Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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User:Marudubshinki

About three weeks ago Maru was blocked indefinitely by me for a fairly serious BOT useage violation. The incident was discussed here but is now archived. Maru has now requested the block be removed, which I've done, as he's given a promise [1] that he won't do it again. -- I@n 00:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. Reblock if the bot reappears though, I assume. --W.marsh 01:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

This has become a most serious and depressing affair.

Quite a while ago, Maru was blocked indefinitely for continually running an unregistered bot that constantly misbehaved. He unblocked himself, claiming that the bots were shut down, then resumed running his bots that same day.

Some time later he was blocked again, for the same reason, and during the discussion around this later block it was discovered that he had previously unblocked himself on a pretext. He was then warned in the strongest of terms that he must not unblock himself. IIRC, Essjay even threatened an emergency de-sysopping.

As I@n says above, Maru has now promised not to run any unauthorised bots, and requested an unblocking.

However, now things get really sleazy. Maru has just disclosed on his user page that he sometimes uses another account, Rhwawn. [2] Nothing wrong with that, and kudos to him for making it public, except...

He created this account three days after he was blocked, and has made over 700 edits with it. If blatant evasion of a block isn't bad enough, most of Maru's edits through the Rhwawn account are unauthorised bot edits!

This has gone on too long. I am going to apply indefinite blocks to both Maru and Rhwawn, ask Essjay to look into an emergency desysopping, and request a CheckUser.

Snottygobble 01:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Endorse permanently banning Rhwawn as an unauthorized bot account and sockpuppet. Endorse indefinite block (in the sense of to be determined) on Maru. Essjay has not been around for several days so you might want to contact another bureaucrat about the de-sysopping and an arbitrator about the checkuser. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If the main account is unblocked, I don't see a (policy) reason to block the sock, if the evasion was in the past. An alternative is arbitration now, but since as far as I know he's promised in good faith to stop the bot then I think we should give him a chance. --W.marsh 02:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI As far as I've been able to gather (from Marudabshinki), he *is* using the pywikipediabot framework, but he's using a manual or semi-auto tool. This is a lot faster than editing the wiki directly, but it's still under manual control. Kim Bruning 01:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

This isn't about Maru's bot flag anymore. It is about Wikipedia having an admin that

1. Unblocks himself on a pretext
2. Creates socks to avoid blocks
3. Requests unblocking on a pretext

Snottygobble 02:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Endorse block and emergency desysopping. This guy has always struck me as a bit reckless, and he isn't playing by the rules anymore. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 02:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Opinion struck per below. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 02:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, like the original block was really dumb? I think the separate account is for when running the bot... (as long as he possibly declared it) , and requesting unblocking is always ok. Granting the request is something else.

I'm not saying that I'm nescesarily right, but it does still seem possible to assume good faith in this instance.

If Marus story is true, then perhaps we could think about desysopping someone else. There's some decent ways to determine the truth though.

We could have an admin or two unblock him, and watch him carefully for a little while. Is that ok? Worst case he messes up, and they can block him again. Kim Bruning 02:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you clarify your "perhaps we could think about desysopping someone else" comment for me? Snottygobble 02:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Um that pretext stuff is pretty assuming bad faith there snotty. Did he evade the block? Yes. Was it stupid? Yes. Is it worth a desysopping? No. He didn't abuse any admin tools this time, just made a sock that did good edits. pschemp | talk 02:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

In the first case, Maru was blocked indefinitely, explicitly told not to unblock himself, and told that he would be unblocked once he agreed not to run an unauthorised bot. He unblocked himself, with edit summary "bot shut down", then started up the bot again the same day. That is unblocking on a pretext; its pretty hard to argue with that. The quality of his subsequent edits have nothing to do with it. Snottygobble 02:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I am inclined to reduce the blocking to maybe a week or less. Others agree? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Blocking is a means to protect the wiki. Not a punishment. Unblock right away, but keep an eye on Marudabshinki for a while so everyone stays happy. If he's truely the root of all evil, we can always block him again for good. I have some doubt if that'll happen though. Either way, I'd just like to have a couple of extra pairs of competent eyes on the matter. Kim Bruning 02:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If you guys want an admin running around that unblocks himself, evades blocks by creating sockpuppets, and promises not to run unauthorised bots while running an unauthorised bot through a sock, you go ahead an unblock him. I won't wheel war with you, but I will think your decision is stunningly stupid. Snottygobble 02:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Maru has posted this on his user page; posting here as a courtesy. Snottygobble 02:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Needless to say, I strongly disagree with this block. I don't particularly mind you blocking the Rhwawn account, since it was originally for the Board election, and I don't expect to need it again, but blocking my main account for semi-automated disambiguating and de-selflinking edits really cooks my chestnuts. Was I ban avading? Under a strict interpretation, I suppose so. A process wonk could surely argue that this is grounds for a few days or weeks banned, but an indef ban? Look at my edits. THey were good edits. We're supposed to judge by results, not mindlessly follow process; that's what IAR is all about, and we keep it around for a reason. Does de-sysoping, an indef blocking (with an apparent intention of making it truly indefinite and infinite) truly seem proportional to my actual offenses? I've contributed so much good work to Wikipedia, and so little bad work; doesn't that merit any consideration when I violate your interpretation of policy in my haste to actually get something done? I'd reply on AN/I, but there seems to be some technical problem. --maru (talk) contribs 02:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're having him follow procedure now, and watching him. If he is really being stupid, that's all there is to it. If he's actually being smart and someone else is being stupid, we'll find that out quickly enough too. Kim Bruning 02:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Zscout has unblocked citing "reducing duration to time served". That's a strange basis, considering the block was for running an unauthorised bot, and Maru spent his "time served" running his unauthorised bot through a sock. Honestly, I find this decision absolutely mind-bogglingly incomprehensible. Snottygobble 02:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't really want to be making any more suggestions of my own here but some history might be useful. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive124#User:Marudubshinki running unauthorized robots.

1. He ran a bot account, Bot-maru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), which was blocked as an unauthorized bot, and because it was not assisted and was making mistakes. Rather than go to WP:BRFA, he started running the bot on his main account.
2. He was blocked again because the bot was making mistakes, with the understanding that he could unblock himself if he stopped running the bot. He unblocked himself, and started running the bot again.
3. The bot was deleting pages, using Maru's sysop bit. Quoting Essjay, This is greatly concerning, as the use of bots with admin privs is opposed very strongly on en.wiki (with the possible exception of Curps, though his is not without it's critics, and may or may not still be running) and by the Foundation (an adminbot on another wiki was desysopped by Anthere not too long ago).
4. He was blocked again with instructions not to unblock himself. He did anyway, and started running the bot again.
5. He was blocked a third time and told to stop running the bot. Rather than accept responsibility and seek bot approval at WP:BRFA, he started running the bot on a second account, thereby violating both bot policy and policy against using socks to edit while blocked.

I'll let the rest of you make the decisions. I wonder whether you really expect he will stop running the bot this time, or you just don't care; and I wonder how long he will run it in assisted mode before he turns it loose again; and I wonder if he will lend it his own sysop functions again. But it's not really in my hands. Thatcher131 (talk) 03:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If he runs the bot again without requesting approval first, we will take him out for some ParkingLotTherapy. Basically we're giving him a bit of a last chance, but watching him carefully. We'll soon see if he behaves or not. :-) Kim Bruning 02:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just come back here after an hour off-line and see the sh*t has hit the fan. I'm in total agreement with Snottygobble - I'd thought that his last block was his last chance. Maru must have been awfully close to being de-sysopped after he was exposed for unblocking himself to continue using an unauthorised admin-bot. We now find he was using a sock in order to to evade the block. I'd assumed good faith in unblocking him but clearly that was misguided - Maru was cheating his block all along. He is a loose cannon and has shown ongoing behaviour unbecoming of an administrator. -- I@n 02:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that he should be de-sysoped but not blocked because he makes lots of useful articles. ⇒ JarlaxleArtemis 04:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Based only on the information presented here (having not yet done the research myself) I'd support the dead-minning. - brenneman ^{L} 04:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the death penalty is the answer here. --Cyde Weys 05:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe take this to a RFC, and/or the ArbCom? If I was an admin, I wouldn't have bots running until I got them authorised.

Marudubshinki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made good edits, as JarlaxleArtemis said, so I don't think an indefinite block is warranted. --TheM62Manchester 08:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I would support a de-adminship (not an indef block, too harsh) based on evidence presented here too. - Mailer Diablo 08:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't an RFC or ArbCom be a better solution? --TheM62Manchester 09:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, just that we'll need someone willing to do the filing process. - Mailer Diablo 13:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

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A lot of people seem to be saying that an indef block is too harsh. But I haven't heard anyone actually propose an indef block, so I'm not sure who you're arguing against. I hope you people don't think my reinstatement of I@n's block was intended to be a final solution; as I stated on Maru's talk page, I reinstated the block "while we thrash out the implications of you running unauthorised bot edits through an alternative account created to avoid an indefinite block applied for running unauthorised bot edits".

For the record, I also do not think Maru should be blocked indefinitely. But I am firmly opposed to him retaining his sysop flag. Snottygobble 09:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Indef block isn't appropriate given his good contributions, but unless someone is disputing the facts as laid out above, he has clearly abused the admin tools, and thus should not retain them. Just remove the problem and allow the good contributions. Then block later if it becomes becessary. If consensus here isn't enough for a steward to go on to desysop, send it to arbcom. - Taxman ^Talk 11:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's not rush to any unnecessarily hasty decisions. This isn't dangerous. This isn't an emergency. Bring the case to the ArbComm. De-adminship in non-cut-and-dry situations (i.e. repeatedly unblocking self or deleting the main page) is the role of the ArbComm. He is unblocked. Don't reblock him, please. If you think it's serious enough, bring the case to the Committee. No vigilante justice, thank you very much. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 12:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Concur. ArbCom is appropriate if someone wants to do it. If there are further problems, I'll do it myself. Extra chances are good for minor infractions, but at a certain point we have to assert firmly that admins are as bound by policy as everyone else. -- SCZenz 14:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should take you up on that. If you're willing to draw up the formalities for ArbCom, let it go there. The alternative is going to be widespread support for a steward taking action anyway. The current situation is clearly not satisfactory, per Snottygobble and others. Metamagician3000 07:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I said I'd do that if there are further problems. Have there been further problems? If not, I need to think and look a little more (and maybe talk to Maru a bit) before initiating a case personally; once started, they're hard to unstart. But if there is a case started by someone else, I'll certainly fill in what I know and let the arbitrators decide. -- SCZenz 03:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

My bad. You did indeed say that. Metamagician3000 07:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

To expand on my earlier comments: I do not think that any amount of quick-poll on this page is sufficient to justify the removal of privledges. Barring the making of a recall proposal into policy, the only (normal) route to do so is through ArbCom. My statement of "support" before was based upon the presumption that a suficient such supports would give someone the stones to request opening an arbitration case. If no one else goes and does it, I'll will:

1. Go and confirm myself the substance of the statements above,
2. Create a scratch version of a request for arbitration in my userspace, and
3. Post a link here to allow it to be "tuned up" or "cast out" by consensus.

Does this sound reasonable?

brenneman ^{L} 01:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say you should start the case if you think it's warranted. I think the case would be well-justified based on past actions; at the same time, confronting a valuable contributor who may now be turning over a new leaf is probably not good for the encyclopedia. So now you have why I'm not filing the ArbCom case. But, as I said, I don't think we should have an extra community discussion and a hanging committee to present the case to the ArbCom. If you think a case is warranted, just give them the facts and let them take it from there. -- SCZenz 03:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I think a case should be made, in the spirit of SCZenz's "just give them the facts and let them take it from there", but lack the "stones" (whatever that means) to make the case myself. Aaron, if you are willing to take this on, I will be happy to take on share the load of presenting diffs. Snottygobble 06:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

What SCZenz and Aaron want you to do is that if you feel there should be a case against this user, then you should have the balls (that is what "stones" is) to start the processes yourself. If you are not willing to do the case, then there is nothing much we can really do, since we are not going to do the legwork for you. Of course, we will leave comments and stuff when you file the arbcom case, but, to put in simple terms, it's your turn now. The ball is in your court. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 06:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I will. It doesn't take balls; why would it take balls? It just takes time and effort. Snottygobble 11:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

RfAr

I have drafted a RfAr statement at User:Snottygobble/Drafts/RfAr, and have advised Maru of my intention to take it to ArbCom.

Currently the only users listed as "involved parties" are myself and Marudubshinki. I think it is appropriate that I@n and SCZenz add themselves as involved parties and make a statement, but I won't insist. If anyone else considers themselves an involved party, now is the time to begin preparing a statement. Feel free to do so at User:Snottygobble/Drafts/RfAr if you want; just be sure to restrict your edits to your own section.

I have also begun gathering evidence at User:Snottygobble/Drafts/Evidence. You should feel free to add evidence there if you wish. But let's maintain a Brennemanesque insistence on neutral, verifiable facts, okay? This is not a vendetta; it is an invitation for the ArbCom to make a decision, so that we are not left to live with the consequences of a non-decision.

Snottygobble 01:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This request is now pending at WP:RFAR#Marudubshinki. Snottygobble 11:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Date warring

I am somewhat bothered by the way that SuperJumbo (talk · contribs) seems to have unilaterally decided to reformat dates. As I understand it, there is a longstanding semi-formal agreement that in articles dealing with things outside of the English-speaking world, we don't particularly favor U.S. or Commonwealth style on dates; instead, we wikify and let the software format it to the users' preferences. Hence, edits like these ([3], [4]) are at least mildly annoying. Tazmaniacs (talk · contribs) reversion of these ([5], [6]) was, of course, almost inevitable; but what I really don't like is what comes next: Superjumbo using popups ([7] [8]) to revert. The navigation tools are not intended as utilities for edit warring. - Jmabel | Talk 05:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Jmabel to be, on the whole, correct (the issue ought, IMHO, for unwikified dates, to be treated as is AE/BE by the MoS, which treatment WP:DATE seems to suggest), but if I'm not crazy almost all of the dates over which edit-warring has occurred here are wikified, such that, for registered users (who necessarily, IIRC, make a date preference election), that which displays will not be affected; aren't most of these edits purposeless? Joe 05:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• This is a non–issue, I'm afraid. Go to your "my preferences" and change your dating format preference from "No preference" (or "15 January 2000") to "January 15, 2000", and all dates that he "re-formatted" will appear as you have selected. His changing of these dates is pointless as any one user can select preference for one of these methods over the other. That's why this preference selection was created. — ^{`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>` [discl.]} 05:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be a non-issue if and only if people like SuperJumbo didn't unilaterally change dates to match their personal preference. The "preference selection" was designed to prevent such changes by rendering them pointless. No one thought anyone would be so silly as to go on a jihad to convert dates to his "preferred preference" just in order to have non-logged in users see them, but obviously we didn't reckon on how bellicose people can be in insisting you adopt their whims as default. But that is the argument he offered when I objected to him converting all articles relating to Monaco to day-month-year. - Nunh-huh 06:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why it matters. It might be pointless for him to do this, but why would anyone go to the trouble of reverting it? He has wikified so that it will appear as per whatever preference users have adopted. If people don't have accounts or haven't logged in, I don't think they'll suffer greatly if the date appears the way he prefers in the articles he's edited. Or am I missing something here? Metamagician3000 07:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You're missing the fact that it's fundamentally disrespectful to insist on having one's own way in what is supposed to be a cooperative or at least collegial editing environment. When you change "color" to "colour" or "haemophilia" to "hemophilia", it annoys people because you are insisting "their" way is wrong and your way is right. It's the same with dates. If it doesn't, or shouldn't, matter, then it shouldn't be changed. You should have the decency to leave de minimus matters alone, and respect other's choices, rather than privileging your own. If you don't, you encourage edit wars, ill-feeling, and distract from the business of writing an encyclopedia. - Nunh-huh 07:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand all that, I guess. I still don't understand why it matters so much, given what the outcome actually is for users of the encyclopedia. If someone changed the way I had the dates (but wikified them properly) I would smile at their relatively harmless idiosyncracy rather than thinking this was terribly important or needed to be dealt with by admins. It seems that any disruption is de minimus. Oh well, maybe another admin will take a greater interest in it. Metamagician3000 08:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

SuperJimbo wikified the dates so that date preferences are enabled. Tazmaniac's blind reversion de-wikified the dates. I agree we shouldn't edit war over which date style is the default, but all dates should have date preferences enabled when possible. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-08-18 08:16Z

Eh, no SuperJimbo changed, for example, [[November 11]], [[1942]] (November 11, 1942) to [[11 November]] [[1942]] (11 November 1942) — both formats are valid and display dates as per the user preferences. It was a pointless edit. Thanks/wangi 08:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted a good number of his changes and warned him that if he does this again he will be blocked. We have a policy in place that warns against doing this for a very good reason. --Cyde Weys 13:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm coming in late to this discussion, but may I suggest that rather than edit warring, and reverting all of my careful work, people take a moment to read the guidelines laid down in WP:MoS? I'll thank Cyde to go and undo his reverts, and request that in future he discuss before acting against consensus.

I quote from the Manual of Style:

If the topic itself concerns a specific country, editors may choose to use the date format used in that country. This is useful even if the dates are linked, because new users and users without a Wikipedia account do not have any date preferences set, and so they see whatever format was typed. For topics concerning the UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, most member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, and most international organizations such as the United Nations, the formatting is usually [[17 February]] [[1958]] (no comma and no "th"). In the United States and Canada, it is [[February 17]], [[1958]]. Elsewhere, either format is acceptable. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English for more guidance.

Using this as a guide, I suggest that Cyde's changes to the King Edward VIII article were insufficiently considered, to be polite. --Jumbo 22:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, can you promise to confine yourself to topics that clearly relate to the UK, etc., and to UN agencies? Maybe you're already doing this, but that's not clear to me. You should give that undertaking and stick to it. I think that talk of blocking is overreacting as long as your activities are so confined. I still think is all a bit of storm in a teacup, but I suppose what you're doing could be irritating if it's not clearly confined to appropriate articles. Metamagician3000 22:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

My actions have been in accordance with the Manual of Style throughout. Jtdirl, an expert on style, and familiar with the precise history of dating conventions in Wikipedia, has seen fit to comment on several occasions:

• On my talk page
• On Nunh-hunh's talk page
• On the talk page for Prince Rainier III

I would appreciate it if participants in this discussion would familiarise themselves with the consensus guidelines before commenting and proffering advice. --Jumbo 23:11, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Clearly your interpretation of the MOS is at odds with others equally "expert". You have no consensus to make the changes you are making and have resisted suggestions that you actually try to build one. Why don't you just stop, and do so, instead of becoming a Wikilawyer? - Nunh-huh 23:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Your assertion may be clear to you, but I beg your indulgence in asking for further clarification. Who is it that offers both a dissenting view to jtdirl and shares his wealth of experience and knowledge on the subject? For my part, I act only in accordance with established policy and guidelines, and if you have a different view, I ask that you take it up with those who set the guidelines after years of diligent and detailed discussion. In particular, please do not make changes such as this recent one to Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven. WP:MoS explicitly directs that articles on British subjects use International Dating. --Jumbo 00:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much everyone who's raised the issue with is every bit as qualified as jtdirl to opine on the subject. You seem to equate "agrees with me" with "is an expert". No, you are not acting within guidelines, and MoS does not "direct" British dates. - Nunh-huh 00:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I reject your assumption that experts are those who agree with me. This is not the case. Jtdirl and I have disagreed on other matters, but I find it hard to understand how anybody could discount his years of participation in styles and formats. His knowledge and advice are of immense value in this discussion.

Your comment about the MoS likewise turns out not to be the case when we examine the relevant section:

If the topic itself concerns a specific country, editors may choose to use the date format used in that country. This is useful even if the dates are linked, because new users and users without a Wikipedia account do not have any date preferences set, and so they see whatever format was typed. For topics concerning the UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, most member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, and most international organizations such as the United Nations, the formatting is usually [[17 February]] [[1958]] (no comma and no "th"). In the United States and Canada, it is [[February 17]], [[1958]]. Elsewhere, either format is acceptable. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English for more guidance.

In view ofthe above, may I ask you again why you are choosing to insert American format dates into an explicitly British article? And how many times need I quote the MoS before you accept that this document means what it says? You are not being helpful in your contributions. --01:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's see. If you quote the same thing 1,000 times, and I've told you I've disagreed with your interpretation of it, why would your repetition persuade me that your interpretation of it is correct. The simple fact is that the last time there were rampant date jihadists such as yourself, the compromise that allowed productive editing to resume was to link dates and invoke preferences rather than having people unilaterally change them. You now want to nullify that compromise. That's not a good way to procede. - Nunh-huh 01:59, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions so far, insomuch as they reveal your position. I am asking you to correct your edits to Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, as WP:MoS explicitly directs that articles on British subjects use International Dating. --Jumbo 02:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've been asking you to stop your jihad, inasmuch as it's not authorized by any policy, and is antithetically opposed to the basic compromise on dates. So apparently asking isn't enough. - Nunh-huh 03:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This issue erupted in a major edit war some time ago. We agreed on a simple solution.

• Set preferences to choose whether one wanted to read International Dating dd/mm/yyyy or American Dating mm/dd/yyyy.

However as one has to have a WP account to set preferences, it was also agreed to apply another two simple rules:

• If a country uses either ID or AD predominantly, articles should be written in it.
• Where they don't, go by the initial choice made by the initial editor.

That was placed in the MoS through the giving of some examples of countries that use ID. The list in the MoS was never intended to be the only countries. If it was then users of ID would never have agreed to the compromise. It was always intended to be an example.

So when anyone of us edits and American article we always use American Dating (in fact for many international editors of WP it is probably the only time in their lives when they ever write dates in the month/day format as most of the planet use day/month, hence its name, International Dating). I have got into edit wars on American pages stopping users from replacing American Dating on American pages with International Dating.

The same is also true. All SuperJumbo has been doing is applying that rule. He has not been blanket changing dates. He has been

• ensuring that dates on British topics all follow ID rather than, as is the case a lot of the time, being a mishmash of both;
• fixing other articles so that all the date structures are the same, whether ID or AD;
• ensuring that date usage on WP reflects national usage in the country being written about. Many of the articles he has been working on lately have been French ones. France does not use American Dating, and it is as offensive for French people to have their articles written in American Dating (and spelling) as it is for Americans to have their articles written in International Dating and International English.

Cyde, as usual, bungled in to the process with his usual sledgehammer approach and blanket reverted SuperJumbo's corrections, insisting that

• a British topic like Edward VIII of the United Kingdom be a mishmash of International and American Dating, with sometimes both formats used in the one sentence
• an Irish topic like Bono be in American Dating even though Ireland does not use American Dating and Irish users on WP get extremely pissed off when Americans on WP keep converting articles to follow American Dating.

Rather than accuse Cyde of vandalism for forcing messes onto articles all over the place, perhaps the most charitable thing that could be said was that, as he does sometimes, he screwed up. International Dating users are however at this stage getting a bit fed up with some (and it is only a small number) of American users consistently trying to force a format of dating on country articles where that country never uses AD. ID users have been more than willing to ensure that countries that use AD have AD in them, and to revert any changes from AD. It would be nice if AD users showed the same willingness to accept that, as was the agreement that stopped the last major edit war on dating, some countries use ID, some AD and the articles on topics from each country should reflect usage.

The reality is simple:

• the US uses AD.
• Most of the Commonwealth of Nations uses ID.
• Most of Europe uses ID.

I don't know what various countries in South America and Africa use.

Maybe we should simply compile a list of countries and set down explicitly what dating should be used for each. We could establish a project on dates. That might be the solution. But in the meantime, SuperJumbo is perfectly correct to adjust European topics to ID, American topics to AD, and where a mishmash occurs in articles to fix it. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 00:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Two things:

1. The MoS guideline as it stands quite clearly refers to the English-speaking world. Elsewhere, either should be acceptable, just as articles may be in U.S. or Commonwealth English. Although countries outside the English-speaking world each have their own date preferences, we do not normally apply those. To follow that logic, we would have to give dates in Hungarian-related articles in the form 2006-8-20.
2. No one has addressed my remark about using "popups" as an edit-warring tool. - Jmabel | Talk 22:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Which he apparently continues to do. - Jmabel | Talk 04:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The behaviour I'm seeing here by SuperJumbo is simply unacceptable. Now he's revert-warring over dates on dozens of articles using a JavaScript tool. Regardless of whether or not his date format changing is acceptable, what he's doing now clearly isn't. I would suggest someone do something to reign him in here, as my hands are tied in this issue. --Cyde Weys 19:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

All he is doing is applying standard dates to the relevant articles. In doing that he is my full support and the full support of many others. The fact that Jmabel refers to something he calls Commonwealth English when we are actually dealing with international dating, is indicative of the nonsensical nature of the attacks being made on SuperJumbo. He is simply applying what we all do, and all will continue to do, applying International Dating to topics in areas where it is relevant, and applying American Dating to topics where it is relevant. I have fought edit wars to stop ID users from changing articles on American topics to ID dating and International English. American users deserve the respect of users in terms of their choice of language. I and others will continue to do similarly with ID articles out of respect for people in other countries who use ID and IE and who take offence when American language, spelling and dating is forced onto topics about countries that never ever use AD and AE. Superjumbo has asked opinions and consulted. Those who are attacking him rarely have. Cyde, bizarrely, reverted the correct usage of ID and IE on an article about an British king, imposing American dating onto the article. And he sought to force an article about an Irish rock band to keep American dating. It was ridiculous. If his hands are tied on the issue, it is about time. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 20:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The more I read about this issue the less I see a problem with what SuperJumbo is doing. Metamagician3000 23:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the above comments. At every stage I have sought to inform myself on what is a surprisingly complex subject, one with a long history and an outcome that represents a triumph of consensus and co-operation in both the technical and editorial sides of the project. I have sought consultation and availed myself of the relevant authorities in the MoS.

I am rather disappointed with the behaviour of Cyde, who reverted a swag of my careful changes and then when I pointed out the relevant guidelines I was following, declined to undo his reverts, meaning that I had to do so. Calling this "edit warring" is a little rich. I would have thought that at the very least he would have been pleased to undo his changes to articles on British royalty, which had the effect of inserting a mish-mash of date formats, many of them unlinked, many of them in American Dating format. At one point he even removed my comments to a third party on my own talk page. However, I imagine that Cyde is a busy person, and was merely working with best speed to correct what he thought were errors.

I have been rigorously correcting date formats as appropriate, as may be seen from my contributions. Some American articles were using International Dating, and I have corrected them, though I must say that such examples are few. It is far more common to find articles on subjects from countries that use International Dating that have American Dating applied. For every incorrectly formated date in an article on a U.S. president, I will find dozens in articles on British kings and queens. I thank all parties for their input into this discussion and hope that we can amicably proceed to the greater good of the project. --Jumbo 01:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

User:SuperJumbo appears to just be deliberately being an ass about this, also. Consider this edit, for example, where his edit summary says "rationalise dates to International Dating for non-American article".

However, what has he actually changed in this article?

1. Changed [[21 April]], [[1958]] (21 April, 1958) to [[21 April]] [[1958]] (21 April 1958)

• The original usage is a British peculiarity, not American
• The change has no effect on what the reader sees even if preferences are not set.

2. Wikilinked [[21 April]] [[1958]] in two more appearances where it wasn't linked (and didn't have a comma in the middle).

• Again, there wasn't any "American" usage as implied by his edit summary.
• If you take the time to check, these were probably linked at one time and unlinked as unnecessary duplicates by someone who didn't understand the date preferences purpose.

3. changed "18th June 2006," to "[[18 June]] [[2006]], and similarly for 23rd June 2006

• Once again, it was a British usage peculiarity he was internationalizing, not American usage.

So why the gratuitous nastiness and America-bashing in the edit summary? Gene Nygaard 02:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I do beg your pardon! When I get to the edit summary part of the edit, I have a little drop down box with various previous summaries in them. I just pick the easiest one out of the list, and I do recall thinking for one of them, hmmmm, was there anything American about that last lot? But I didn't think anybody would care too much or go reading too much into it. My apologies!

My understanding, and I'm willing to stand corrected on this, is that the comma in the middle of dates is a distinctly American thing, and thus inappropriate for International Dating. I've taken several approaches to commas in wikidates previously, and my understanding is that they are superfluous. If an editor has date prefs set to AD, then the comma is inserted regardless of whether it appears in the source. Contrarywise, if prefs are set to ID, then the comma is suppressed if it appears in the text. OTOH, if a reader has no date prefs set, then the comma is only displayed if the original date is in American format, regardless of whether there is a comma in the source or not.

Removing commas from wikidates is therefore a saving in space. Only one character per date, to be sure, but the nitpicker in me rejoices at the elimination of redundancy.

As for being an ass, this happens from time to time, but not deliberately so! If there was any nastiness or "America-bashing", then it was inferred, rather than implied, and I once again welcome the opportunity to express my admiration and respect for this great nation, the first of the modern democracies. --03:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This conversation has been going on a long time, and no-one has managed to show any policy violation by Jumbo. On the contrary, Jumbo's edits precisely follow the MOS. Apparently this date warring issue has got everyone so touchy that we've started attacking people who are part of the solution not the problem. Jumbo should be congratulated for staying cool and civil through all this; everyone else should move along and let Jumbo get on with his job. Snottygobble 03:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

We shouldn't rely on an undocumented bug/feature that could be changed in the future, just to save a single character. There is another problem of date links not working properly with the commas if you use things like [[February 30]], [[1712 in music|1712]] (February 30, 1712), but that's a another bug related to the silliness of using wikilinks to effect these preferences in the first place. Gene Nygaard 15:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Your comments earlier are demonstrably wrong.

• Removing the comma is correct. International dating does not use a comma. American dating sometimes does. Wikipedia policy is not to use it.
• It is Wikipedia policy to remove th and to wikilist dates. He removed the th and wikilinked a date. Given that one of the benefits of doing that is to allow Americans who have set their preferences to see the date in American dating, rather than in International Dating, if they chose.

There, as in all the other points, SuperJumbo is acting strictly in accordance with the MoS. I echo Snottygobble's words. "Jumbo's edits precisely follow the MOS. Apparently this date warring issue has got everyone so touchy that we've started attacking people who are part of the solution not the problem. Jumbo should be congratulated for staying cool and civil through all this; everyone else should move along and let Jumbo get on with his job." Now leave Jumbo alone. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 15:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I referred to "Commonwealth English" because we are working in English. For what it's worth, SuperJumbo is changing the dates to the same form I would tend to favor, and I was not one of the parties in the resulting date warring. I still say that using popups on things like this is an unnecessary provocation. But if others don't agree, so be it. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

CFD vs. DRV: action review requested

1. On July 19, WP:CFD deleted Category:Articles with unsourced statements (log} which was used on {{fact}}.
2. On July 31, CFD deleted Category:Articles lacking sources (log) which was used {{unreferenced}} and had been added to {{fact}} following the above deletion.
3. Subsequently, Category:Articles needing sources was created and added to {{fact}}, et al. This was nominated for deletion on August 11: (log)

• On August 14, deletion review was begun on Category:Articles lacking sources. This morning that was closed with a unanimous verdict to overturn (log)

Based on that conclusion (closed by Xoloz), and the close relationship between these different rulings, I have taken some unusual actions, which I want to make others aware of for review and comment.

1. I closed the ongoing CFD on Category:Articles needing sources, and as it was now entirely redundant to the restored category, I deleted it after moving the references back to the restored category.
2. I restored Category:Articles with unsourced statements. Though this category is not specifically discussed in the DRV, the arguments and context are extremely similar. I believe the existence of this deletion largely escaped notice because most uses of it were converted to Articles lacking sources at the time of its deletion.

If people object to the second undeletion, we can run that through DRV also, but I am confident the result would be the same.

More generally, I think we have a problem if CFD can, through the course of active discussion involving dozens of participants, repeatedly reach a conclusion that can be unanimously overturned by dozens of other participants at DRV. At least one of these groups must be out of touch with the views of the larger community, and that in itself is a substantial problem, in my opinion. Dragons flight 18:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll raise my hand to speak for some of the DRV group: our objection, repeated in many voices, was that the deletion left a large tear in scores of articles and that any xfD lacked a solution to the damage caused by the deletion. Inasmuch as this was an admonitory category and not a content category, we (most of us) felt that there could be no deletion without, simultaneously, a solution that would substitute for its old function. There were other factors, as well, mainly related to the fact that the compulsion to delete was based on a false premise, but I'll let server folks talk about that. Geogre 18:23, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I have an idea ... this seems like a change to big to be undertaken by *FD alone. How about starting a discussion in project-space to go for two weeks and link it from {{cent}}? --Cyde Weys 18:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. As the admin who closed the first CFD above, you'll note that I disagreed with the consensus but considering that all of these categories spawn from changes in {fact} it seemed reasonable to assume that if we were going to put into place some metacategorization (by month? with a toc?) then the category itself was likely to be nuked in the process anyhow (and others added to {fact}, requiring little human intervention). I don't think CFD itself is the problem, but that it is somewhat the redheaded stepchild of *FD so discussions there aren't given enough eyes. Barring that, I'd be up for making a guideline to closing admins on CFD to bring maintenance category deletion notices to ANI or VP or something. Syrthiss 21:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I really don't like the sound of that. There is already an inherent bias towards keeping things that are most useful to editors rather than the vastly greater number of readers, and this sounds like it would make it worse. It is people who visit Wikipedia:Categories for discussion who are most engaged with the management of the category system, which is an issue in its own right, and I don't think our rights should be taken away. We have a page called "Categories for discussion", so the question is are we going to be allowed to make decisions on categories at that page or not? If not, why not? There are an increasing number of comments on the page which simply scorn the process rather than engaging with the merits of the category, and it is becoming demoralising.

I am seriously concerned that the whole system is biased towards retention of marginal categories because it usually only takes the creator and a few other people to prevent deletion, and the people who (over)value a category are the ones who are most likely to notice that it is up for discussion. A bad example of this was the retention of the "entertainers by age of death categories"; there was an overwhelming consensus to delete after 7 days, but the debate wasn't closed promptly and after 9 days a bunch of meat puppets showed up and voted "keep" in the space of a few hours. It increasingly seems to me that over time the category system is likely to get steadily worse, because even if only 10% of bad categories are kept, that means that more and more bad categories will accumulate over time and eventually the category clutter on high profile articles will become so bad that they might as well not have categories at all. The way to tackle this is to keep as much control of the category system as possible in the hands of people who care about the category system as a whole and vote on that basis, rather than as partisans for or against specific categories, and that means the people who take the trouble to visit "Categories for discussion" regularly. Thus I deprecate anything that downgrades the decision making status of "Categories for discussion. Chicheley 23:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I had thought that the standard way of doing things was that pages or categories associated with a process, policy, proposal etc. should not be deleted without first abandoning or changing the things that depend on them. In other words, *FD is not where we decide how to do things on Wikipedia; *FD doesn't get to decide policy (process, proposal, ...) by deleting them or the things they depend upon.

Thus, if one wants to get rid of something used by the project, make it obsolete first and THEN delete it. IOW, if {{fact}} shouldn't associate with a category, get consensus first to change {{fact}} not to use a category, and then, when the category is no longer in use, delete it. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 07:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That's already the wording in Templates for deletiscussion, and I was asking the same question on talk pages this morning. I don't think the current categories are a perfect solution by any means, but a slash-and-burn technique isn't going to help us improve any. -- nae'blis 22:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This conversation brings to light a very serious problem with the workings of Wikipedia. Decisions are supposed to be made by discussion, but there is little consensus about what that means in practice. To some it means that there is a straw poll, everyone gives their opinion, and if the requisite percentage is met, there is consensus. That is the current practice, but I think this understanding of the meaning of "discussion" is wrong. Discussion has to be a much bigger process, and the wisdom of administrators has to play a bigger role. Jimmy Wales, in his numerous talks (they are linked to his article), gives an AFD example where everyone says "delete" until the very end of the discussion at which point someone explains clearly why something should be kept, and it is. This notion of discussion is slipping away. If we have policies, an admin should be able to weigh the arguments made during a discussion in light of what the policies are and then make an informed decision. This is more like being a judge than a election official. If a discussion clearly points out a problem with a policy, the closing admin should close it by saying "no consensus, refer the issue for discussion at the relevant policy page".

Our system of creating policy is moving towards becoming totally descriptive. Having descriptive policies instead of proscriptive ones are valuable when things are evolving. If you don't know the best way to do something, or if people have differing ideas about how to do things, let them work out solutions, and see which work and which get adopted by the wider community. Then we can create descriptive policies about what evolves. Once we have policies, we should apply them, or discuss changing them. What we shouldn't do is vote case by case with a random set of voters.

I'd like to propose that anyone closing a discussion try to weigh the arguments against policy. If the popular "vote" is clearly against policy, the admin could state an "initial decision" explaining their rationale, and leave the discussion up for a while to allow conversation to continue. In this way the admin would be behaving more like a facilitator. Once closed, the voters could start a discussion about changing policy on the appropriate page. --Samuel Wantman 08:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Just reading through this thread, and I think this last point is an excellent one. Closing admins should see themselves as judges, not election officials. And referring things for "further discussion" should definitely be done more often. I remember a CfD where no consensus could be reached, but a group went off to discuss things for a week or so, and then came back to CfD with the result of the discussion, which was then accepted after a period of time waiting for regular CfDers to comment. Worked like a dream. Carcharoth 23:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there not a centralised discussion yet? I've looked and can't find it. Carcharoth 00:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Halibutt

I would like User:Halibutt to be warned for personally attacking me(WP:NPA), multiple times, not only on my user talkpage, but also in numerous discussion threads.

one example comes from my talk page:Then perhaps you could tell me why do you believe black people should be exterminated? //Halibutt 12:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I have never made any statements about black people and this was totally nonsensical and out of the blue, check my contribution history to see proof of that. This all started when he started a revert war over the proper name for Polish September Campaign

--Jadger 23:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This was merely an example of the tactics Jadger's been using against my good name for the last week or so (claiming I said something I did not and then accusing me of it on several pages). And from Jadger's comment on my talk page it seems pretty obvious that he understood it as such, that is an example of the said tactics and not as a personal attack. It seems that this report here has been motivated solely by his recent actions being noticed and by the recent warning he received from one of the uninvolved admins, as well as from one of involved admins.

However, if Jadger indeed mistook my comment for an offence, which I seriously doubt, then I'm sorry, as it was not meant to be one. //Halibutt 23:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Jadger? What happened? It looks exactly like you removed Halibutt's comment, without even leaving a comment about doing so—without even an edit summary. I assume that was some glitch or mistake? Bishonen | talk 23:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC).

If you were truly sorry, then why have you never said so on my talk page? or anywhere else for that matter except for where you can be punished (here). it was not "an example of the said tactics and not as a personal attack" or else he would of stated so, and my statements on his userpage show that. As for accusing him of saying something he did not, on his userpage I cited from the talk page where he did indeed state what I was indicating.

I did not "understand it as such" as you can see by my statement on his talk page, (which BTW is what I have been told I have been warned for) as I am forced to tell him in the statement that his attacks on me are logical fallacies.

--Jadger 23:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I want him warned simply for justice (or else I would ask for him to be blocked), not for a vendetta. when two people make personal attacks, they should both receive the same punishment for the same crime, or else it gives the illusion to Halibutt that he can continue to do so, which he has indeed continued to do on my talk page, now he has progressed to thinking he can order me around.

--Jadger 23:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Jadger, this makes no sense and is a loss of time. I asked you to remove your offensive comments. You did not and instead claimed that it's perfectly ok to accuse me of things I never said. Above you even claim that you provided a link in which I explicitly state that I have been in a mood that I can revert anyone, which is obviously a lie, since you did not provide any citation for that (no wonder since I neither said nor shown that anywhere - anytime). Anyway, after repeatedly asking you to stand by WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA and getting nothing but further offences and accusations, I simply asked here for some intervention. You've been warned and I thought that solves the issue.

However, now it seems that this childish tit for tat is going on even further. You ask me why have I never apologized on your talk page? And why did you never state on mine that you misunderstood my comment? Anyway, if anyone believes I crossed the lines - feel free to punish me. I don't try to evade any punishment, but would like some basic respect from Jadger. That's what's lacking in his slanderous accusations and that's what sparked this entire discussion. Whether it was my fault to be offended by Jadger - I'm not sure. Whether he misunderstood my comment - I don't know. I did apologize the first second I realized he might be offended. I still await apologies for the offences Jadger has cast. //Halibutt 18:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

You asked me to remove my "offensive remarks" but I did not because I could prove that you did indeed say such things (and my remarks were thus not offensive), and I indeed did cite it on your talk page. perhaps you should stop skipping over the occasional line in paragraphs and read the whole article, rather then just what u want to see.

I never stated that I misunderstood your comment on my talk page because you have changed your meaning now (in order to cover your tracks), as you have done before elsewhere, and have been charged as such by others. If you were actually the bigger man as you pretend to be, then you would have done some actions (such as apologising) in order to end the dispute, instead of dragging it out here.

I am not apologizing for the "offences" i have committed because I firmly believe in what I said, and I have been punished for it by a warning which I feel is unjustified. You however have had the chance to end this by publicly apologizing to me on my talk page, which would end the "discussion" and add closure, but you have decided not to do that, instead you have decided to continue making up excuses on here in order so that you can pretend to be the victor . You will only get some "basic respect" from me when you have earned it, I have been brought up knowing that you have to earn respect, and so far you have not.

All Halibutt needs to do is apologize to me and admit that his statements were wrong, and this would be over, but he will not do that.

--Jadger 19:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

You repeat that over and over again, yet you did not prove anything at my talk page. You did not prove that I've been in the mood that I could go revert warring, you did not prove that I believe I could revert anyone for no apparent reason, nor did you prove that I think I can state anything I like and then prevent people from removing it. These were your baseless accusations I asked you politely to remove. You denied to remove them and instead stated that it's all ok to suggest such things. It is not and you've been warned by an admin that it was not ok. I wanted that piece of filth removed as per WP:NPA, but you insisted on keeping it in, so instead I asked for some apology. And what did you do? You continued the same disruptive behaviour. Sorry, Jadger, this is just as much time I had to waste. Do not expect any more comments from me unless you apologize. I have a right to defend my good name and believe me I will.

You state above that you firmly believe in what you said. So you firmly believe that you know what I think, right? And that's a reason enough to state what you believe is true and then accuse me of it? I could firmly believe that deep in your heart you're a devoted Nazi, and then start casting such accusations here and there. Would that mean that it's perfectly ok to accuse you of Nazism just because I believe I know what you think? That's absurd and I'm not going to waste more of my time on it. Over and out. //Halibutt 17:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

An suspicious annoymous user editting the "Entropia Universe" article.

Hello,

I'm concerned greatly about an annoymous user (last IP was 88.105.73.18) who seems to be on a crusade on the Entropia Universe arcitle. They have a very swift tendancy to edit *any* negativity in the arcitle out, often under the guise of 'Removing Vandalism'.

They have even targetted the talk page too (Clean Up, Removal of unnecessary negative ranting and Vandalism, Removal of Spam Advertising, Restoration of Balance and removal of troll comments.)

They never use an account, and from the user contributions on the user page the Entropia Universe article is the only place they seem to edit.

I don't want to turn this into an all out edit war - but this person is really trying my wick and I don't know where to turn. They have as of yet left no comments on the talk page of said article.

erm... help!

AvanniaRayzor 23:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Disputes about article tone are pretty common, and this one doesn't seem to require (or allow for) administrative intervention at this time. I agree that some statistics-removals have been agressive, but the solution is to talk about—try taking WAS up on his suggestion at the talk page. I'll also add the article to my watchlist to get a better feel for the situation if it continues. -- SCZenz 03:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Good grief. How long have you guys been putting up with those talkpage deletions? Without going into the more difficult questions of article text removal and article tone, the removal of other people's comments from the talk page is not a difficult question at all. Doing that is a serious policy violation, period. I have posted a sharply worded warning on the user's own talkpage. If it happens again, please a) revert, and b) let me or another admin know as soon as possible. I've watchlisted the page, but watching isn't infallible, so do give somebody a shout if this abusive practice continues. Bishonen | talk 04:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC).

The 'agressive' article editting has been going on for some time now. I started to mildly panic when the talk page was pruned too. I keep my eyes on that article because of all of this nonsense so I'll let you know if it happens again. And thanks guys for at least listenning to me :-) I feel rather benign in comparison to the *insert godlike tone* all powerful admins! */godlike tone* ^_^. If there's anything more I can do let me know :-) AvanniaRayzor 20:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh... just fall down and worship, that'll do. Bishonen | talk 21:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC).

• worships* :-) AvanniaRayzor 23:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Peculiar user behavior

User:S-man, User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back, and User:Qmwnebrvtcyxuz seem to be behaving in a very peculiar way. At one moment, they appear to be very naive: at another, they seem to know an awful lot about the technical details of Wikipedia editing. Their writing style seems very similar. All of this at the same time that various vandals with different MOs seem to have descended on the en: Wikipedia... -- The Anome 22:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I dunno...their styles don't seem to be similar enough to convince me of sockpuppetry. However, feel free to open an RCU on them if you're really convinced. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 22:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I would second an RFCU, also I'm not too happy about this at all. Yanksox 23:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah. That there is definitely some bad news. And Cute 1 4 u is a confirmed sockpuppeteer herself (see User:Raven Symone). However, I'm still not sure about the three up there being the same, but an RCU would definitely convince me otherwise. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 23:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

User:S-man states he is 9 years old, and User:Qmwnebrvtcyxuz that he is the second-youngest editor on wiki. This might explain some of the concerns... Tyrenius 23:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Exactly. Not to be ageist, but it seems unlikely that a nine-year-old (S-Man) would create two sockpuppets, have them interact with each other, and have different styles of writing (S-Man seems very proficient grammatically and in terms of spelling, whereas Qmwnebrvtcyxuz is not - see his userpage). Also, S-Man seems like a legitimate contributor, having been around since December 2005. And as for Yanksox below, can you provide some diffs? --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 23:15, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not refering to Wikipedia, just look at the userpage of S-man and look at some of the links he gives out. Yanksox 23:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Not to sound evil, but when I visit some of the links, I find it very hard to believe their ages. Yanksox 23:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

His MySpace says he's 16...although he could be lying to bypass MySpace's "14 or over" rule. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 23:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not that, it's other links that he supplys and the fact that he has a father and an aunt on the website according to his userpage. It's too complicated to describe, but something just doesn't seem right about this whole situation. Yanksox 23:26, 20 August 2006 (UTC) (editconflict)To be honest, I think it's either one of two things. One, assuming good faith, it's about 5 users that don't understand the concept of Wikipedia and focus too much on the social aspect or two, thinking about it for a while (paranoia), it's a few users trying to test the patience of the site to get a reaction. It could be either thing, but it is very concerning. Yanksox 23:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I've now indefblocked User:S-man as a self-declared vandal. His "secret vandalism project" seems just too knowing of other Wikimedia projects for a kid just playing around. I suspect that these are adults, trying to see how patient we will be with self-described kids. User talk:S-man now seems to have giant images on it: I find the fake page title of "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." oddly reminiscent of someone else as well... -- The Anome 23:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you did that, as I was getting concerned about this account. He says he is nine, but the writing is sometimes a lot more mature than that, and on other websites, he gives different ages. He has concentrated his time here making contact with what appears to be a bunch of very young users, mostly girls or purporting to be. He said his father and aunt edited here too, and linked to two user names, one of which had made one edit, the other of which had made none, and in both cases, S-man had created their user pages. There was something decidedly ... odd, and I wasn't looking forward to trying to work out what it was. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Look at this edit, for example. There is something seriously wrong here. I think we should stop assuming good faith at this point. -- The Anome 23:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Why on earth are you associating me with these characters? I’m mystified and disappointed by your misguided insinuations. Take a look at my edit history. I know my contributions aren’t terribly impressive (unless you count my rewrites of Battle Dome, Detachable Penis and Wynona's Big Brown Beaver), but you’re going to have to look hard to find any vandalism. Anyway, I just happen to find humor in some of the edits of S-man (and I'm sorry to hear you've blocked the little guy; there are people out there causing a lot more trouble than S-man, who's still learning and trying to make useful edits). If you’re looking for sockpuppets, I might direct you elsewhere.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 23:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

What, like this edit? -- The Anome 23:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with that? That's my user page. A couple sockpuppets of Solipsist3 threatened to kill me for nominating his article for deletion. I chose to make light of it; that's my sense of humor--it may not be yours. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's put a darkly tinted joke on his user page. Lighten up.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 23:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I never believed that you were S-Man's sockpuppet - I think you're innocent. However, there's definitely something bad going down with S-Man - my AGF has been stretched to its limits. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 23:42, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It gets more ludicrous by the minute. Here, User:Qmwnebrvtcyxuz claims to be eight years old, and furthermore claims here that another user is three months younger. I would suggest that we either:

• take them at their word, and block them from editing on child protection grounds, or
• block them for impersonating very young children, and starting conversations with other apparently very young users

-- The Anome 23:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Jkelly 23:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I may have to rescind my comments above about them not being the same person. As of now, I'm thinking that S-Man and Qmwnebrvtcyxuz are possibly the same child impersonator - as I said above, an RCU would clear that up nicely. I think Fat Man's probably okay; he's never stated his age to my knowledge. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 00:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I think the Fat Man is probably real, and just got caught up in the paranoia backwash.

However, in this edit User:Cute 1 4 u claims to be 11 years old. Very similar writing style to the other two apparent child impersonators. Again, real or fake pre-teens are just too young to be editing here. -- The Anome 00:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Here is another purported 8-year-old editor. Note the similarities to the others. Claims to have two other siblings who are editing here. -- The Anome 00:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

You didn't give a link...did you mean Bethicalyna2? --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 00:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

That's right, thanks for the correction. I've now deleted the pages in question. -- The Anome 01:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have been following most (though not all) of these users for some time. I have serious doubts that most of them are the ages they claim to be though I have been unable to come to a conclusion. I figured at least some of them may have been the ages they claimed to be. Anyway, I was uncomfortable enough to have most of them on my watchlist but apart from the occasional copyvio image upload and excessive socialising (WP:NOT), I didn't see enough for me to step in. I am concerned that the stated reason some of these users were blocked is because they are too young. My understanding is that we allow people of any age to edit the Wikipedia and simply judge them on their actions. However, it is possible the real reason for the block is their actions. One more note, most of these people claimed to be siblings. For this reason, a checkuser will show one group of people (six to nine users iirc) editing from the same IP. We don't generally ban for this if they really are separate people. --Yamla 00:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

However, their actions included either posting personally-identifying information about themselves, or being online child impersonators. Either of which justifies an immediate indefblock. Blocks are not punishments, they are intended to stop bad things from happening, and either of those is a bad thing. -- The Anome 01:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Note that most of these editors came from 71.231.130.56. This shows up at least one other editor in that family. I am not advocating that we block anyone who has edited from that IP address, however. --Yamla 01:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe User:Bethicalyna (mostly edits as 71.231.130.56) claims to be User:Lindsay1980's sister. El_C 01:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. By the way, I've deleted Lindsay1980's user page, at her request, see her edit dated 01:30, 21 August 2006 in the deletion history. -- The Anome 01:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The checkuser I filed came back inconclusive. I've asked for an explanation, but I haven't received one yet. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 01:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Checkuser is not magic wiki pixie dust. It provides a very narrow type of technical evidence. Inconclusive means Mackensen can't say they probably are, but can't say they probably aren't, either. It's hard to be more specific without giving away info that could help other sockpuppets avoid detection. Thatcher131 (talk) 02:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm concerned about Cute 1 4 u's block; it seems predicated on very flimsy evidence (based on the block log comment); if there's more to it than that, I can't see it (most of the diffs linked above are broken). Powers ^T 13:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but I find this totally unbelieveable. The blocks that User:The Anome has performed recently have been completely unjustified.

1. Blocks User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back for this, with block summary "faking talk pages: possibly a multi-sockpuppet" – does not realise that it is within his userspace, and can do as he likes. Does not investigate that User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back is only preserving an edit which an anonymous user previously added. Unblocks later with summary "unblocking for now", with no apology for any confusion.
2. Blocks User:S-man for vandalising other Wikipedias. This does not warrant a block on en.Wikipedia in any way at all!
3. Blocks User:Qmwnebrvtcyxuz, User:Cute 1 4 u, User:Bethicalyna2, User:Lindsay1980 and User:Pizzachelle for being young, with block summaries such as "we don't let very young children edit here". That, is absolute rubbish. We do not hold age, race, sex, sexuality or any other factor against editors here.

-- 88.110.29.105 13:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I must agree with 88.110.29.105. We have absolutely no policy concerning age of contributors. ~ «ct» (t|e) 00:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I have unblocked. If there are reasons to block that relate to their edits (and the blocking policy) then feel free to reblock (putting this reasoning in the block summary). Otherwise, he can stay unblocked, and continue to edit peacefully. We do not hold any personal factors against editors. Full stop. Regards, —Celestianpower ^háblame 15:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Mike18xx Again

I posted regarding this user's behavior shortly before but it was not acted upon. The user has continued to make edit summaries with uncivil personal attacks and soapboxing:

• I didn't say strike didn't have "impact" -- and don't BS in your summary when your real intention is to restore fluffery. [9]
• remove Marxist class-warfare rhetoric (eg, "student groups" are not a "well-off sector"). A collapsing economy precipitated the strike; it was not the result of it [10]
• Changed sentence had two erroneous implications: That falling copper and aid were alone responsible for economic declines, which in turn were alone responsible for Allende's downfall. [11]
• Rv "fluffing". First paragraph replaced with wording similar to main Allende bio entry. [12]
• rv; pic did contain source information. Everyone keep an eye on Holocaust-related pics, as there appears to be a campaign afoot to delete them at Wikipedia [13] (this was on an image removed by Orphanbot)

--Jersey Devil 01:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The user was blocked for a week and he now says he has left Wikipedia. He requested that people stop editing his talk page as courtesy (as they were repeatedly adding old warnings), so I deleted the page and full protected it. The user has access to an IP account that he was using that he could use to request the page unprotected, but there doesn't seem like there will be much need for that. The user seems to want to use his m:Right to vanish, so I'm letting him unless anyone objects with that. Cowman109^Talk 02:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you are talking about a different person. You seem to be talking about User:Mikedk9109 while I am referring to User:Mike18xx--Jersey Devil 02:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh. *looks at the mention of someone also named Mike two sections above*. Yes, it looks like I am. Sorry about that :) Cowman109^Talk 02:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Another hostile comment targetted towards User:Pablo-flores after User:Jmabel reported him:

Let me see if I have this straight: Somebody is tattling on me, and you're sending me a warning without having even seen the subjects in question to see if I am actually guilty of the alleged crimes charged? Has it occurred to you how easy it is for whining tattle-tailers to "bully" their "subjective views" into an article just by continually "shopping" around for admins to go stomp over the user-pages of their critics? Fine. Two can play the game; and since I have your attention, I'd just like to let you know that many Wiki editors who tattle about me are disingenuous vandals who have no interest in writing truthful articles and every interest in locking down their propaganda. This is particularly the case in (a) Islam-related articles (for obvious reasons), (b) property-reditribution articles (socialists would love to imagine there are no credible, or any at all, arguments against their favorite way of getting stuff without paying for it) and (c) Chile/Allende-related articles (where some are tenacious in their attempts to preserve moldy 35-year old propaganda -- it tooks *months* to get into Wiki the Chilean Chamber of Deputies' own pivotal condemnation of Allende and request for the military oust him). Also please be observant of the fact that edits are not the same thing as reverts, no matter how much the defenders of rubbish would like to conflate the two when siccing the admins on their detractors.--Mike18xx 03:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC) [14] --Jersey Devil 03:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This user has been warned by me more than once and I am keeping an eye on his contributions for further incidences of issues. ++Lar: t/c 01:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth: I had contacted Pablo-flores because he works on Latin American topics, but not on Chilean topics (which is the main place I found myself in conflict with Mike). You can read our exchange on his user talk page: it should be clear I was not "tattling", I was asking advice for advice on how to proceed, because I was finding myself in conflict with this user. My comments there begin

I've been crossing paths quite a bit with Mike18xx (talk · contribs). He's clearly sincere, and I don't doubt that he intends to help create an encyclopedia, and sometime makes good edits (especially in terms of removing undercited material) but he is really abrasive, and he often justifies his actions with claims about Marxism that appear (at least to me) bizarre. At the moment, this is mostly intended as a "heads-up". If a "request for comment" really was what its name suggests, I'd start one, but in practice it seems to be more like bringing a suit, which is not what I intend to do.

If this is "tattling" I cannot imagine what would constitute an acceptable way for one person to consult another about the conduct of a third. - Jmabel | Talk 02:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Note: Pablo ended up blocking him for 48 hours, although it was while I was asking him a question that he hadn't yet answered, I nevertheless support this block. ++Lar: t/c 13:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I have a few things to add about this disturbing editor. It dates back to July 11th.

• 22:58 trolling
• 23:01 describing my userpage as a "circle-jerk back-patting over at his user-page"
• 23:08 inflammatory comments
• 00:02 Tony Sidaway removing inflammatory comments before
• 00:45 Tony blocking him for "Unacceptable incivility, edit warring, abuse of unlicensed images, acts of clear bad faith". -- Szvest 13:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign

Obvious stalking and harassment

I'm at a loss as to what to do at this point. I'm concerned with Badlydrawnjeff following me around and keeping tabs on the AfD's I close. Threads to my talk page where this went on are here and here but note they are archived. Recently, he again began discussion of an AfD I just closed here. I'm asking for admin to intervene please. Thanks. SynergeticMaggot 01:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Just say "Thank you for your input," and keep doing what you're doing. You're doing good work. One of the things that you discover when you become an admin is that no matter what you do, there is someone, somewhere, who is unhappy with it. You're undertaking an admin-like task without admin powers, which is doubly thankless. Jeff's entitled to his opinion that your closing WP:SNOW AfDs early is inappropriate, but that position isn't supported by common practice. That's my $0.02, anyway. Nandesuka 02:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm trying my best to ignore him. I just figured I'd log an actual complaint, and bring this to the community. I dont really see it as a personal attack, so I felt it was best here. SynergeticMaggot 02:14, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

There will always be stalkers. User:JDG's mine, for instance, they come with the territory. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say something like what Nandesuka said with the minor note that the speedy policies are controversial enough as is. There isn't much need to make things worse by speedy closing stuff which isn't within policy unless you have a very clear case (like in the Chuck Norris Facts article. However, speedy keeping out of policy is not as potentially disruptive as speedy deleting outside policy. Also, Jeff's behavior while annoying is not intrinsically bad- he is noting when a new admin makes out of policy speedy keeps. My recommendation to Synergetic would be to ignore Jeff if he continues but keep in mind what the actual policy is and make sure if you are invoking WP:SNOW to note it in your closing comment. I've also sent a note to Jeff asking him to stop. JoshuaZ 02:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

To side-step the issue of the early closes for a moment, there's nothing wrong with "wikistalking" in my opinon. The inventor of wikis has said that the "contributions" link and the ability to keep track of each other is a crucial ingrediant. I have a wiki-stalking box on my pseudo-user page that links direct to people's contributions. As to the early closes, I'll mostly echo Nandesuka, with a few small notes, as the ones I looked at were all acceptable, but I wouldn't have closed them.

• Were you finding that there weren't that many that had run five days that were obvious closes? The reason that I ask is that closing early doesn't do that much to decrease admin load. An argument could be made that since the more obsessive among us will double-check your work, it increases it.
• It's a good idea if something is to be closed early that you note in the close explicitly that you've done so, and even perhaps link to the "closing early" section in the guide to deletion. Don't link SNOW as it means nothing and there are other places to link that are not controversial.

brenneman ^{L} 02:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Aaron, have you looked at the relevant closes? They were out of policy. The only justification would be WP:SNOW. JoshuaZ 02:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

And WP:SNOW cannot be a justification. I will challenge such closes every time as they're contrary to our speedy policies and guidelines. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why? Is it unconstitutional? Physically impossible? Aesthetically displeasing? Is there an actual non-process-worshipping reason? --Calton | Talk 05:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow, now dishonesty, too. I logged my opinion on the Chuck Norris AfD on the 18th, three days ago. I keep the AfDs I'm involved with watchlisted, thus, I see when they're closed. I saw you closed it early. Done deal. My other complaint [15] was when I went through an AfD page about two days after it was posted, and noted all your speedy closes. Guess what? I normally read the AfD page every day. Even if I *was* "stalking" you, read WP:STALK sometime: "This does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason." You've grossly flaunted policy numerous times, and I have a legitimate reason to check up on your future closes as a result. It would be nice if some admins would instead step in and ask SM to cease with the closings until he learns basic deletion policy instead of coming to my talk page and getting on my case for trying to fix a problem. 9 improper, out of process speedy closes in the last 3 days. I'll fix the problem every time. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)Oh with that one I wasnt invoking SNOW. I check the last log on the main AfD page once a new log hits. Whats odd is that the AfD in quesiton is in fact in August 16th's log, yet time stamped as nom'ed on the 17th. If you wish to check, here is the log. Its at the very bottom. Thus making it approx. its fifth day on AfD, with 12 keeps (not counting this users keep:User:64.91.92.57), and no deletes. SynergeticMaggot 02:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Timestamp on Chuck Norris sig: 23:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC). Timestamp on SM close: 01:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC). --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I noted that already. And thanks. SynergeticMaggot 02:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Aaron: I just mean that he is bringing my closes up way too often. And says he'll do it whenever he feels like it. I dont mind the stalking part, its the hassle of him bothering me with it everytime I refresh my watchlist. And I do specify if I'm closing early in my edit summaries by the way. SynergeticMaggot 02:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we take this to my talk page? Call it quasi-pseudo-informal-mediation, or something, and help to keep ANI clean? - brenneman ^{L} 02:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I've brought your closes up twice, and you were especially hostile about it when I called you out on it and provided the links to them. There's an easy way to avoid it, of course, but you instead decide to call it harassment instead of fixing the problem. Not much else I can say to you, I've been extremely patient given the circumstances. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Translation: "Do what I say and I won't bug you, and I've been nice about waiting for you to obey me." Lovely. --Calton | Talk 05:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Noted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Concur with translation: Bdjeff might consider that SMaggot is not a recalcitrant child and is not under any onus to conduct his behavior in a manner pleasing to jeff. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 09:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you approve of such flaunting of policy. Good to know. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Whoa! Now I wish I had powered through the edit conflict when I first saw this instead of backing out. Everyone please get the hackles down. Jeff's point of view and Maggot's are far from each other on a continuum, but they're both licit. Essentially, if something runs after a unanimous delete, it's not really going to hurt anything, so, if someone is asking that the thing go full term, there's nothing really bad about it. It's not really an AN/I issue. I agree with Aaron here. If Jeff is seeming too much of a finger wagger, then Maggot is probably seeming too much of a tattler, so let's relax. Both are legitimate folks with legitimate points of view, and both are trying to do what is best for Wikipedia. Geogre 11:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well said. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If any closing administrators have anything to add to what I said at User talk:SynergeticMaggot#Speedy_keeps, please do. Uncle G 13:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy anything bugs me, unless it's an article that fits one of the already defined categories of "speedy delete." There is no CSK, just CSD. Festina lente, as the man said. Speedy keep, of all things, should be very, very rare, and only when dealing with WP:POINT violations and vandalism (nominating Carl Jung for deletion, e.g., because your favorite guru's article got deleted). Geogre 13:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, it would be nice if we could speedy keep things like this. Unfortunately, any attempts to cut that down are consistently shot down, so it tells me that people are indeed interested in the process as long as it suits them. That inconsistency is not a net positive for building this encyclopedia. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come on! It's an honest difference of philosophy, so calling folks hypocritical isn't really helping, you know? It's true that most people put the burden of proof on the article and some on the people who believe that an article should be deleted, but the status quo always has an inherent virtue of working. Speedy keeping is often "stop talking," just as "speedy delete" is, and that's why neither should be used except in very narrowly defined circumstances. Geogre 15:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

My two cents as an observer: Badlydrawnjeff has moved from stalking to harassment. He's been told by SM that SM does not agree with his opinion and has stated his intention to continue to bring it up on SM's talk page anyway. BDJ should just drop it, or if he thinks the article should be deleted, relist it. Nagging someone on their talk page is extremely rude when it clear that neither one's arguments have or will change the other's mind. —Hanuman Das 14:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Jerkcity (talk · contribs)

I had a recent unpleasant interaction with Jerkcity (talk · contribs). After digging into his contribs I found some abusive edits. Most are old, so I wasn't sure it was worth posting here, but an admin I asked on IRC said the recent summaries warranted a note on ANI. So here is what I found:

The following are either incivil/abusive edits or have abusive edit summaries. 23 Sep 2005 9 Mar 2006 9 Mar 2006 9 Mar 2006 10 Mar 2006

This is the removal of a spam warning. This is perhaps just weird. This is an exchange I had with him about the rotten.com links; he later deleted this. Edit summaries for this exchange weren't complimentary; e.g. this one.

He then got a civility warning from Gadfium; he responded with this diff, deleting it, again with an abusive edit summary.

He's not particularly active, but some of those edits seemed extreme, so I thought it was worth letting people know about him. Mike Christie (talk) 03:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I reviewed his august 2006 edits (21 edits). He contributed some pics of toilets. Apparently he thinks links to rotten.com have more value than you do (you want to delete some, he objects). He called you fat. You respond with the above. WAS 4.250 04:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't have posted here on the basis of just those, though "lick it" isn't very civil, but another editor (a woman) found this edit summary, among others, alarming. She was planning to take a look at the rotten.com links to see if they were spam, and had started to do so when he objected on her talk page. I don't know if she plans to proceed, but her concern about the edit summaries seemed real to me. I asked for another opinion on #vandalism-en-wp, and got the response that the recent summaries warranted a note here. So here they are. Mike Christie (talk) 04:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

"Girls not allowed to edit Wikipedia?" What a weirdo. Most of his edits have these bizarre or disgusting edit summaries. He edits very sporadically though; I think it would take a community block of at least 2 weeks to a month for any message to be received (though that may very well be a lost cause.) A month-long block seems harsh but for someone who contributes relatively infrequently but this requires a creative solution. We shouldn't have to put up with this kind of misogyny. Your thoughts? Grandmasterka 06:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the fellow seems to be inspired by the Jerky Boys, and he enjoys that kind of alledged humor, so disruption seems to be where his jollies lie. If he's gotten sufficient warnings, he probably should get a bit of a virtual punch in the nose (reference to defending against sharks, not a threat (one has to be explicit these days)). Geogre 11:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

misogyny? Amorrow sock perhaps? «ct» (t|e) 01:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Poll threatens to violate "use common names"

This "binding" poll is using majority voting to establish naming conventions that, as of now, fly in the face of established conventions. Using "Michigan M-1" for a highway named M-1 violates both our naming conventions and common sense. Of course you my disagree, in which case you should "vote" too. Because all that matters is a numerical majority. --SPUI (T - C) 04:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't really understand how this requires administrator intervention... frankly, posting to AN/I about it seems like spamming for "votes". --W.marsh 04:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It requires someone to burst the bubble and inform them that a poll like this is not the answer. --SPUI (T - C) 04:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This sort of thing is exactly the sort of thing which could make me go over there and change my position, just out of a fit of spite. I think your position is the better of the two choices, SPUI, but it's not a choice between RIGHT and WRONG as you cast it. It's a series of tradeoffs. The most critical thing, as you and your antagonists have shown us over the course of countless months, is that without a standard -- even an arbitrarily-chosen one -- you or they will continue to drive all of us insane. (And all regarding an endless series of articles that I personally wouldn't even rate as encyclopedically notable. Sigh.) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for helping prove that polls are evil - you can change your vote and affect the result for petty reasons that have nothing to do with the actual dispute. --SPUI (T - C) 05:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if the vote is close and I'm on the losing side, I intend to change my vote because I think it is far more important to end this nonsense than which side wins. WAS 4.250 06:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I greatly admire SPUI's purity and dedication and commitment and logic. I just hope he has what it takes to accept to accept that sometimes it is better to accept something and move on rather than fight forever over small potatoes. It is time to end the battle over naming US state highways in either a consistent way across fifty states or else however they are most usually refered to within each state. so to finally bring this to a conclusive end, I urge everyone to think about it enough to make a choice and then vote in the matter prior to aug. 31 so we can bring this weird tempest in a teapot to a close. WAS 4.250 05:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Neither option is a "consistent way across fifty states". The first one is a bloody stupid in-between option. --SPUI (T - C) 05:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

At present M-1 (Michigan), M-1, M-1 (Michigan highway), Michigan State Highway 1, M-1 (MI), and Woodward Avenue all point to this page or a disambig that can get you there. Throwing more redirects at it for 'common name(s)' and/or 'consistent Wikipedia specific standard(s)' seems unlikely to hurt anything. Obviously there could still be dispute over the actual name used for the primary page, but is that really so vital if users get to the right page / can use whatever linking name they prefer? --CBD 13:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Many people, noobs and veterans alike, make links, change links, and bold text corresponding to the article title rather than the actual name. Sometimes this is done because of a misunderstanding (willful or otherwise) of our practices, but often it's because people don't know the name offhand. If you are writing an article about a town in Maryland and want to write about Maryland Route 3, what do you write in the text? Would saying "Maryland Route 3 runs through Foo" be redundant? Would saying "Route 3 runs through Foo" be improper? How do you know if "Maryland Route 3" is bolded because it's the common name or because someone felt the Maryland should be there because it's in the title? You'll probably end up saying "Maryland Route 3", which in this case is correct. ("Route 3" is also correct here, by the way.) But in other states, the opposite is true. "The town of Foo, Florida is at the intersection of Florida State Road 50 and Florida State Road 19" is horribly redundant. Or even worse - the suggested form "Michigan State Trunk Highway 1 runs through Bar, Michigan", when no one, local or otherwise, calls it anything but M-1. But people write like this all the time, because the article is located there, and they either don't know better, are lazy, or think they have to write the whole title when linking. ("Florida State Road A1A runs next to the Atlantic Ocean, roughly parallel to US 1 for much of its path through Florida."; "As of 2004, the highway's eastern terminus is in Jacksonville Beach, Florida at an intersection with Florida State Road A1A three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean."; Little Talbot Island State Park is a Florida State Park located on Little Talbot Island, 17 miles northeast of Jacksonville on Florida State Road A1A." (Florida State Park may be redundant here too); "The John C. Lodge Freeway (Michigan State Highway 10) in Detroit is named in his honor.") --SPUI (T - C) 13:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Since polls are evil, and since the current process is flawed, and since there's only one user on here who has expertise on highways, why not just block anyone who's ever worked on a highway article under the wrong name? (After all, working on highways under the wrong name is disruptive, and we need to block people who cause disruption.) Besides, since the discussion is on WP:AN/I, the only real enforcement mechanism is a block, not another discussion. --Elkman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, the concern about "losing good editors" as a result of this dispute isn't really a concern. Anyone who's edited highways under the wrong name is prima facie a bad editor. And Wikipedia doesn't need any more bad editors. --Elkman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:56, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

SPUI, if you don't want a poll, what do you want to do? Can you think of another solution to this mess? --physicq210 17:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what argument "The John C. Lodge Freeway (Michigan State Highway 10) in Detroit is named in his honor." is supposed to represent. If the wording were "The John C. Lodge Freeway (M-10) in Detroit...," someone unfamiliar with the highway naming convention in Michigan would most likely not understand what "M-10" represents. So if that is an example of redundancy, I 100% disagree. "Michigan State Highway" may not be the proper naming convention, but it is certainly better understood by the everyday reader...and isn't that the audience we're attempting to reach? Homefryes 20:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Also we are basically commanded to come to a consensus. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. This isn't the ideal solution by any means. But after 6 months of no movement on either side to come to a consensus I think it's the only logical and acceptable thing to do. One side will have to be forced to accept the other position and finally drop it. And a vote is the clearest way to do that short of having a Wikimeetup that involves a duel with pistols or some such nonsense. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Moby Dick is back on his harrasment parole

Moby Dick (talk · contribs) is back on his harrasment parole.

• Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Moby Dick and /Evidence

Enforcement of ban on harassment

2) Should Moby Dick violate the ban on harassment, he may be briefly blocked, for up to a month in the event of repeat offenses. After five blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one year. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Moby Dick#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 7 to 0 22:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

--Cat out 10:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

sorry, I can't see how voting Keep with no further comment constitutes 'harrasment'. On the other hand, he is banned from editing Kurdish or Turkish articles - so voting in a related afd is pushing it. But if that's all he's doing, I see no need for discipline. --Doc 11:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

See evidence on the ArbCom case, user has made it a habit to vote on afds I participate in. User is voting on that AFD just because I voted on it. What would constitute as stalking (harrasment) if this doesn't?

Furthermore Arbcom treated Moby Dick as a sockpuppet of Davenbelle who was also found to be stalking me.

--Cat out 11:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd better confess my self. Yes, I committed the same crime [16]. I do seek forgiveness. Bertilvidet 12:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If you are intentionaly stalking me (as it appears you are confessing that). I ask you to stop. --Cat out 13:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered the possibility that we might have similar interests, despite different approaches, and thus have several identical articles on our watchlists? I do believe our occasional disputes wind up with more balanced articles, so I do not intend to stop contributing to articles that also have your interest. And I do not ask you to do so. I regret if you consider my keep vote as an harassment. Bertilvidet 13:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not recal accusing you of anything. You did that yourself. Oh you were actualy told of the AfD, Moby dick was not. I feel his "coincidental" appearance on that afd constitutes as stalking. A full list of coincidences from Moby Dick is avalible at Arbcom/Moby Dick/Evidence page. --Cat out 13:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I've asked Arbcom to clarify whether Moby Dick's ban extends to projectspace on WP:RFAR. If it does then we can stop this without trying to string AfD arguments which don't even mention Cool Cat into a pattern of harrassment. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 12:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked at this last night and decided that it isn't, by itself, a violation of the spirit or word of the remedies in the case; it's an isolated edit. If it should become a persistent pattern of following votes and other edits by Cool Cat, that may merit action. --Tony Sidaway 12:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

When Moby Dick made the suggestion that I was "disrupting kurdish categories". User:Bertilvidet was there quick to verify it. No one, including my own mentor, bothered to even asked my opinion. Archived ANB/I discussion. Later on an admin was quick to block me for that. The block alowed me to notice what Moby Dick had been doing (stalking). It had taken me roughly a day to gather the evidence and present it first to ANB/I and later to arbcom. The arbitration hearing had recently closed concluding that Moby Dick was indeed stalking me and one other user.

Arbcom also treated Moby Dick as a sockpuppet of Davenbelle. Davenbelle is banned from politics related articles as per a previous arbcom hearing. Moby Dick is banned from kurdish related articles. Thats two reasons why he should not be any near that afd. Furthermore he is banned from harrasing (stalking) me as per official WP:HA policy and as per an arbcom hearing. Two more reasons why he should not be any near that AfD.

Now we are back at square one with everyone being so protective of Moby Dick. I had enough of this stalking for one and a half years. Users entier contrib for the past week plus is that vote. He did not accidentaly discovered it now has he?

--Cat out 13:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

As per clarification from arbcom. Moby Dick has violated Enforcement #1. --Cat out 22:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

He's been put on notice to avoid anything to do with Turkey or the Kurds. --Tony Sidaway 13:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Subhash bose has been blocked for 1 week

This is a long standing issue. User:Subhash bose (Nataji) has been blocked 6 times since July 7th for 3RR vios, for violating NPA and other offenses. He came off this last block on the 19th. Since then, he's done such things as call User:Geek1975 and any other user who has opposed him a "vandal". He's also made edit summaries such as "rv. I kept the facts. Read my damn edits" and "Ahh. the sweet smell of fact distorters in the morning". He's also removed material which can be considered properly sourced. And he's also been incivil by Doing an edit summary in ALL CAPS. And then this morning, he essentially declared that he was going to no longer assume good faith and assume "guilty until proven innocent" if he considers a posting to be a "deliberately false edit". And also today, he has labeled edits to his talk page as "bogus", has struck out comments he hasn't liked. And he has also accused other users of being incivil, which he has done in the past. I decided to block him for a week. Given all of his blocks, I wanted to make it indefinite but I know that many admins don't believe in that for violations such as this and I respect that. If someone wants to extend the block, so be it. But to me, we have a user who has been given multiple chances and yet refuses to follow our rules. And if anything, he's getting worse not better. --Woohookitty^(meow) 14:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

And he keeps on calling me anti-Semitic. BhaiSaab ^talk 16:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Good work on the part of User:Woohookitty here. Hopefully when Subhash bose (talk • contribs) returns he/she'll be inclined to work with more civility towards making this great encyclopedia even better. (→Netscott) 16:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, see Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Subhash bose for compelling evidence that he's sockpuppeteering. A checkuser is pending as well. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 16:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Although I have not tracked down similarities in their edits, given the interaction between this user and Bakasuprman (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) I wouldn't be surprised if there was puppetry afoot there especially in light of this diff on Subhash bose's talk page. (→Netscott) 17:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How am I a sock? Netaji was active on 21 and 22 when I was playing golf in Warm Springs. The diff merely tells him that I was planning to go on wikibreak. Also, I feel these accusations should be treated as personal attacks, because they hurt users. The Muslim users are trying to get Hindu users out of the way.Bakaman _Bakatalk 17:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Syiem and RSudarshan have both been blocked by Kilo-Lima as socks of Subhash bose. I'm not sure about Bakasuprman, since he hasn't been edit warring on Indian nationalism. Keep an eye on him just in case, though. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 17:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Per the ruling here and at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Subhash bose, I have extended the block to 15 days. Iolakana•T 17:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

He has contested that these are not his sockpuppets on User_talk:Subhash_bose. I suggest you guys do a checkuser, and if it fails to confirm cases of sockpuppetry, reduce his block to 1 week. BhaiSaab ^talk 19:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

RFCU is currently in progress. Iolakana•T 20:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks for all of the help. It's always appreciated! :) If he is sockpuppeting, I'll increase the block. The user doesn't seem to respect our rules one iota, so I suspect this to continue for awhile. Again thanks for the backup everyone. --Woohookitty^(meow) 00:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wondering if anyone agrees with me on this. I think it's time to lock the user's page. It's being used to attack others and for others to attack the user. He had put up a couple of requests to go onto the suspected sockpuppet page. But it looks like he's finished now. At this point, I think it's time to lock the page and give him time to cool off before he and others make this situation even worse than it already is. Thoughts? --Woohookitty^(meow) 07:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I am impressed with the promptness with which violations are dealt with at Wikipedia. Hope Wikipedia continues with its great job. Thanks. --Geek1975 07:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair use violation on {{Infobox Australia}}

{{Infobox Australia}} has a fair use violation with the use of Image:Aust Coat of Arms (large).jpg. This image is clearly tagged with a fair use tag. Currently, the removal of the image from the template 'breaks' the template, in that a portion of it fails to visually display in a pleasing way. Nothing functional about the template is broken.

Several users (User:Szhaider, User:Cyberjunkie, and User:Petaholmes) keep re-inserting the image into the template, in violation of Wikipedia:Fair use criteria item #9, which specifically proscribes the use of fair use images in templates, even if legal under law. Petaholmes in particular insists this usage is fair use [17][18] and is not problematic [19]. I have explained to Petaholmes that this is not a permitted use, and pointed him to where he can go to get a fair use exception (though such exceptions are exceedingly rare).

I have noted both to Cyberjunkie and Petaholmes that this template, while 'broken' by the removal of the image, is actually broken in its use of the image. It should be re-written to avoid the use of the image, or {{Infobox country}} should be used instead. In the meantime, the image should be removed from the template. It is not arguable to say, in essence, "We violated your copyright because our template did not look right without it, and we wanted it to look right until we developed an alternative". Petaholmes is currently arguing that I am bizarrely targeting this infobox and that the image should remain until we develop an alternative [20].

As it stands now, the image is still on the template in violation of our policies. Failing an exception being granted for this case (which as noted above is unlikely), it needs to be removed from the template, regardless of whether the template looks nice without it or not. I would appreciate it if a previously uninvolved admin would please remove the image again, and leave a warning to the effect of fair use violations being improper to anyone who attempts to revert the removal again. --Durin 14:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I note that this isn't the only template that you have attempted to destroy in your endless quest against coat of arms images appearing in templates. In many cases, coats of arms images are in the public domian, and can't be copyrighted- so there is no problem in using them in templates. I would say this is true of the Australia arms. Can't you find something more productive to do, or at the least work round your identified issue instead of mindlessly deleting valid content? Astrotrain 14:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• All contributions to Wikipedia done with good intent and within our policies are welcome here. I'm sorry you feel that this is "mindless", an "endless quest", unproductive and having identified issues. If the images in question which you feel are in the public domain are in fact so, then by all means please go and fix the tagging of those images to reflect that with proper sourcing to confirm the status, rather than assaulting me for properly removing images under our fair use policies. --Durin 15:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The copyright status of the image is a rather interesting question. At the moment it is listed as fair use which is probably the safest option if we want to avoid some rather messy parts of international law.Geni 15:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• It is an interesting question, and one that we should satisfactorily resolve so that all coats of arms images of all countries can be properly tagged with whatever comes of the research into this legal area. We've done our homework on country flags. We need to do the same on country coats of arms, rather than make a presumption (as some have done) that they are in the public domain. Until we know they are in the public domain for a fact, we need to treat the tags as authentic unless we have some verifiable, sound reason for re-tagging them under a free license tag. --Durin 15:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed about the tagging. Aren't Coats of Arms defined by the proper heraldic description ("Sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper; motto: As my Whimsy takes me") and the concrete rendering is up to the artist? So there are a number of questions here:

1. Is any given description under copyright? If not, we can have someone rerender the description to get a free image.
2. If yes, is the actual rendering a derived work under copyright (I'd argue no...)? If not, we can again have someone rerender it.
3. Is the actual rendering a creative act and hence protected? (It might depend on how formulaic the rendering is)
4. Are there any renderings for a given coat of arms that are public domain? For most jurisdictions and most coats of arms this is probably true, as they are fairly old. But things like Crown Copyright might interfere.

--Stephan Schulz 15:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• If the images are currently listed as fair use, it's inappropriate to use them in userspace. Until we determine otherwise, they should be removed from the templates. --Improv 16:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Try that, Improv, and you will generate the mother of all edit wars with users from every country they are used, and people working on every article they are used, reverting their removal en masse. You are talking about triggering off a Wikipedia-wide war on the issue. Merely touching one sparked this row here. Can you imagine the results if you try to take the coat of arms from the UK template, the French template, the Irish template, the American template, etc etc. It would be an exceedingly silly thing to do. Get the guys in the foundation to get legal advice on their status and if they are legal put a note to that effect in our rules. Frankly the Australian row right now would be like a kiddie's tea party compared to the backlash that would occur all over Wikipedia if it was attempted, unilaterally, to remove coats of arms from boxes. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 16:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, the US arms are not fair use but public domain, but I have no idea about the others. However, we have a firm rule against using fair use images in Templates, and if the images are tagged fair use, they have to go. If you can find public domain or other compatible copyright images, please use them, but threatening a war over a non-negotiable rule set by Jimbo is counterproductive. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• If they're violating policy in an area that breaches legal safeguards we've established for ourselves to stay well away from legal contention, then they should get a stern talking to. It's not so unilateral if established, sensible policy is behind it. --Improv 17:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

If people edit war to be unfree content back into template space, just protect the templates and explain that we don't use unlicensed images to decorate our templates. It's not obvious to me what kind of "row" that would cause beyond normal irritation about unfree image cleanup, or why we need to worry about it any more than our removing logos from userspace, or any other activity unpopular with people who would prefer Wikimedia projects to have a different approach to copyright and licensing.

Not all coat of arms designs are in the public domain. Any rendition of such a design is a derivative work, and cannot be released under the kind of free licensing that we want. We must therefore claim Wikipedia:Fair use on the rendition. In those cases in which the description is "in the public domain" (very loosely speaking here), we need to make our own renditions, as we don't claim Wikipedia:Fair use on things that we can potentially create on our own. The fact that there are other requirements upon the usage of coats of arms in various different jurisdictions that have nothing to do with copyright is something that we seem to have so far been comfortable ignoring. A further complication is that there are coats of arms in which there is only one "official" rendition and we cannot create our own and maintain accuracy. We can't ask User:Brad Patrick to make some sort of blanket declaration on whether coats of arms are "okay" or "not okay", because each individual coat of arms is going to require a minimal level of research. We'll muddle through, I'm sure. Jkelly 17:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't get it. It's a single-use template. Subst it. --SPUI (T - C) 17:27, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• Concur with User:SPUI. Another alternative; User:J Di implemented a variable calling [21] in the template, so that the rendering of it has the coat of arms if called with the name of the coat of arms. This satisfies the requirements of our fair use policy.
  • This seems like an excellent solution. I'm willing to help with migration to this solution if everyone finds it acceptable and someone points me at the list. Drop me a note on my talkpage if you want help here. --Improv 18:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• I also agree with comments of others above; even if it does touch off a war, it's not a reason to not do the right thing. Ascertaining what the right thing to do is a case by case basis that needs some level of research to achieve.
• Also, echo what User:Jkelly said. Various jurisdictions have restrictions on how images can be used. Whether they have a legal leg to stand on doesn't, in my opinion, seem to be the central point we need to consider. The use of such images, if done clearly under a reasonable fair use claim, gives us an affirmative defense and response to those entities who voice concern to us about violating their usage restrictions. Use on userpages and other non-main namespace areas brings no value to the project and exposes us to complaints that would leave us with less of a reasonable response to those entities. If the images are in fact under a free-license, let's tag them as such and move on. If not, let's be conservative. --Durin 17:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Australia coa.png here at en is covering up commons:Image:Australia coa.png (which I didn't notice when I tried to insert the Commons version into the template discussed above). The version here at en, apart from questions about our ability to license the image and Australia's restriction usage, has no information about the source of the rendition, the artist of that particular rendition, or the license the creative aspect is under. Is there any reason not to delete it? Jkelly 18:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• No, with the caveat that vector-images.com has made mistakes, and I don't think we should be capitulating our copyright free decisions to them. See [22]. --Durin 18:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Jkelly 19:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if I've missed something, but was there a consensus to move what was in the template to the Australia article then delete what was in the template space? I think this is a bad idea, as people that want to edit the Australia article are going to have to go through heaps of stuff just to get to the first word. _{talk to} JD ^{wants e-mail} 01:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• The template was used only on one article. In such cases, it is normal to have the template code placed on the article, and the template deleted. --Durin 12:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The arms is in the Public Domain copyright wise. The arms, according to the Australian Government, was created in 1921 due to a Royal Warrant. Since this was a government work, it will be 50 uears since creation before it can become public domain. So 1921 + 50 = 1971. It has been over 30 years since the copyright has expired. So it is safe to replace the arms photo drawn by Vector-Images. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 01:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

What Zscout said, plus most other countries (including the United States, Russia, and United Kingdom) all directly use the infobox country template and did not use a separate just for the infobox. Evidence for the PD is provided on Image:Image:Aust Coat of Arms (large).jpg by Zscout and just a little by me. Though the image, like the canadian flag, may be restricted for certain uses by national laws. Kevin_b_er 02:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• If this particular graphical representation of the arms is from 1921, then I agree. But, understand that the coat of arms is a description. Graphical representations of it can be made by anyone, anytime. It is important to know what the source of the image to properly understand what the dating on it is. Even if the coat of arms is updated in 1921, I could create a graphic from that description today, and claim some rights to the image. That's why having the source is important, so we can verify the status. Without it, we are presuming the image is from 1921 which could be a false presumption. In this particular case, we have capitulated our decision about the copyright decision to vector-images.com, which has made mistakes before. I think this is improper, and have noted this elsewhere. I plan on doing some more general research into this in the future. --Durin 12:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Mattisse

Mattisse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has gone on a rampage prodding and tagging articles simply because they are linked from Starwood Festival and WinterStar Symposium. The Starwood Festival is an extremely notable event in the pagan community which has been occuring annually since 1981. It features many notable authors in the pagan community. True, the articles read like promotional material, but this can be fixed. And yes, some of the authors linked are not notable and should be deleted. But Mattisse is not bothering to discriminate between notable and non-notable individuals, and is prodding and tagging longstanding articles about notable authors without doing any research, checking Amazon, etc. He appears to be on an anti-pagan vendetta. -999 (Talk) 17:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not the only example of this behaviour, I have been a victim as well in an article about software of all things. He tagged up AppleShare with innappropriate tags, and (as is too common) failed to put any reasoning for the tags in the talk page. When I removed them and asked him to post his reasons, he re-tagged with a PROD notice instead. I have asked him on several occasions to explain his logic, but invariably he instead comes up with other (equally invalid IMHO) complaints.

His talk page and edit list are filled with examples of similar PROD tagging, literally dozens today alone. It appears he has good intensions, but seems unwilling to do the legwork required to tag articles correctly, and then gets upset when someone calls him on it. I believe a block is in order, but because I have "had words" with him prior to this (note to self: check talk pages carefully and don't take things personally!) it could be construed as bias. Suggestions? Maury 18:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I see no indication of this in the page history for AppleShare. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 23:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like AppleSearch is the article Maury meant... —Hanuman Das 09:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that's a whole 'nother ball of wax, isn't it? In that case, I have to say that missing citation tags don't seem unreasonable to me, since the article does not include any reliable sources, just references to Apple-produced documents. I wouldn't agree with the suggested merge, but that's not a hanging offense. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought WP:V allowed for the use of self-published documentation as long as it was only used for an article about the piece of software involved. Of course, it'd be nice to have third-party refs in addition, so I also don't seem a problem with "citation needed" tags. However, I think the OP was referring to actions further back in the history involving multiple placements of tags and prodding the article, which seems a bit extreme to me. —Hanuman Das 13:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you have missed the crux of my complaint. First there was the drive-by tagging, which added tags that took up half the page. ONE of these tags complained about citations. None of them included any comment on the talk page. I asked Mattisse to clarify, and removed the tags (while improving the article with a number of minors, including new refs). When I returned, the page had a PROD on it. In the talk page was a completely different set of complaints, none of which addressed the original four tags. It snowballed from there, with comments left on other users pages about how I "refused" to add references, even though they were already there in the first place. And now the article is sprinkled with CITEs on seemingly random points, again, with no explaination of what he/she wants a cite for (for instance, that first one in AppleSearch, what exactly is the cite being asked for?).

This particular article doesn't even really bother me, and Mattisse has apparently lost all interest in it (and apparently the wiki in general, although that claim has been made before as well). The real issue here is that when I investigated his/her other edits, the VAST MAJORITY are PROD tags, the vast majority of those with no comment on the talk page. Many of those, including dozens yesterday, have no basis other than Mattisse found them by following What Links Here from a page. He/she PRODed Wolfe for instance, even I know this guy from the physics world.

The pattern is clear: first a whack of tags is added to an article with no explaination whatsoever. When an editor removes these and asks for clarification, Mattisse immediately hits the article with a PROD. When the user removes that, Mattisse complains on other people's pages that the author is being uncooperative, and then smacks the article with CITEs.

This behaviour is disruptive and counterproductive.

By the way, how is it you feel that TidBits is an "Apple-produced document". And what's wrong with referencing Apple-produced products about an Apple product? Maury 13:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

In response to your question on my talk page, I have attempted to clarify some of my remarks about self-published sources on your talk page. As for the initial tags, most of them seem fairly reasonable. The article didn't have in-line citations or clearly reputable third-party sources, and some passages (such as "Sadly when AppleSearch was released, Rosebud did not ship with it. Of course the utility of a newspaper engine given only local text files to search from is likely limited, but with the coming of the web the product would have had some utility. Even modern news aggregators generally don't offer the display quality or ease of use of Rosebud, which dates to around 1991.") were written in an un-encyclopedic tone. She proposed that it be deleted after you removed these tags without addressing the underlying issues (which have since been largely addressed), and while a Prod may have been a bit extreme, she was within her rights to do so if she felt that the article was unsalvagable. As for TidBITS, I do not consider it a reliable source because the section in question was not published in a print medium, but rather an e-mail newsletter. It might be a partial qualifier given the authorship of the newsletter, but it's a debatable point. The source in the trade publication appears to be derived from an Apple press release, making it equally debatable, and the Czech website is pretty clearly unreliable. The good news is that there probably ARE better sources out there for this article, given the abundance of third-party publications about Apple and the Mac; they just need to be found and included. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to backtrack a bit on the Software Industry Report citation. It looks a bit more reputable on second glance than I'd initially supposed, though better sourcing in the article would still be a plus. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Mattisse seems to have a thing about Wiccan claims. He also has gone after Margot Adler several times, tagging it but (so far) refusing to discuss why he applied the tags.

Atlant 18:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

p.s. User:Mattisse is a she, formally know as User:KarenAnn. --Salix alba (talk) 14:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Strenuous Protest

I am lodging an objection to 999 (talk · contribs)'s conduct in trying to unduly influence Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philip H. Farber. 999 writes:

Note - nominator has an active complaint against her from two parties on WP:AN/I for inappropriate tagging, prodding, etc. over two separate vendettas she is conducting, one against pagan authors, so yes, this is relevant. -999 (Talk) 18:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

That is a blatant ad hominem argument. An AFD is meant to be an impartial discussion on the article's merits in accordance with Wikipedia:Policies and Guidelines. 999's personal opinion of the nominator, Mattisse has no place there. Quite frankly, I am appalled by 999's conduct in trying to unduly influence and interfere with an AFD discussion related to this dispute. --  Netsnipe  ^(Talk)  18:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• On this, you get a great big Amen from me. AfD's should go as they go. If someone nominates an obvious keep, it'll get keep votes. An absurd nomination will achieve a quick result. That people view AfD nomination as an hostile act is understandable, but AfD is not an arena. The nominator's character has little to do with the consideration, and listing things for AfD is only evidentiary if they're engaging in some massive WP:POINT violation. This isn't one. Geogre 19:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Formats, date

I'm puzzled. I changed the date format from International Dating (12 March 2004) to American Dating (March 12, 2004) in an article concerning an unambiguously American subject, and an editor has changed it back!

It's not as if this user is ignorant of the discussion on this subject, so I'm wondering what's going on here? I'd like to think it was an honest mistake, but that's too much for me to swallow. --Jumbo 21:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The convention is to use Yankee spelling/punctuation/grammar on Yankee articles and proper spelling/punctuation/grammar on British articles and likewise on articles that would tend to derive from those linguistic origins. In this case, it's an article about an American, so the American date system is used. Note that because the dates are wikilinked, provided you have your Special:Preferences set properly (see date/time) it will be rendered to you in the way you prefer. -Splash - tk 23:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Weeeellll, the American for Americans and British for Brits thing is more like a gentleman's agreement than an actual policy. Folks violate it pretty often, but the key thing is that, if there is a dispute, it's a guideline. People who war over orthography are pitiable to me. Warring over date formats would require an even greater bur in one's saddle. Geogre 01:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, up to a point. What concerns me is an understandable focus by editors on editors as end users. In fact, most users of Wikipedia are readers who do not have accounts and thus do not have date preferences set. For far too many articles they see dates in the "wrong" format (and it goes beyond U.S. vs U.K.; most tof the world's nations use Inteernational Dating rather than American Dating), or worse, a confusing jumble of formats, including un-linked dates. We should be editing, not for our peers, but for the main users of the Wikipedia - the general internet public. --Jumbo 06:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Surely everyone using the world wide web has already experienced this "confusion" and knows how to do the mental athletics necessary for converting? I don't see how this should be a big deal. Most of our users are readers, I agree, but Americans are still probably dominant among them, and, if they're not, they're close to a majority. If Americans are more insular, innocent, and possibly uneducated, then we would need to be more protective of them than other nationals, if we make the argument that discomfiture of the reader is a reason to change the editing rule. 12:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo's recent comments at Wikimania about improving quality are particularly relevant here. Are we going to be happy with a slap-dash, more or less, bit of this bit of that, encyclopaedia? Or are we going to have something we can really be proud of? I hate to be anal about fine details in the Manual of Style, but if we are going to present a polished product, it's only through the MoS that we are going to achieve it so that we are all singing from the same sheet. --Jumbo 18:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

With that last independent clause I disagree entirely. It is not a volunteer assembled encyclopedia if there is an editorial board enforcing style sheets. In many prestigious publications, essays submitted by scholars will have local variation (festschrifts, e.g.). Unless a person is actually wrong, I don't believe they should experience correction, and I also don't think that we will be "slapdash" by having variation in trivial matters like orthography (especially since the "American" orthographic reforms were all British reforms until Noah Webster made them and then suddenly were anathema) and date formats. Geogre 19:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

We had this discussion earlier and the overwhelming view was that Jumbo was doing the right thing with these stylistic changes. I think changing them back simply for the sake of changing them back is something we should disapprove. Let Jumbo get on with this. Whether it is high priority is open to debate, but it is not work that anyone should be trying to frustrate. Metamagician3000 23:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I thoroughly agree. The worst is when there are several formats in the same article, but overall it is something we should have consistent across the project. --Guinnog 00:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've left a warning on the talk page of the relevant editor. Metamagician3000 00:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that you'd leave me a "warning" for objecting to Jumbo's changes. It's not at all clear that there's a consensus for his programmatic changes; in fact I'd say the discussion here tends toward the opinion of tolerance of different dating systems and against his unilateral Wikiwide program. There is no provision for such enforcing of uniformity in the manual of style. To be warned about this on an article on which I am the only substantive contributor, and which seems to have been chosen by Jumbo for precisely that reason, is particularly galling. - Nunh-huh 00:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The consensus is unambiguous. Galling or not, as it is an American topic, under the MoS it is supposed to use American English and American Dating. It is crystal clear. Meta's warning was completely correct. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 01:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The question of consensus most emphatically is ambiguous because of the issue of quorum, which is always unsolved on Wikipedia. What tends to happen is that some of the wire-pulling topics (particularly MoS, but also images, copyright tags, etc.) grow contentious and then distasteful to the wide community. The result is that those who care, perhaps too passionately, about enforcing their will on these matters populate the discussions. If they manage to agree with each other, it's a blue moon, but it's also not representative. To some degree, the low participation rate in MoS debates is a testimony of the "no preference/no uniformity" position. The only people who will participate are interested first and foremost in a uniform presentation, so the broader question, "Should we all have to follow exactly one format?" is begged. Geogre 01:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no consensus for Jumbo/Jtdirls actions, no matter how many times they say there is. The MoS talks about changing dates only for substantive reasons, and the idea that an article is American and therefore has to have a certain date format is not supported by the MoS, which speaks only about various considerations that might be made by those who write the articles, and does not envision or encourage programmatic changes simply to dates. It is precisely to prevent such arbitrary changes that the date formatting syntax and preferences were devised. It's also clear that Jtdirl's change to the article (to which I am the only substantive contributor) is not an improvement. As he has edited it, it is now rendered for me as "June 19 1793 – 16 February 1882" (The first date is in a format used by no one, as it has no comma.) This is not an improvement over "19 June 1793 – 16 February 1882", the way I wrote it and the way it's been for the past four months. - Nunh-huh 01:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason why Jumbo should not continue to do the valuable wiki-gnome work that he is doing in bringing date formats into consistency with each other and with our style. This has been discussed before on this very board, and it appeared clear that Jumbo was given the green light. We should accept that and move on. I've asked [User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]] to drop this issue for 24 hours on a voluntary basis and then see how he feels - though he has not been receptive to the idea. I'm very reluctant to impose a block on a user with clean record, but I think it will be called for if he continues to disrupt edits that conform to good style and continues to revert pages to stylistically worse versions. Whatever he thinks of Jumbo's actions, there is never a reason (except in extreme cases involving banned users or whatever) to revert on an article on point of style to a worse version as defined by our own policies. Metamagician3000 01:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Enforcing your interpretation of consensus by blocking me would clearly be inappropriate. The version I reverted to was not a worse version. That is your interpretation. - Nunh-huh 01:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

If the point is correct that the comma is not coming out in the American format, then that is a specific different issue and Jumbo obviously needs to do it correctly. Of course, I have no objection to Nunh-huh making that correction if it is needed, or bringing it to Jumbo's attention. If that is the problem, then it was certainly not clear to this point. I would apologise to you for misunderstanding this, but you've had numerous opportunities to raise it before now if it's your only problem. If it is your only problem, then of course I see your point of view. Please clarify this. To clarify what I'm saying: my objection is to any reverts that you make from a properly-formatted version of an "American" article to International Dating (or vice versa). Metamagician3000 01:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The point is correct, but the main point is that it is Jumbo's edits that are disruptive, and, as you have no doubt noticed by now, not universally approved of. His changing of perfectly acceptable format to one he prefers, in an article he's had nothing to do with, as part of a program to enforce style conventions that are in fact not "enforced" but merely suggested as possibilities by the style manual, is inappropriate, and certainly not supported by consensus. His choosing an article, Joseph Earl Sheffield, to which I was the only substantive contributor is, of course, to make a point, and not a very nice point, either. - Nunh-huh 01:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Hang on, isn't this just a basic edit war? Two valid formats. One is American, the other British. MoS supports both. Nunh-huh is reverting to one, and Jumbo to the other, but both are supportable by MoS. I write about British subjects, for the most part, but I use the date format that's natural to me, which is "American." I also prefer to link all dates so that monobook settings will magically make them seem natural to the reader, but we had a similar crusade against linking dates. I had to endure three or so people using -bots to unlink virtually every date, whether a person very much wanted to draw attention to it or not, and now, because they're all unlinked, we're going to get someone else changing from one acceptable format to another? Perhaps it's time for an RFC: "One format for all dates or not?" I'm not a believer in either format, but I have to agree that they're both acceptable, so coercing a change is at least a bit bullying. Geogre 03:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

To the extent that it's an edit war, it's one started by Jumbo who is running a jihad to change date forms. I am resisting the jihad, and agree with you that dates should basically be left as found, rather than changed in a systematic way. If you can think of some other way to discourage this jihad, I am open to suggestions. I had already suggested several times that he try to gauge the feelings of the community on his conformity program, but he decided he didn't need to do this. - Nunh-huh 04:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Can we all please just get along? I'm not for one format or another, except that full dates should all be wikilinked so that they show up correctly in user preferences, and for those users who do not have prefs (which is most of the internet) the dates should be in the appropriate format for the article. Conducting edit wars on date formats as a matter of personal preference is just plain counterproductive. We should be working together on improving the quality of the project, and I'd like to see these sorts of issues thrashed out in the relevant MoS talk pages. My beef here is with people going around and reverting my careful changes because they think I'm on a campaign to change WP to my personal format. I'm not. I change jumbles of dates to uniform wikidates in the correct format as per the MoS. I'd like to have a lot more help in this, actually. --06:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's the latter part of your program (all articles must use the date format suggested by the MoS) that is controversial. There is no agreement that month, day, year must be used on so-called "American" articles, and no where else, and that day, month, year must be used everywhere else. The MoS does not assert that there is one "correct" format, and embarking on a program to enforce suggestions is not justified. The way we "got along" before you began your program is by leaving these things alone, and I once again suggest to you, as others have, that the way to "get along" is to stop making those changes. Change date formats only when there is a mish-mosh of styles. - Nunh-huh 12:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but Nunh-huh says that the date comes up for him in a non-standard form. If that is so, then the method you are using is not correct. I think you are doing the correct thing in-principle, but it actually has to work. Is the problem that you are leaving out the comma? It seems to me that you have a fair bit of support for doing what you're doing, but it's hard to give you that support unless it's done properly (though why Nunh-huh couldn't have simply inserted the comma rather than reverting is mysterious to me). Metamagician3000 09:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, he could be right. Dates shouldn't be displayed in an incorrect format for those editors who have set their preferences correctly.

• [[12 March]] [[2004]] => 12 March 2004
• [[March 12]] [[2004]] => March 12 2004
• [[12 March]], [[2004]] => 12 March, 2004
• [[March 12]], [[2004]] => March 12, 2004

The first two are my preferred formats. I have tested these and they show up correctly for me. The second two have commas included and should show up exactly the same.

With no date prefs set:

• [[12 March]] [[2004]] => 12 March 2004
• [[March 12]] [[2004]] => March 12, 2004
• [[12 March]], [[2004]] => 12 March 2004
• [[March 12]], [[2004]] => March 12, 2004

With date prefs set to International Dating:

• [[12 March]] [[2004]] => 12 March 2004
• [[March 12]] [[2004]] => 12 March 2004
• [[12 March]], [[2004]] => 12 March 2004
• [[March 12]], [[2004]] => 12 March 2004

With date prefs set to American Dating:

• [[12 March]] [[2004]] => March 12, 2004
• [[March 12]] [[2004]] => March 12, 2004
• [[12 March]], [[2004]] => March 12, 2004
• [[March 12]], [[2004]] => March 12, 2004

Is anybody else getting a different set of results? --Jumbo 09:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe the actual problem is that Jtdirl inserted a space character, thusly: June 19. I have not tested it, but I am reasonably sure this is the reason it is rendered incorrectly. - Nunh-huh 12:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, you've been removing the necessary commas from Month, Day, Year dates. This is wrong, since your (purported) rationale for changing the dates is to make them render "properly" for those who are not signed in. - Nunh-huh 18:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Thomist

I am not sure what, if anything, to do about Thomist (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). He seems to be pushing a heavy barrow uphill. Most of his fights seem to be with C56C (talk · contribs). Just zis Guy you know? 21:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Someone needs to do something about this.[23] C56C 22:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Blocked? and I don't even know how to edit.

Today (Aug 21) I tried to click on the featured article, "Sesame Street", and received a notice that I have been blocked from editing because of vandalism. I was not trying to edit and I don't even know how to -- I was simply trying to read the article -- so this blocking for vandalism is a mystery to me.

Maybe someone with a similar IP address should have been blocked and a typo was made.

Would someone please explain why I am blocked from reading this article?

Would you please correct the situation?

Thank you, Brian O'Reilly

You are not blocked now because you were able to edit this page.--Kungfu Adam ^(talk) 23:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

You got an orange bar which you clicked on to find a message about vandalism, I guess. That was probably left there to discourage an earlier user of your IP adress (internet providers move them around their customers regularly). You can disregard it. A block doesn't prevent you from reading articles, only from editing them. (PS. You do know how to edit, since you just did!) -Splash - tk 23:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

This is probably due to your using either AOL or an AOL-owned Internet service provider. They "roll" their Internet protocol (IP) addresses frequently during a given online session. Given the numbers of people on AOL, some of them are bound to be vandals. When they get warned or even blocked, the block will be for a short time (due to the quick rolling of IP addresses) and then you'll be assigned their old IP address and seem to see yourself blocked or warned. Geogre 01:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

In this case the IP was Sympatico in Canada and it has no talk page active. I'm not sure how Brian got the orange message bar unless he actually tried to edit. In this case, it was probably an autoblock caused by a blocked user previously using that IP address. ISPs sometimes change their addressing, or a user can forcibly assign themselves a new address, meaning the old address gets assigned to someone else. You can avoid these messages by registering for a user name, even if you don't plan to edit. If you continue to read wikipedia without logging in, you may continue to occasionally get these warning messages left for the previous users of the IP address you happen to be assigned. Thatcher131 (talk) 01:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

When reading articles this happens when an unregistered user clicks on a redlink instead of a bluelink. FloNight ^talk 15:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Range blocks on Charter et al. by Jayjg vs. Zephram Stark

Jayjg has blocked a bunch of /24s in Charter and other ISPs for long periods, such as a year or indefinite, for the reason "Zephram Stark." I unblocked one range today that had been blocked indefinitely, in response to a complaint. At first glance, this seems like too many IP addresses to be blocking for so long, but I don't really have the time to dig into each. Can others take a look and see if this is the right thing or if perhaps these blocks need to be adjusted? Demi ^T/_C 02:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that this is way to long for a range block in general, since the main reason for a range block is to combat vandals on dynamic ips; although as Demi said, I don't know the specifics of every block, this is just what it seems on the surface.--digital_me^{(Talk•Contribs)} 02:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

As someone who edits from a dynamic Charter IP, I think this is really inappropriate. Anyone who blocks dynamic addresses indefinately, or even for a long time, should review the meaning of dynamic again.

All I see is him blocking a few ranges for a month or 3 (all of those blocks have expired already), and he also blocked a few open proxies. And these were all from May and June... is this really an issue? Cowman109^Talk 02:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The following IP address ranges were blocked for a year or indefinitely, not counting the range I unblocked (yes, this was in April or May, but the blocks still stand, and for range blocks on consumer Internet access allocations, I'm not sure any block should run so long):

• 24.240.62.0/24 - Charter
• 24.240.63.0/24 - Charter
• 206.176.211.0/24 - Datawave Technologies
• 71.10.121.0/24 - Charter
• 71.10.115.0/24 - Charter
• 68.115.11.0/24 - Charter
• 65.145.31.0/24 (6 mos. actually) - Qwest
• 68.115.9.0/24 - Charter
• 68.115.14.0/24 - Charter
• 68.115.13.0/24 - Charter

Demi ^T/_C 03:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Have you asked Jayjg about it? Since he is a checkuser, his is in a position to know if any good editors use those ranges. Thatcher131 (talk) 11:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from Jayjg. There might be a good reason for the blocks (assuming that those ranges have been indefinitely blocked). However, it is difficult to think of any reason for blocking an IP indefinitely unless it is an open proxy. Blocking a range for months is much more difficult to justify, in my opinion, let alone indefinitely. I think one of those blocks might cover one of my relative's IP addresses (they do not edit Wikipedia). I'd have to check, though. If it doesn't cover it, it is pretty close. It might be a good idea to post an explanation to the Administrators' Noticeboard when doing something like that, since people are likely to wonder what is going on when they notice it. :-) -- Kjkolb 12:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Demi, it would have been better to ask Jay about this directly. Bringing issues with other admins here is fine if you can't otherwise make progress, but it shouldn't be the first port of call. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It was a while ago, now, but as I recall Zephram Stark was busy creating all sorts of sockpuppets (at least 125 at last count), and the range blocks were slowing him down. As you no doubt noticed, the longer blocks were all from early April; as you no doubt also noticed, after that I started using shorter blocks. The ranges themselves were small (256 IPs), and typically checked to make sure only Zeprham was using them. The first two on the list, for example, were from a small company that Zephram often posted from. I've unblocked them all now (well, all but the ones that were already unblocked) - thanks for bringing this to my attention, and feel free to approach me individually in the future, as noted in SV's comment. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Eagle 101/WikiVoter

<moved to WP:AN> User:Zoe|(talk) 02:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Joke RFA, please investigate

Please note the creation of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Splinter which redirected to the TMNT character. It was filed by new editor Nobodygotnobiscorotoboto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and featured deliberate confusion between Splinter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and SpIinter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I'm done for the day but some stern warnings and/or blocks should probably be handed out. Thatcher131 (talk) 03:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

205.188.117.13 (talk · contribs) is also involved. AOL of course. Thatcher131 (talk) 03:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

All editors involved have been indef blocked. Sasquatch t|c 05:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Tell me you didn't indefinitely block the AOL proxy, please. Geogre 12:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it's all clear. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Jmac1811

It appears that this user doesn't understand the concept of reliable sources, as shown by his/her recent contributions, such as portraying DJ Mbenga as a future Hall of Famer. Can someone counsel him/her? 04:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Persistent Vandalism on Hipcrime (Usenet)

Dipslime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been persistently vandalising this article. Through several sockpuppets. He's re-uploaded 3 images and continually applies them to the article. Short of full protection on the article, anyone have any suggestions for dealing with this? He's continually blocked, and the images deleted, but creates more and more socks.--Crossmr 04:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yavari Govain (talk · contribs)

theres a pesky one that i havnt been able to get rid of or really found out how to report.

Yavari Govain

she has made consistant vandalism to the richmond california article including more than 3rr to the citys info box particularly the population and square milleage and many racially insensative comments like thats where the rich white people live and making stuff up like calling the 23rd street business ditrict mexico town and renaming the richmond parkway highway 93 when there is no such california state route, however it is a proposal. she has also made lots of vandalism to the North Richmond california page i know she has been yelled at for vandalising the Fairfield California Page she writes terribly and unintelligabley and im sure she has messed up other pages, it hought u might be able to help out.Qrc2006 04:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Well there is the 3rr noticeboard if she's edit warring, the vandalism noticeboard for vandalism, and WP:PAIN if she makes personal attacks. If there is uncivil behaviour, provide some diffs here so that it could be looked at by other editors.--Crossmr 04:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Errr. also hasn't editted in over half a month... Sasquatch t|c 05:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Diana Irey

For the past two weeks a anon IP has been stalking this article. 12.72.119.59 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) keeps putting an [ad] tag on a news report. This has been reverted 5 times.[24] Looking at the contr. history the user is pushing POV at D. C. Stephenson and Madge Oberholtzer. C56C 06:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The IP put it back in. If you visit the talk page and history, a similiar/changing IP has WP:OWN. C56C 06:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed look at the articles for D. C. Stephenson and for Madge Oberholtzer; I was extensively involved in giving them content. Either an edit-gang or one fellow with a several sock-puppets (Grazon?) has subsequently been trying to erase D. C. Stephenson's involvement with Democrats and the Democratic Party. (See the Indiana Historical Society page on their D. C. Stephenson Collection, to which a link has long been present in the External links section of the Stephenson article) for some of the substantiation of Stephenson's ties to both major parties, and earlier to the Socialist Party.) And before C56C (using that account) stepped into the article for Irey, I worked to remove both left- and right-wing spin from that article. C56C nonetheless felt it appropriate to declare the listings of the positions that she'd taken as ad-like, and then to include a critical section which was no less-or-more ad-like. —12.72.119.59 06:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Putting an [ad] tag and reverting it in 5 times is not acceptable in a section discussing her news appearance. Neither is taking quotes from her campaign website and making a section for each issue listed. C56C 07:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Since what was presented was a selective quotation whose cited source was a political advocacy group, it was no less ad-like than the section that you marked as ad-like. In both cases, we are talking about “what she really said”. And, while I cannot peer into the mind of whomever originally created the Political Views section of that article, it was easier to quickly locate political views of peculiar interest when they were subsectioned. Ease of parsing ought to be a consideration in the writing of any article herein.—12.72.119.59 07:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

12.72.119.59 is a stalker troll who needs to be banned. 132.241.246.111 17:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

No. You're systematically editing articles to disparage one major party — going so far as to claim that the Simpson's character of Mr Burns is based on a politician who was unknown when Monty was created — while erasing any unfortunate ties of persons or events with the other major party. —12.72.118.216 04:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

12.72.119.59 someone took the "political views" off her website and was written in her words, thsu I added a [ad] tag. You added a [ad] for a word for word transcript of a national news program. C56C 20:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

First, not only is quoting Irey a legitimate part of presenting her (alleged) views; you continued to quote her in your version. The principal change that you effected was to collapse subsections into a single section (making the article somewhat harder to read). Second, if you'd tracked the actually history of the article, you would see that someone with my same ISP (unsurprisingly: me) had already made numerous changes to the “Political Views” section exactly to removed right-wing spin. Third, as you well know, many ads have used selective quotation. Fourth, it was not even just an excerpt from a pure transcription, but had been tweaked with such things as the (false) use of “conclude” to describe Matthews' final quoted remark.

I doubt that the administrators are going to try to bring edit-gangs such as yours under control; I'm not even sure that they could if they wanted. But if they don't, then Wikipedia will be nothing more that a BBS. Indeed, the term “BBS” will better fit it than it does traditional BBSs, exactly because on those systems, while it might have been hard to find content of value, it was not so readily obliterated. —12.72.118.216 04:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Homophobic fag

Homophobic fag (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This is clearly an inappropriate username. --Signed and Sealed, JJJJust (T C) 08:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Blocked by User:CanadianCaesar. --james^(talk) 08:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, obviously inappropriate names like that can be reported at WP:AIV. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 16:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

2006 transatlantic aircraft plot

Not a report of vandalism, but a request to clean up a mess and protect a page against moves. The page 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot has been moved around alot since it was created due to disputes over the name. The last days people have been very careless in moving it, resulting in loads of unfixed double redirects (all fixed now) and even a situation were the talk page and real page were no longer on the same name:

Article:2006 transatlantic aircraft plot and Talk:Talk:August 10, 2006 alleged transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot (just fixed it by moving the talk page)

I would like to request an administrator to protect this page from moving/renaming until the dispute has been solved. Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 08:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Is already move protected:

07:11, August 22, 2006 Mets501 (Talk | contribs) m (Protected August 10, 2006 alleged transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot: to stop the "move war". Awaiting end of title poll on talk page. [move=sysop])

12:52, August 22, 2006 Mets501 (Talk | contribs) m (moved August 10, 2006 alleged transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot to 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot: back to original title, what most people prefer (per talk page)). --james^(talk) 08:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, hadn't noticed because the talk page was not protected and in the wrong place. Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 08:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User Andykentisi and various Celtic connection theories

User:Andykentisi has been adding some outdated connections to Celtic tribes to articles about Netherlands and Bavaria. Both connections are clearly outdated see Boii and Batavians. It could be genuine contributions (although misguided) or sneaky vandalizm, so I feel I need another pair of eyes and feedback should there be more edits of that kind. Agathoclea 11:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User Yankees76

This user, who is not any level of Wiki member higher than a first day account creator, has left repeated threats on my user talk page accusing me of vandalism, bad grammar, and conducting original research. He has also threatened to have me banned from using my own talk page (sic). Basically the issues are over some bodybuilding and bodybuilding supplement articles (Creatine and Designer Whey Protein). I edited some articles and immediately before even discussing them on the article's discussion page he gave me warnings that I was a vandal (Is immediately calling someone a vandal a civil way to discuss changes?). I reverted the edits with some compromises, gave my reasons and he gave me ominous "Final Warnings" he appears to have created the articles or considers them his pet project. Anyone who edits them is a vandal. Basically his childish hostility is ridiculous. If he had discussed the changes with me it could have been a civil and productive exchange. I am open to compromise. Instead he immediately becomes hostile and threatens people with his imagined powers and then attempts to intimidate them. I am not concerned with who is right or wrong as to just getting this back to a civil and nonthreatening tone. If he had used that manner of conversing from the outset this whole exchange could have been avoided instead he assumes that the cause of all edits of his articles is vandalism and destruction of the articles. The amazing thing is the changes are picayune and harmless. How anyone could get so worked up about them is beyond me. One brand of protein is or isn't a top-seller one creatine formula is the only product shown to do such and such in studies. The way he responds with immediate threats and accusations is overboard and assumes motives I am alien to.Quadzilla99 12:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Please provide some diffs. Your user talk page contains just one message (from you) right now, and I don't see much discussion from either of you on the talk pages of the articles concerned. Powers ^T 12:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just read through the Creatine talk page and it appears he also threatened to have another user banned (sic). I do not see him on the list of administrators. It appears he likes to intimidate editors with false claims citing his imaginery powers. This is not a productive way to discuss articles although if people believe it it ensure your changes are the accepted ones. Personally I have used Wikipedia since college and only recently started editing. I have seen very few actual administrators threaten to ban people and use intimidation on people so freely. Please look into this.Quadzilla99 12:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You have to look through the history of my talk page and the edit histories of the two articles. Also the discussion pages of the two articles. There isn't much there that's the point. I don't see enough to warrant calling me a vandal and leaving me warnings on my userpage threatening to have me banned from various activities.Quadzilla99 12:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

After looking at the pages in question, I don't think Yankees76 has acted unreasonably. He's removed unsourced statements from articles, discussed changes on talk pages, and applied standard boilerplate warnings to a user's talk page. Unless I'm missing something ghastly (in which case, as LtPowers said, diffs would be helpful), this seems like exactly the sort of content dispute that doesn't belong here. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't beleive I was acting unreasonable at all. The 'threats' are simply first-level warnings, and reminders only (boilerplate warnings). I've not created any of the pages in question (as claimed above), and I fully understand that no ownership of articles is granted to any editor. I've given no vandalism warnings to the user above either - only reminders about POV, providing an edit summary, and about removing legitimate warnings from his/her talk page (and a friendly reminder to check spelling). I've simply done the job of a Wikipedia editor in removing unsourced content, opinion, and edits that are of a non-neutral point of view or contain corporate bias. The language in the boilerplate warnings is beyond my control, and if the user takes offense to the wording, that's not my fault. Yankees76 14:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Zmanm407

Zmanm407 (talk · contribs) has moved his userpage first to Stitchfanboy (in the main namespace) and now User:Zmanm407 AKA User:StitchFanBoy (yes, that's the full title, with two "User:"s). I don't know if this was intended as a poor-man's request for username change or what, but it seems like a bad idea.

Zmanm407 also has a problem with fair use images on his user page; I've removed fair-use images twice, warning him each time, and I'm about to do so a third time. They're different images each time, so he seems to understand that the images I removed aren't appropriate, but fails to extrapolate that to future images he wants to put up. Orphanbot is also a regular visitor to his talk page.

So, assuming that it's inappropriate to move one's user page without a corresponding changed username, could I have an administrator move his user page back to User:Zmanm407 (I can't move over the redirect myself)? Also, maybe this administrator could talk to him about his fair-use image usage? Thanks. Powers ^T 12:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the page back and cleaned up the redirects. Normally even non-admins would be able to undo a move like this, but the page had been moved twice, meaning the software considered the edit history non-empty. I've also left the user a note pointing him to WP:CHU. --bainer (talk) 13:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

MascotGuy's lost cousin?

A user by the name of Kyereh Mireku (talk · contribs) has been vandalising pages related to children's animation and television for quite some time (starting on August 7th). Despite the warnings this account has received, the account has not been blocked yet. Please do so before he or she wrecks havoc all over the target articles. --Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 14:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:71.228.10.185 - repeated abuse, personal attacks, and threats of future vandalism

User:71.228.10.185 has repeatedly abused Wikipedia policies. This user has been warned numerous times by editors and administrators, please see User talk:71.228.10.185. The warnings have been ignored, which has lead to being blocked three times in the last month. Most recently 71.228.10.185 made this edit from 8/21/06 accusing another editor of vandalism in the edit summary but none was apparent. This constitutes a personal attack on User:John Broughton. This has been a frequent behavior, please see 71.228.10.185's contributions. I posted the standard npa template on 71.228.10.185's talk page. In response a severe ad hominem attack was placed on my talk page. Please see Edit from 8/22/06. This edit summary accuses me of belonging to a pedophile group, threatens to revert all of my future edits, admits to sock-puppetry, and uses abusive / profane language. Clearly this user has shown no interest in reforming their behavior. I kindly ask that User:71.228.10.185 be permanently blocked. I realize that is a severe punishment, but I feel it is necessary given the situation. Thank you. Propol 14:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Noted and the IP was blocked for 1 month after it experienced a 1 week block before. There's no way to block an IP indefinitely. -- Szvest 14:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign

Sinagogue of Satan

The talk page on this problematic article (at Talk:Sinagogue of Satan) has been edited to include a redirect link through a South Carolina TV station (to make it look like the Sinagogue has had some coverage from the station, I guess). Not exactly a huge problem, but it worries me that these guys will rumble back to life again. -- Mikeblas 15:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Deleted. Wikibofh_(talk) 15:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Tywright back to removing information

As previously reported here, Tywright (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is back to removing information on the Charlie Crist page after being warned multiple times, I think a block may be necessary. --CFIF ☎ 16:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

He's now back to vandalizing the Tom Gallagher page. He needs to be stopped before his pov pushing goes too far. --CFIF ☎ 16:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone actually care here? --CFIF ☎ 12:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

user:KDRGibby

Hello. Is the person who previously edited under the name of KDRGibby still banned from wikipedia? I have noticed that this same person has made a return under the name of CosmopolitanCapitalist. He is easy to identify because he has the exact same tendentious editing style, dogmatism, intellectual laziness, and horrendous spelling that KDRGibby had; and of course, he's editing the same pages (participatory economics, classical liberalism, etc.), forcing the same lame arguments. Are you aware of this? And if you are, could you please update me on his status at wikipedia? Thanks! BernardL 16:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I blocked this editor as a sock of KDRGibby, who is banned from Wikipedia under his general probation in the case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/KDRGibby. --Tony Sidaway 17:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Concerning Wiarthurhu - community block?

Wiarthurhu (talk · contribs) was recently blocked for a week for personal attacks and disruption, only to come back to continue with incivil edits such as this and this. The user has long been causing disruption on the encyclopedia and is picking out fights with people innapropriately, so I would like to propose a longer community block on him, or would suggest an arbitration case against him. I blocked him for an additional 3 hours for the above comments, but he is beginning to exhaust my patience, at least ;). Cowman109^Talk 17:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

And exhaust my patience, he has. This user has been named in three separate MedCab actions, two of which no one has taken due to Wiarthurhu's pattern behavior of incivility. By my count, there are at least 150 separate instances where Wiarthurhu is in blatant violation of Wikipedia policy. He has engaged in 44 separate violations of WP:CIVIL, 46 separate personal attacks, disrupted the encyclopedia to make a point at least 15 times, and he still can't get the hint after being blocked twice for personal attacks. It's time we do something about this, folks. CQJ 17:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like the time is nigh for high time to get rid of this guy one last time. --Cyde Weys 17:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

A real problem user. I might support arbitration but I doubt it would help much. I would support a community ban. --Tony Sidaway 17:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been keeping tabs on his post-ban behavior. (Full disclosure, I requested the initial MedCab action and posted the RfC on this user). While he's been less blatant in his policy and guideline violations, he's already been responsible for two WP:RS violations, citing a forum and a 1-word model label as sources for disputed statements, as well as several WP:CIVIL violations in his edit comments. --Mmx1 17:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked Wiarthurhu for exhausting the community's patience and disruption. Cowman109^Talk 17:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Cute 1 4 u

This user is part of a complex blocking web and is currently requesting an unblock. I'm passing on it and am curious what the consensus of other admins is on this situation and the block. More information is here[25]. Yanksox 20:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin myself, but I hope my opinion is still valid. :) I wasn't aware that one had to be a certain age to edit Wikipedia, so I think blocking for that is rather odd. A checkuser filed came back inconclusive, so she's probably not the same person as S-man, as was speculated. However, she was in cahoots with S-man and his project to vandalize other Wikimedia projects. So I think that as long as S-man retains his block, Cute 1 4 u should, too, since they were blocked for the same thing. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 20:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I think part of the block was based upon speculation, but in some manners she has exhausted some of our patience with certain actions. I'm not sure if this has to do with age or the possibility of trolling(?). The whole we'll vandalise other projects was the icing on the cake for me, maybe she needs mentorship in order to better understand the project. Yanksox 20:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

She claimed on her talk page that she didn't vandalize, and from what I can tell on Simple Wikipedia, she's telling the truth. Maybe we should reconsider...? --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 21:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

She has impersonated celebrities (see User:Raven Symone), and from what I've seen, she is exhausting the patience of a lot of people. While I do support the indefinite block, the user is just young, so a shorter, several month block may also work. I wouldn't say unblock, but lessen the block? Perhaps. Cowman109^Talk 21:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to lessening the block, but we would also have to consider the other younger users which all seem to be connected to each other. I've been curious about how all of these different users met each other, was it through here, a colberation? I'm not sure, there has been some exhaustion of community patience. Yanksox 21:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I would support a shorter (that is, a definite) block. We should also remember that assuming this person really is the age claimed, it seems to take longer for time to pass when you are young. That said, I'd fully support a permanent ban if there's any further problem behaviour from this user and furthermore, I explicitly agree with what Yanksox says immediately above this. We should also remind the user that Wikipedia is not a social networking site. It's also worth noting that I am probably functioning as a hopeless optimist. --Yamla 21:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

(De-indenting) (edit conflict) Perhaps the Wikipedia Youth Foundation had something to do with them meeting up? They're not the same person, according to CheckUser. But I do agree, their use of Wikipedia as a social networking site was inappropriate. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 21:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Checkuser was inconculsive, not definitive, we don't know wheter or not they are related. Yanksox 21:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you suppose a checkuser should be filed with just S-man and Cute 1 4 u? The others in the first one may have thrown it off... --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 21:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You can try it, I'm don't know how any checkuser will respond. Yanksox 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

((edit conflict)) Here I go again, butting in even though I'm not an admin. I saw all the ruckus on Cute's talk page and have to voice my opinion. From what I can gather, she never vandalized or intended to vandalize an article, project, category, template, etc., on Wikipedia. In light of this, and being WP:BOLD, my suggestion is: block for a short period of time (1 week, perhaps), indefblock her from the other project that she intended to vandalize, and set her up with a mentor (I'll volunteer). Srose (talk) 21:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

That's actually not a bad idea. I don't think she has bad intentions, but merely age-related ignorance. I think mentorship would be a very good alternative to an indefblock - it's worked in the past. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 21:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I fully support this, it's a much better idea than the block alone in my opinion. I also support this for any other user blocked under these terms provided a mentor volunteers (please don't look at me, I'm not good at this sort of thing, though I'll chip in from time to time). I doubt we need anything particularly official set up. We probably need to run this past the original blocking admin, mind you. --Yamla 21:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've notified The Anome. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 21:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I strongly recommend that no one set themselves up as "internet mentors" for eleven year old children named "Cute 1 4 u" without discussing the matter privately with the WF. Jkelly 21:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Whilst well-intentioned, this would be worse that the original problem. Children should only be supervised by their parents or other legal guardians, not random strangers from the Internet, no matter how well-intentioned. I also agree that this issue should referred to the Wikimedia Foundation. -- The Anome 21:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on my part as well. I hadn't thought of the unpleasant legal circumstances. Srose (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a note. Aren't the servers in the US and under US law? Aren't all users required to be 13 years old unless they provide signed consent from their parents? I know Maxis requires anyone who signs up for the BBS that are under 13 years old to have their parents fax in the consent. Anyone found to be under 13 and without consent is banned.--Crossmr 17:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

We should get an answer from the Foundation once and for all about how old you have to be to edit Wikipedia, and therefore interact with other users. I do not think mentorship has to be anything other than communicating through talk pages, so I do not see why anything special would have to be done for it. Some people want all those under 18 or 21 excluded (from comments on the Village Pump), but I doubt that is going to happen. Blocking those that admit to be under 13 would be the most extreme thing I see the Foundation doing. Although, there is the problem of a person who is too young editing through a shared IP with lots of people on it, a dynamic IP or ultradynamic IP (an IP that changes with every page load). Also, there are school IPs that have people with a wide range of ages editing on them, from elementary students, to high school students and faculty. -- Kjkolb 18:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of what the foundation says, if there is law in place wikipedia will need to comply with it at a minimum so working from that is a starting spot. I'm not an American but I often see mention of it on sites hosted in the US, but I don't know the specifics of the law, if anyone has them handy it would be a launching point for a decision.--Crossmr 18:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the world's leading expert on this but I believe this 13-years-old thing only applies if the site wishes to collect personal information from the user (name, age, location, etc). Wikipedia asks for none of that so there's no problem. -- Steel 18:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I found it here [26]. Personally I'm not sure how wikipedia falls under this. We don't necessarily demand personal info to use the site, but on the other hand, we're aware that we do have it (especially if this user can be e-mailed, than we do indeed have their e-mail and fall under coppa).--Crossmr 18:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Age question aside, blocks should be preventative rather than punitive. If she's learned her lesson about sockpuppets, then I think she should get another chance. — Laura Scudder ☎ 18:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

IG Farben Building

There's been coordinated. and rather unpleasant, vandalism from the usual suspects to IG Farben Building this evening: would someone mind taking the offending vandalized revisions out of the article, lest they be used to beat Wikipedia with by the vandals and their friends? The revisions in question are from 21:04, 22 August 2006 to the revision immediately before 21:21, 22 August 2006.-- The Anome

Thanks to Raul654 for sorting this, and also telling me how to use the UI efficiently when there are hundreds of revisions involved. -- The Anome 21:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

AntiVandalBot

Is there anything that stops someone from running an AntiVandalBot, or an AntiVandalBot type script, as an IP? Assuming that the edit summary but was written out, to avoid drawing attention to the bot? Would anyone know the difference?--152.163.100.65 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not possible to write a bot whose contribs don't show up in recent changes, article histories, and the rest of the usual places ... so yes, we would definitely notice it, and would block it. --Cyde Weys 16:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

RfC for Preying from the Pulpit

I think some opinions are needed to end a 3 month old revert war at this article. Mainly it appears that one person and some anon. want to change the POV of this article. As recently as yesterday the POV was shifted.[27] The user who keeps making the reverts has a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Vivaldi ongoing since 20 May 2006 on these articles. Yet, that has not stopped or slowed using these articles as a battle ground.

So if anyone has some extra time to clean up and throw their two cents in visit Talk:Preying from the Pulpit or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Vivaldi to end this. C56C 21:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Vivaldi is like Gastrich without the sockpuppets. Just zis Guy you know? 00:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

AOL proxy pool

Has anyone else noticed that the traditional AOL proxy pool is growing? that IPs in the 152, 64, and 205 are popping up that have never been used before. Is it possible AOL is working towards restoring these to their pre-2004 status as dynamic, rather than proxy ranges? It might mean an end to virtually all AOL related issues if it were true, no more autoblocks, no more vandalbots, not more ceiling cats--152.163.100.65 21:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Jigsaw12

• This user has been causing trouble at the talk page here: [[28]]

I believe he was warned not to do personal attacks again, but he has continued. All I basically said was I disagree with what he posted, and then he replied with a personal attack. His personal attack was cleaned up (because I guess he figured he could get away with it, if it didn't sound so bad). But in either case, it's still a personal attack. RobJ1981 21:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Moe Epsilon gave him his last warning a while ago, and he seems to have stopped. If he starts back up again, report him to WP:PAIN. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 22:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, apparently I can't read dates and times. He, in fact, has made attacks after his final warning. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 22:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

He;s been posting personal attacks for a while now, apparently he sees nothing with calling someone/something "gay". I aska temporary block be placed as you can see through the revision history of Talk:World Wrestling Entertainment roster and his contributions, that he's being just a plain troublemaker. — Moe Epsilon 23:04 August 22 '06

I've given him a 24 hour block. JoshuaZ 23:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Bot running from anonymous IP?

Question: Is it legitimate for a bot to be run from an anonymous IP? See Special:Contributions/71.134.246.54, apparently a bot modifying interwiki links. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Probably got logged out by accident, looks a lot like Cydebot, you might want to ask around--152.163.100.65 22:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • We've had this discussion before, it's adding interwiki links, it was blocked before cautioning it to stop, I've blocked it again, hopefully, it will log in next time. Yanksox 22:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Don't look at me, it's not my bot--152.163.100.65 22:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm not looking at you, I'm just commenting. Yanksox 22:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like User:Escarbot. Someone might want to tell him. pschemp | talk 23:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked further and this probalby isn't Escarbot, but probably is someone else's bot. Anyway, its running the buggy version of Pywikipedia that removes incorrect links so it is blocked indef until an owner comes forward. pschemp | talk 14:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User blanking userpage and political talk pages

Galmiche has been blanking the talk page of the Ron Saxton article and his own talk page after he contested an external link removal. He has been warned, but continues to do this. --Liface 23:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the talkpage removal is the user removing what may be a poorly thought-out response of theirs to an editing conflict. I'm not convinced that it is vital that comment stay on that page. Jkelly 23:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Reporting abuse of tools.

User:Pilotguy is acting like a vandal. He blocked me for creating a page he attempted to delete. What gives? Chuckcidi 0:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• I would say that Chuckcidi has nothing to complain about. Chuckcidi created the article Play Pals as if it were a real company, with no sources or context. After Pilotguy speedy-deleted it, Chuckcidi recreated the article with no improvement. I have redirected it to Child's Play with a note on the talk page. NawlinWiki 00:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Chuckcidi also placed a test message on pilotguy's homepage, for what it's worth. Though pilotguy might provide a better reason for the (indefinite) block on chuckcidi than "out"... --EngineerScotty 00:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Per WP:BITE an indefinite block seems way overreacting in this simple case, and the same thing applies to denying the user to be unblocked. User was editing in good faith and deserves to be unblocked. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 19:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Suspected rôle account

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

This appears to be a rôle account used by multiple people at a company named IAMAS corporation. See the user page for the evidence. Uncle G 00:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

See User:Vilerage/Iamas for more. Uncle G 01:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a role account to me. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

In this case, it doesn't matter if it is a role account as it violates WP:USERNAME. We don't allow accounts that are the name of a company, as their signiture is tantamount to advertising. These names are usually blocked on sight. Spcifically here, "Accounts with usernames that advertise a particular website, company, etc. (e.g. "visit [name of url]" ) are discouraged and may be blocked." The use of this username is tantamount to advertising and has been blocked. I've blocked this account, as it has admitted to be belonging to an employee of the company. pschemp | talk 13:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Vtak

Vtak (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) is a single purpose account associated with St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine, a commerical enterprise located in the UK and currently subject to Arbcom thanks in large part to the actions of ParalelUni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/St Christopher). This editor uses the word "we" when discussing the subject, so admits being associated with the colege in question, which is expicitly listed as not accredited by the British medical licensing authority (the General Medical Council) as well as by at least two US states. Right now his principal objective seems to e to replace the text of {{unaccredited}} with some text about it being accredited by the government of Senegal. Which is nice, but it is located in England and takes most of its students from the USA and it's not accredited in either place. I warned Vtak against edit-warring on this article, due to his evident vested interest, but his response is to assert that others agree (true: but the others are also single purpose accounts), see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/St Christopher/Evidence#Evidence presented by JzG). Anyway, please review the warning I left on User talk:Vtak and reinforce or pacify as necessary in the light of the subsequent revert. Just zis Guy you know? 00:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandal bot from several AOL Ranges

For the past few hours tonight there has been massive vandalism by a user coming from 152.163.100.0/23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · block user · block log), 64.12.116.0/23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · block user · block log), and 205.188.116.0/23 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · block user · block log) and several registered users all blanking pages and replacing them with {{deletedpage}}. There have been several temporary range blocks put in place, after which this vandal goes onto another range or creates a new address. This started with Deletedpage (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and is now at Make blocks work, plzkthx (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and It seems someone's block didn't work (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). There needs to be other measures made for this unique entity. Ryūlóng 00:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• This confirms my suspicion that most vandalism comes from very young children, why else would this come so close to the start of fall semesters?--172.133.78.163 01:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Besides, there are already measures in place to deal with AOL, namely, sit back and allow it to be consumed by autoblocks. I'm not sure how well it works at stopping vandalism, but it does stop constructive edits quite effectively--172.133.78.163 01:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well AOL could fix it (m:XFF). Short of that if the vandal is still going I will block all the ranges, anon only, account creation enabled, for three hours. I think the vandalism has stopped though, at least based on AIV. Prodego ^talk 01:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Based on the ranges block logs he/she is still going, so I am going to block as outlined above, unless someone objects in the next 5 minutes. Prodego ^talk 01:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it stopped, so no block. Prodego ^talk 01:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 3 hours, anon only, account creation on. Prodego ^talk 02:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Xyz233 (talk · contribs)

is an account created to expose the identity of historian2 (talk · contribs) and should be blocked, I think indefinitely. I am frankly not sure if this a matter for the AIAV, so forgive me if this is the wrong forum. - CrazyRussian talk/email 01:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I blocked him indefinitely and removed the personal information from the edit history. Cowman109^Talk 01:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User:I'm not on trial here

I'm not on trial here (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is clearly a very malicious vandal. I don't know why he wasn't blocked for his username alone. Danny Lilithborne 02:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, keeps creating vandal templates and vandalizing old guy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s page (who is also probably a sock of I'm not on trial here). All the templates have been deleted, but the user continues despite multiple warnings. GeorgeMoney (talk) 02:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Indef. blocked. Vsmith 02:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment If someone could wipe out and protect the monstrosity that is User:Old guy's userpage, it wouldn't get used in this vandalism. Fan-1967 02:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Doctor Octagon is a sockpuppet of Young Zaphod?

I recently became active editing the Hummer page, and noticed shortly thereafter an odd post under criticisms that used a job interview/resume as the basis for GM rolling out the Hummer H3. After going back and forth ( some of his edits were abusively titlely, see the talk pages), while the sentences were still disputed, it was agreed that they belonged on Hummer H3. However, at the same time, the original citation changed ( see the Hummer H3 talk pages). Doctor Octagon's other edits are very strange. Gomco, for example, does not manufacture a Gomco clamp for performing circumcisions. Googling Herbert Elwood Gilliland III turns up Wikipedia sockpuppets of Young Zaphod. All in all, the edits seem bizarre.

All in all, I'm little confused about whether to care, or how to proceed.

cheers, Kristan 03:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

If nothing else, he's naming himself after a famous person/performer. Doctor Octagon is/was a legendary "beats" performer along the lines of DJ Shadow. Geogre 03:47, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's the same guy. He's got a pattern of inserting references to himself in wikipedia like this. Ehheh 15:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I've started cleaning up after him. He's pretty clearly a sockpuppet to my eyes. Nandesuka 15:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

User:3 Brands

Hey. I came across a confusing situation with this user. He has been blocked by an IP address (216.78.95.175) for being a sockpuppet of User:OzWrestlemaniac. Though this is true, he is a sockpuppet, he has done absolutely nothing wrong since creating this account to get himself banned, plus I'm not sure that IP address should be capable of blocking with the amount of contribs it has made. Can someone verify wether he shouild be banned or not for me? By the way, this user and myself have had some conflict in the past but it has been resolved...I think. Normy132 05:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Um... You have to have a username to be an admin (in order to block.) The IP just added an {{indefblock}} notice to the user's userpage. Nevertheless, it's an odd block, and I am unfamiliar with the banned user this is a suspected sockpuppet of. I'll ask DVD RW (the blocking admin) to comment here. Grandmasterka 05:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I figure since I saw Grandmasterka's message to DVDRW that I'll leave a comment too, as original blocking admin back in June. As Normy pointed out, Ozwrestle has had conflict with both himself and Moe Epsilon in the past, to the point of harassment (which was what my original indefinite block on the account was for). I'd just like to comment that DVDRW approached me for advice and I suggested a block as it's block evasion. The new account has also continued to harass Moe, so in my opinion a fully legit block. – Chacor 05:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Attack on my user's page

See my page here where a user named User:-Jkb- instead of my name -jkb- posted a pornographic image. This is not the first time as there are still some former users who has been banned on the cs.wiki, trying vandalism in idfferent wiipedias (see also history on my page). Please block this user. Thx, -jkb- 15:19, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

blocked them as an impostor. Syrthiss 15:22, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Potential legal threat

User Veronicadittman has made what appears to be a legal threat against me on Talk:Joe Ochoa (diff), and I'm very unclear on how to respond. Kickaha Ota 15:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

She seems to have characterised the contents of the article as libelous, but not threatened you or anyone particularly with legal action. If you read her later comments, she seems to be most interested in calling the contents libelous so that she could revert them without being affected by 3RR or other rules. In this, she is encouraged by the template at the top of the page which uses the words "Poorly sourced, potentially libellous material must be removed immediately." So I don't think this is a legal threat as such. Also note she calls herself a new user, so Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. She seems intelligent, and like she can probably be reasoned with. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, for someone claiming to represent one organization to state that repeating someone else's claim to be a member of that organization is defamatory is pretty questionable. That's what's happening here; the article on X says X is involved with organization Y; agent-of-Y is claiming this defames Y. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

and I really don't see any defamation occuring here. He made the claim, if they don't want it in the article, they should get their history page in order so it can be refuted.--Crossmr 17:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

spam reverser?

First, I assume the contributions from 172.144.137.242 (talk · contribs) are deletable spam.

That being the case, what tool do we use to roll back all of his added links?

--jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:30, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Just click all the rollback links on the contributions page. (sysop only) Prodego ^talk 16:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Gee, I knew that. I'm wondering if there's a mass rollback tool to do it more efficiently. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is. No, I don't know anything about it, nor do I have it. Try asking Voice of All, he may know more. --Cyde Weys 16:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're using FireFox, you can go down his contribs page middle clicking "rollback". It'll open a million tabs, but it's easier than left clicking rollback and having to find your way back to his contribs each time. Failing that, vandalproof enables you to revert an entire users contribs with one click (as far as I know). -- Steel 17:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, someone who is (this morning) less lazy than I has done the reversions. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Or some of them, anyway. Special:Linksearch found some more, and a user, Joann1108 (talk · contribs), apparently created after they were reverted. Just zis Guy you know? 18:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)