it does not make sense Andrew Crawford, oops sorry 'british watcher' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.113.170.16 (talk · contribs) (talk) 15:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)"

im not happy at the contunied assessertions i ma the user british watcher just because the content dispute being resolved in a way that doesnt suit there pov, im the focus of the attack because i was the one that steered the direction of content dispute--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 14:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

That particular IP only has 3 posts and they were all on the 10th. In any case, I don't think this noticeboard is the place for the discussion. Maybe WP:AN/I, but without knowing what other IP addresses they've used, I can't say for sure. --Onorem♠Dil 15:37, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

here is the other ip

101.113.94.179 (talk · contribs)

here is the original accusations they made :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive761#I_am_being_threaten_by_a_ip_userAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 16:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

A few minutes ago I was contacted on IRC because all of the images on the Main Page were unprotected as they came from Commons. I've uploaded local copies and protected them all, but I'm wondering how this happened... --Rschen7754 09:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• I guess because on Commons, the Picture of the day is protected a couple of days before and after being featured on the main page. This picture of the day is used in about a hundred projects. However, English Wikipedia does not use this image selected on Commons (I believe this is the only project who rejected the selection). Then it is not really surprising that the images which appear on the main page are not protected on Commons. They have no reason to protect them.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

  But why were there not protected local copies of them already, given the need here? Who normally does this? -— Isarra ༆ 17:05, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• Okay, I've talked with some people, and tried it manually, and if you are not an admin, the software blocks you out from uploading over a protected image at Commons. (This is not how it was a few years ago). --Rschen7754 18:26, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

There's a bot problem I think. I'll investigate. Secretlondon (talk) 19:29, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_83#Protection_bot_doesn.27t_work Secretlondon (talk) 19:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

If you are not an administrator, you cannot upload a file to if commons:File:Example123456.jpg also exists. This is how it has been for as long as I can remember. It is done like this for security purposes I believe, so that Commons images being used in articles aren't accidentally swapped out when a local image isn't uploaded. NW (Talk) 22:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I have started an Rfc on verbiage on the TITLE policy page; currently sentiment is against my proposal, but the two opposes both suggest that article renaming be handled exactly like Afd; this would require changing the ability to move or rename to be admin only. As their counter-proposal would affect all administrators, and runs directly counter to past and current practice on Wikipedia, I am listing the Rfc here to gain a wider audience, specifically of Admins who would have their roles changed by this. The Rfc is here. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:58, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Oops, just noticed this. See the section above for an example of the bureaucratic time-wasting rigid misinterpretation of AT policy can cause. . . dave souza, talk 21:45, 16 August 2012 (UTC)