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Mall sainthwar AfD

This old AfD seems to have been flooded with brand new accounts arguing to keep but providing no relevant sources to back it up. Since I'd rather not be flooded with complaints and vandalism (stemming from my nomination of several POV caste lists on AfD a few weeks ago) again, could another admin with more experience close this or at least take a look at it? --Coredesat 06:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I've restarted the AfD. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Good call. I ahve sprotected the AfD, as we have done in similar circumstances before now. There is a note on the AfD to the effect that new or unregistered users who wish to make a substantive point should use Talk, I will endeavour to keep an eye on it and move anytihng of substance into the main debate. Guy 13:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, I was getting worried about what to do, considering I am rarely involved in AfDs.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Replaceable Fair Use

I wanted to get a broader view of our now more limited Fair Use guidelines. Spearheaded by Jimbo, Wikipedia's fair use guidelines now allow the deletion of media content if a reasonable free alternative can be found. Now, whereas I support this for things such as public artwork, buildings and monuments which we could easily find, users have been tagging images which would be incredibly difficult to produce alternatives for. For example, see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Fair_use#Replaceable_fair_use regarding Image:Africanmourningdove631.jpg. There are also many images tagged at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 October 13/Images which I believe sufficiently satisfy both legal fair use requirements and Wikipedia requirements for fair use. Take a look at Image:Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C.jpg for example, how reasonable is it for Wikipedia to generate a free use alternative of the world's largest ship engine or an engine cutaway such as Image:PSA-Ford diesel V6.jpg.

The thing that I find most worrying is that such a move has largely been spearheaded by a small group of Wikipedian's who work with images. When Jimbo first mentioned his views on promotional photos being used on Wikipedia, he acknowledged that his views on fair use in general tended towards the extreme range of the spectrum, of course, he's now picked up more supporters. But does the general Wikipedian really believe that such a strong stand against fair use is of benefit to an encyclopedia? I'd like for more people to take part in some of the image discussions linked above. - Hahnchen 18:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

If I may: further discussion on point here and here. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 18:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Totally OTT in my opinion. Good luck fighting it, though, you'll probably be told to go start your own wiki (as I was). To hell with creating a good quality, illustrated enyclopedia right? Let's fight the institution of copyright instead! Not why I joined. --kingboyk 18:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused by this comment. Claiming "fair use" on other people's work instead of creating our own content would seem to be the much more activist anti-copyright position. Would you be as enthusiastic about what we're doing here if we were just cutting and pasting swaths of text from professionals because we believe we can't do as good a job ourselves, while claiming "fair use"? I certainly wouldn't. Jkelly 19:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

JKelly, your example doesn't apply here and you must know it. People are obviously still enthusiastic about the project knowing that we include splashings of fair use images. The reason we allow fair use images at all shows us this. I mean an image like Image:Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C.jpg, it was published as a promotional image for the subject by its manufacturer, it falls under legal fair use. How generating a free use example of this can be considered reasonable, I'm not too sure. I spoke to User:Quadell about this, and he believes that reasonable means impossible, something I disagree with. I personally put WP:ENC over the GFDL crusaders and I think that the tagging of some of these images is unreasonable, and their deletion a detriment to Wikipedia's usefulness and quality. - Hahnchen 01:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much it, thanks for being more eloquent than me :) I'm thinking of promotional shots released with the express intention of them being used in the media but not released under GFDL, the use of album sleeves in discographies, and so on. I think these things add to the quality of the encyclopedia and that the average user is more interested in quality than free content. --kingboyk 13:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki

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

Marudubshinki (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is desysopped. Marudubshinki may not use a bot. Should Marudubshinki use a bot he may be blocked for an appropriate period of time. All blocks to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Marudubshinki#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 23:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a very sad situation. Not that I disagree with the decision, just with the events which led up to it. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Amen. Geogre 17:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Maru was very foolish. It's a shame. Guy 20:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. I also wish he had posted his /Evidence in the arbitration before he finally did so after the arbs had already started voting and I warned him he was in grave jeopardy (not that the evidence was particularly exculpatory). Maru is no longer participating in WP:EN; his page indicates he is working on some other Wiki projects, and I hope he is doing well there. Newyorkbrad 13:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO

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

PrivateEditor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)and Rootology (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are banned indefinitely from Wikipedia. No action is taken against MONGO for any excessive zeal he has displayed. Links to Encyclopædia Dramatica may be removed wherever found on Wikipedia as may material imported from it. Users who insert links to Encyclopædia Dramatica or who copy material from it here may be blocked for an appropriate period of time. Care should be taken to warn naive users before blocking. Strong penalties may be applied to those linking to or importing material which harasses other users.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 02:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The history of the Encyclopædia Dramatica article

Sorry, missed this before. Does this mean the history of the above should be nuked accordingly? Glen 04:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Done by User:MONGO. --Conti|✉ 21:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You are legally responsible for your edits

You are legally responsible for your edits. This says "I, for one, am not about to start reading entire articles to check for problems every time I encounter one of them being blanked by a new user with no explanation." Among the various issues important with regard to this, I wish to raise an issue and concern that is of very wide scope and importance. You are legally responsible for your edits. If you unblank a page you are as responsible as if you wrote it all yourself. If you revert a change that reintroduces libel or a copyright violation or a privacy violation, you are responsible. Don't make changes you are not willing to be legally responsible for. Because you are. In addition to legal responsibility there can be other consequences both warrented and outrageous; please act with due regard for consequences. Wikipedia is not a consequence free zone. WAS 4.250 04:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Ummm, we are not here. You were probably not born with the name "Was 4.250," although I was, of course, with The Geogre. The point is that when we try to come up with "legal consequences" to "you," as opposed to "ethical responsibility," we get into a netherworld that is not profitable. Can't we merely say that people need to investigate cases of blanking and unblanking and take appropriate action without jumping into the threat of periwigs and gavels? Geogre 16:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
  • • No. Some people have already publicly declared they are going to sue and are now gathering evidence and the Foundation lawyer says the Foundation is not legally liable, but that the editors are. Further, the courts can find out who anonymous editors are.
    • "Law.com: What is your liability for inaccurate information that's posted on the Web site?
    • Bradford A. Patrick: Our belief is that since every post is attributed to an individual, is time-stamped and is retained in the database, the foundation itself is not publishing that content. We view individual editors as responsible and have prominently displayed on every edit page that individuals are responsible for their own contributions. We take the position that we are a service provider and are protected under §230. We try to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. "[1]
    • The Foundation lawyer wishes to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. Please don't unemphasize it. WAS 4.250 17:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• You'd need to get guidance on whether reversion of blanking counts as insertion of content. The content in question in the WikiEN-L thread was actually added by an anonymous editor. I suspect the lawyers could make a lot of money out of that argument, and the answer is unlikely to be simple... Guy 20:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Editors need to understand that they are financially liable for the legal costs of defending themselves for their edits on wikipedia and we serve them poorly if we make it sound like we know that they have nothing to be concerned about if they restore text they have not read. WAS 4.250 22:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• But you'd need to get guidance on... oh, why bother. Guy 22:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, and then the question of expectation of privacy and conditions of publication would get involved. Please do not try to emphasize a fringe case of a clear violation to try to frighten everyone and prevent their working on the project. People need to investigate cases of blanking and unblanking, and there is neither a clear "do it" or clear "don't do it" or clear "you're on the hook, buddy" or "you are not on the hook, buddy" or "you are assumed to be past the age of majority" or "you are presumed to be in jurisdiction of a particular court." If Foundation lawyers made a blanket statement actually attributing responsibility rather than denying responsibility for the Foundation, then they are being remarkably jumpy. Geogre 02:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and lawyers may wish to emphasize that people, rather than they, are responsible for what people add, but mistakenly undoing a change that was destructive and outside of established procedures for the removal of libel is neither adding nor the absence of a policy for protecting against libel. That's a far, far cry from telling people not to restore blanked articles, as blanking is not the way bad content of any form is dealt with on Wikipedia. We have a process for eliminating malicious editng, two processes, in fact. Removing the entirety of an article to get rid of a portion of an article is destructive, is vandalism, and is not, in fact, the removal of libel: it is the attempted erasure of an entire work of art. Are the people blanking going to be financially and legally responsible for what they've done in blanking the good contributions that surrounded the alledgedly libellous sections? The standard you are proposing is impractical and unlikely to be law. This is in addition to the fact that no, courts cannot tell exactly who added a thing. A court can determine an IP which locates a machine, but not the fingers at the machine, as any of us who have dealt with vandals and sockpuppeteers knows. All of which is not to absolve editors, but the attempted chill in this case is, in my view, mistaken. Geogre 02:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

• • Unexplained blanking of articles is unacceptable regardless of the cause. It's listed on WP:VANDAL as an archetypical form of vandalism and even if a human did not revert it a bot would probably catch the change. If this happens is the bot now legally responsible for libelling an individual?
    Perhaps a better solution would be to make a prompt come up (similar to that you can turn on to prompt for blank edit summaries) any time a user makes an edit which would leave a page blank. It could briefly explain that page blanking does not erase the page in question, is going to be considered vandalism, and suggesting that if they believe the page should not exist, they should use the Wikipedia:Deletion process or discuss with other editors on the talk page. Since the good-faith blanking of articles is almost certainly caused by the misconception that blanking will delete the page, this could probably halt all or nearly all instances of good-faith blanking, and would even make page blanking slightly more obnoxious for vandals. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 16:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That looks like a very smart suggestion, probably a good thing to send to the developers. Durova 17:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

How do I do that, exactly? I don't think WP:VP/T is the right place. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 17:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Your technical solution sounds like a great idea. That said, please don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone who is being impacted by a Wikipedia article has read all of our policies and procedures. If a brand new user blanks an article about a living person that contains unsourced libel, please don't automatically revert because Wikipedia:Vandalism says you can. Jkelly 17:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand that not everyone has read the policies, especially not new editors. (In fact, I doubt that even most experienced editors have read every policy.) However, I similarly do not believe we should be able to fault an editor who reverts unexplained page blanking simply because of that minor possibility. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 17:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing "minor" about this issue, and we do need to be very clear that we will "fault" someone who introduces libel into a Wikipedia article, whether by a revert or not. Jkelly 18:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

So does that mean we need to read the entire article and verify everything before reverting a page-blank, just to make sure it isn't libel? --Kbdank71 18:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if someone blanks Moon, I'd check the history to make sure that I'm not reverting back to vandalism, but I'm not going to read the whole article. If the article is a biography of a living person, however, then we do need to take some time. The important point here is that we need to make reasonable decisions based upon what we are looking at. Jkelly 18:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Might not any article, or even any user page or talk page, include material about a living person? Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. A legally actionable libel or copyright violation or privacy violation could be in the middle of any article. DO NOT RESTORE TEXT YOU HAVE NOT READ. Even on the Moon. WAS 4.250 22:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that is reasonable. I appreciate your good intentions, but I will take your interpretation of what is legally actionable with a grain of salt. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Does "someone" include bots? In another possibility, 425 instances of the word fuck are put in place of a long and generally well-sourced biography page, which incidently contains a short sentence of libel. I revert the page. Am I now legally responsible for "libelling" the biography subject because I did not wish to leave a page full of obscenities describing him for even one second longer than was absolutely necessary? (And where do I make a dev request at?) --tjstrf Now on editor review! 18:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Probably not. If the libel was introduced with the obscenities, then you'd have just reverted that also. If the libel was already there, then you weren't the one to introduce it. Where you'd get into trouble is if libel was already in the article and was removed via page-blank. If you revert, then you are introducing the libel back into the article. I can see many biographies being blanked and not fixed because of this. --Kbdank71 18:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

edit conflict See Wikipedia:Bugzilla for how to make feature requests. Let us know when you've done it, too, so that other editors can comment on the idea. Obviously, I can't give you real legal advice, and we each need to make decisions for ourselves -- but, yes, I would strongly encourage people to really read any article about a living person before publishing a new version of it. Jkelly 18:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Taken to its logical extreme, no editor or administrator should dare to revert anything on a BLP, for fear that somewhere on the page may be a libel. If reverts to unexplained blanking could result in legal liability then responsible editors be crazy to fix vandalised articles. -Will Beback 18:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't restore text you have not read. You can be sued. Even if you win, you pay the financial costs. WAS 4.250 22:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The way you describe it, I'd be in trouble if I reverted an article to which someone had added "Jones is a poopyhead" on the off chance that maybe it also contains a comment that Jones thinks is possibly libellous. If you give me the foundation lawyer's talk page, I can post the vandalized articles on his page. That way he can decide what to revert. -Will Beback 22:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The foundation lawyer's talk page is User talk:BradPatrick which says :"Note to those of you contacting me about legal issues affecting the Wikimedia Foundation: Please contact me by email - bpatrick at wikimedia.org rather than leaving stuff on this page. I prefer to keep this page related to my edits and repartee with Wikipedians about en:WP rather than current legal issues." WAS 4.250 00:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Fortunately, this is easily solved by locating editors who can read. We have several already, I'm quite sure. Jkelly 18:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Reading isn't the issue. Simply reading isn't going to be able to tell you if what you are reverting to is or isn't libel. As I said, to make sure it isn't, you need to verify every statement in the article. Good luck with that. --Kbdank71 18:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite sure we are all able to read. But having to read a whole article before reverting a page blanking can be a bit much, in some cases. There can always be some sneaky unsourced statement that has been there before the blanking. --Conti|✉ 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict, Re:Kbdank)It was technically "removed" by the replacement of the article with obscenities as well. It would similarly be "removed" by replacement with other libel, or a copyvio, or a personal attack against another editor, or a "Cool, I can edit this!", or the goatse image, or, as happened to the Alexander Hamilton page, by the copy-pasting of the Brock (Pokemon) article over the page's initial content.
This situation concerns me deeply as any vandalistic action, no matter how obvious, which had the effect of removing the libel (even if it replaced it with something far, far worse) would by the same token as blanking be unrevertable without review.
In effect, this forbids the swift removal of simple vandalism from BLP articles out of fear that complex vandalism may still be present. This argument may seem like reductio ad absurdum, but I have seen every above-mentioned instance of vandalism take place at some point, several of them to BLP pages. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 18:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. I understand how an editor who willingly reintroduces libel after it has been identified should be held liable, but I cannot fathom why an editor who is cleaning up simple vandalism is legally committing a crime. Perhaps what we need to do is to be less confrontational in the blanking warnings (or use {{test0}} more) to explain to those who see incorrect information how to tell us that it is indeed incorrect, and is not a random kid in school blanking articles wholesale. Otherwise, the effect is what Tjstrf indicates: the editing environment for good faith editors becomes poisoned by legal issues, and that's exactly why we have WP:NLT. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Tort. Not crime. Look it up. WAS 4.250 22:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That's a legal technicism, and doesn't actually address my argument. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was not a criminal case, but rather a tort suit after all; if you are really that concerned, but unsure, use {{test1a}}, which is quite polite and asks a blanker why he is blanking. That said, I do agree that someone reverting an edit that is clearly marked as removal of libel, or when an editor reverts a BLP noticeboard-based removal, that get closer to actual malice. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right that I did not address your argument. Sorry. "In general the elements for libel and slander are a false and defamatory statement concerning another, made in a negligent, reckless, or malicious manner, and which is communicated to at least one other person in such a fashion as to cause sufficient harm to WARRANT an award of COMPENSATORY DAMAGES."[2] The point is whether or not reverting without reading is "negligent" or "reckless" and whether one wishes to risk a lawsuit by negligently not simply reading what you are causing to be posted. A thirteen year old might decide why not. Someone with a family to feed might decide to only post by reverting what he has read. Some people are cautious and some like to take chances. I have no wish to suggest one choice fits all. WAS 4.250 08:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've left a note on Brad's talk page asking for some clarification. Snoutwood (talk) 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Libel laws internationally differ as to culpability vs intention, but I'd say you run a risk when unintentionally reverting a change back to libel on a BLP article. From a likelihood-of-trouble point of view, it's vanishingly small, but it is a risk.

However, from a Wikipedia point of view, there's a bigger point than just libel. We are clearly approaching some sort of critical mass. Journalists are using us as a primary source whilst disparaging us on feature pages. So we've clearly arrived in the firmament for the media in general.

That means that minor-famous people are now start "Wikipeding" for their articles, just as a year or so ago they started Googling for their own names. The truly famous don't, but the minor-famous do.

So, when reverting a BLP article, I think we do now need to be careful. We've reach a stage - one we've always aspired to - of being thought of as a journal of record. That's great, in so many ways, but it requires us to be more careful.

We might not have reached it yet, but the day is only months away where we get some serious trouble for our vandalism or our reverting. The first we can cope with, although it will be expensive to do so and will open the floodgates.

The second is harder to justify. The time is coming where we will switch from reverting vandalism on BLP articles to automatically stubbing them and letting them be reviewed at leisure. In the meantime, the days of blindly reverting vandalism are coming to an end, so anyone who visits the contribs of a vandal and just hits rollback for each contribution will soon have to think twice.

And we'll need to review our procedures and processes in light of all of this. Not now, per se, but soon enough. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you need to prove actual malice if you're going after a reverter. I don't think that systemically allowing the destruction of the work of perhaps hundreds of editors because of a couple idiots will ever be acceptable, though, so I don't think automatically stubbing articles will ever take hold. I don't mind vandals getting sued, though. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• I left a link to this discussion on the BLP Noticeboard. I have run into several situations lately where I have removed apparent libel that was reported on the noticeboard, only to have other editors revert, claiming WP:BLP did not apply. I think in that particular type of situation, the reverting editor does not have much to hide behind, since the "libel" was reported, removed by an editor working in a semi-official capacity, and added back in by another editor. - Crockspot 19:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

No clue if I did it properly, but the feature request/bug to prompt page blankers is posted here. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 19:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Good call. Guy 20:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(New subject within section)

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it (yet), but it's case law in the 9th (US) Circuit that reposting Internet libel elsewhere on the Internet is not, in itself, libel. See, for example, Barrett v. Rosenthal in Stephen Barrett#Libel suits filed by Barrett.) It may be dicta, as it wasn't required to reach the conclusion dismissing the case, but it is still case law. In the case in question, Rosenthenal reposted alleged libel on a Usenet newsgroup. If I interpret the court documents correctly, the trial court ruled that Rosenthal could not be found guilty of libel, because of the DMCA. The appeals court found that the material was not libelous (being an opinion), and explictly declined comment on the repost ruling. In this case, it would imply that only the editor who originally inserted the libelous material could be found liable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

That would certainly be a relief, and far more sensible besides. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 20:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• An editor who blanks a portion of an entry due to liable must note it as such, or there will be no case. El_C 22:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• This entire argument is ridiculous. Can you imagine how the media would mock someone who sued, not the person who actually libelled them, nor the person who randomly threw feces at their article later on, but the volunteer who came along later and scraped the feces off? —Cryptic 22:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I am getting calls from armchairs missing their lawyers. -Splash - tk 22:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I plan on continuing my editing habits as they have been, which includes the occasional reversion of the complete blanking of a page. Yes, there's a risk that I might get sued, but that's just the sort of devil-may-care, caution-to-the-winds sort of fellow that I am. Bring on the lawyers, and have them do their worst. Ξxtreme Unction 23:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting purposely making any illegal edits (libel, copyvio, etc.), but considering the possibility of doing it accidentally, may I suggest using a proxy? Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 23:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

"Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies"--Konst.able^Talk 23:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Ironically, secure.wikimedia.org is a proxy. Also, Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall mentions softblocking. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 00:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've sent an email to Brad asking him to weigh in on this discussion. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The bits I'm still not clear about from this discussion is how WP:NLT applies to the increasing presence of external legal threats constraining the editing environment. I realise that WP:NLT applies to users making threats on-wiki, but the point made about editors feeling constrained by uncertain legal issues is a good one that needs to be resolved with a clear demarcation of responsibilities, plus legal advice (or, rather, advice on when to seek legal advice) for editors who want legal advice, and not only legal advice for the Foundation. Also, I see people focussing on Biography of Living People (BLP) stuff, but the point was made that libellous edits can be made to non-BLP articles (eg. adding something about a living person to Moon, which a new editor might be even more likely to blank, as that would be an obviously vandalised article). Thus the focus on BLP articles for the "should I revert page blanking" issue, is somewhat misleading - this issue applies to all articles. Finally, I often jump into an article to correct a spelling mistake or rewrite a single paragraph. I am aware that I should read the whole article, and copyedit the whole thing, rather than make one tiny change, but this is an example of the same sort of thing: small, incremental edits, eventually adding up to a reasonable article, but where editors often don't read the whole article. Maybe the "stable articles" feature is also relevant here. Marking a version as stable (implying you have read the whole thing), when it contains libel, is, to my mind, potentially exposing an editor far more to legal action than reverting a page blank of a non-stabilised article. Carcharoth 01:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

If an article contains something that leads to a lawsuit, either the Wikimedia Foundation is liable or it's not. For all of our sakes, it's far better that the answer is not - if the Foundation is liable, the entire project could shut down. Or, only slightly better, a lot of money that could go to servers or bandwidth could go to lawyers to defend the Foundation.

If some editors cease editing because they worry about personal liability, that's not good, but it's not the end of the world. And, arguably, there really should be few good people who leave - as someone noted above, From a likelihood-of-trouble point of view, it's vanishingly small that someone who lacked intent (and reverting a blank page, with no indication that the blanking was done for good reason, clearly is a case of no intent to commit libel) will successfully be sued. Folks like the EFF and the ACLU are presumbably around to help, if necessary. Which isn't to say that lawyers might not go after the editor who originally posted the libel - but that's not the concern above, of course. John Broughton | Talk 02:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I take heart in the fact that the Foundation has tons more money than I do, and is thus a much more attractive target. --Ξxtreme Unction 03:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

law.duke.edu says "Many corporate plaintiffs that sue for Internet libel seek to send a message to the public that they will pursue aggressively anyone who criticizes them online, and these plaintiffs seem to be using libel law to squelch not just defamatory falsehoods but legitimate criticism as well. [...] This new class of nonmedia defendants are unlikely to have enough money even to defend against a libel action, much less to satisfy a judgment. Thus, wealthy plaintiffs can successfully use the threat of a libel action to punish the defendant for her speech, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the libel action." [3] WAS 4.250 08:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I continue to remain unconcerned. People who have minimal experience with the legal system have a very overinflated notion of that system. I spent 10 years working with the U.S. legal system, on the federal, state, and local level, on both criminal and civil proceedings. If I didn't have at least 10 threats of dire legal consequences by noon, it was a wasted day.

None of those threats ever materialized.

This is a tempest in a teapot. --Ξxtreme Unction 14:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break, redux

Is there a minimum amount of time that records must be kept for under the section that Brad references to make his statement about Wikipedia being a service provider. In particular the records that may be illegally disposed of may be the IP records, which for Checkuser purposes I know are not kept for very long at all. Ansell 03:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Neither Wikipedia nor any other online provider is obligated by law to keep records of who connects to them. Wikipedia could delete every system log they currently have and refuse to log any further, and there would be no legal ramifications. --Ξxtreme Unction 03:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, if that is how it is under Florida law then thats great, I think. I was asking because I think it is different under Australian law, which is where I got the conception from. Ansell 03:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, a bit of Ameri-centrism crept in. I try to keep that at bay, but sometimes the cultural blinders operate full force. Mea culpa, and my apologies. --Ξxtreme Unction 04:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Would any of the following links be relevant to Wikipedia's service provider status? [4] [5] (library records, but then again, isn't wikipedia just one big library. if the patriot act relates to libraries why would they stop at wikipedia? )

On the other hand, this article clearly (i think) states the overall situation with a view to changes in the future apparently. The EU based sites should definitely think about the 6 months - 2 years provision at the bottom of that article.

"A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act requires ISPs to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity"--a practice known as "data preservation." " Ansell 04:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The Federal law in question simply requires that ISP not delete or destroy any pre-existing records they may have in their possession if requested by the Feds that they preserve it. If they don't have the pre-existing records in the first place, the Feds are out of luck. It is not uncommon for preservation requests from the Feds (and from state and local law enforcement, to say nothing of civil litigants) to ask for everything under the freakin' sun to be preserved, such as transcripts from AIM and IRC chat sessions, IP transaction logs, emails received, emails sent, files uploaded, files downloaded, and so on and so forth. If the ISP does not keep this data in the course of its normal business operations (and believe me, most don't), the ISP is not obligated in any way to suddenly start keeping them in order to comply with the preservation request. They can forthrightly tell the Feds "We don't keep those records," and the Feds will go about their merry way. --Ξxtreme Unction 04:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, Wikipedia does keep IP/Checkuser records in the regular course of its business. So even the regular deletion of those tables would be a violation under a request from that act. Anyway, its pretty clear that for the next little while at least that, if the english wikipedia is classed as a service provider, it is not liable given the extremely ambiguous and lax US laws on the issue. Ansell 04:38, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It is only a violation if Wikipedia gets a preservation request document from the Feds which outlines in specific the records the Feds desire Wikipedia to preserve. And the request has to be specific. It has to specify dates, and times, and specific IP addresses. It can't just say "preserve ALL your records for 90 days." It has to say something like "preserve your records for IP address 207.172.33.14, from 12:01am 9/29/06 to 11:59 10/4/06" or similar.

You may trust me on this, as someone who worked at an ISP processing subpoenas, search warrants, and other court orders for a living for the better part of 10 years. --Ξxtreme Unction 04:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds okay. I know alot more about the topic from that research though. Wondering whether it would ever be useful.... Would it be valid for them to ask for the IP's of everyone who edited a certain article, or the IP's of a specific user? Ansell 04:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't imagine a circumstance where they would care about the IP addresses of every editor who has edited an article. But a request for the IP addresses used by a specific user is an extremely common request (probably the most common one they make).

Of course, this whole subsection was started on the basis of dire warnings about civil legal proceedings, which has fuckall to do with the Feds in any case. Never let it be said that I don't enjoy blathering about stuff I know about just to hear my fingers bounce merrily across the keyboard. --Ξxtreme Unction 05:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else further convinced of the need for tort reform by this thread? --tjstrf Now on editor review! 09:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I think posting in this thread is more likely to haunt you in court than inadvertently reverting to a "Joe Doe is a douchebag" version of some obscure bio. Now, some admin, please block this IP. It's a www.ninjaproxy.com IP. 72.29.81.87 22:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User :Samir (The Scope) and process

An open informal complaint

This user has resorted to personal attacks against me several times on his talk page [6]. He passed disparaging comment on me at this RfA [7]. He has also removed a question from there because it referred to his actions. Never considering the other parties' arguments and shutting out the possibility of a discussion in advance ("I don't give any credence to anything you have to say") he repeats himself. He has expressed his willingness to renege on his own promise to the community on his RfA [8]. Cronyism is at show on this section of his talk page. Three of the Indian administrators argue for him with unconcern for his personal attack, ignorance of rules, and willingness to break them. When I reported his personal attack on WP:PAIN it was removed citing no warning (in edit summary) [[9]] and it was explained to me thus [10] When I put a warning template on his talk page one of his friends removed it because he thought it was ugly. I placed a message on Jimbo Wales' talk page merely inviting his attention but it was removed [11]. You can also see an instance of skewed opinion under my message there and see this apropos [12]. Kundan After Sundown 04:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have somewhat of a problem taking this fellow seriously. Personally, if I had a username which had an obscene meaning I wouldn't expect people to take me seriously either and would be surprised if they didn't block me. As for "I don't give any credence to anything you have to say", I don't see that as a personal attack at all...he simply doesn't agree with your comments Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 06:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Can't help replying to Blnguyen. This sort of comment would be called quibbling in common usage, sorry, I don't know WP jargon. Registration (user space) that met objection had been given up and a new registration done, which you undoubtedly know. So the first part of your comment is null. Personal attack occurs not in the expedidient quote in the comment above. Here is one of several seen here [13] : "Hey troll. Here's elitism for you: I don't give any credence to anything you have to say. Go away and troll elsewhere. I suggest LiveJournal." Kundan After Sundown 07:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I endorse this. I further propose that the community ignore this thread unless other evidence of realpolicy violations (other than the username bit) are alleged. As to the username, do we have a sysop who speaks malayalam and can determine whether this user should be made to pick a different username? - CrazyRussian talk/email 12:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

We do not have a sysop who speaks Malayalam; but as a native speaker, I guarentee that the word has a distasteful meaning. The user even had an obscene picture on his userpage. Further see these comments by two other native speakers: [14], [15]. And this deleted article created by the user shows that he was very much aware of the obscene meaning. User:Kundan After Sundown should be blocked per WP:U --thunderboltz^(Deepu) 13:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

It is really in someone's interest to divert from the issue and discuss username here, as if one username requires a WP:ANB thread. What surprises me is the lack of receptiveness and quibbling on the part of all the users who speak for this erring administrator. I have already made it clear that objected username has been abandoned and all the three who discussed merely that here are well aware of it. Either they want to divert focus or they want to make this TL;DR. User:thunderboltz's response is not composed for apparent reasons. Kundan Lal Saigal, and numerous google results for Kundan show the fallacy of his demand for block. Kundan After Sundown 17:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Kuntan literally means "a young boy kept for the purposes of sodomy". And I suppose, there is difference between Kundan and Kuntan; Kundan being a common North Indian name. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 17:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Literal or literary, see Kuntan on the Hindu pageand Kuntan on Hindustan Times page and Kuntan meaning and pronunciation in dictionary and stop the off-topic talk finally. The subject here is something else. Kundan After Sundown 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Er, this is not off-topic, sir. I am only trying to establish, that you created that particular account for the purpose of trolling. And if you do not have anything "productive" to give you wikipedia, you might as well leave the project, then waste our time. Thank you. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{L} 19:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that the actual issue here is User:Kundan After Sundown's egregious trolling (including the creation of a known obscene user name, trolling on an RfA, mocking the contributions of an administrator on their RfA, mocking the English language skills of a contributor and breaking WP:BLP by mocking a biographical article on the talk page). This is independent of his continued trolling on my talk page. If anyone sees fit to block this troll, I would be in agreement. Otherwise, the LiveJournal offer stands -- Samir धर्म 04:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

And the reason for this tirade has been explained here [16] in a formulaic form by another user. I suggest changing dharma part of your signature by prefixing an "a". You suggested me a career in comedy on your talk page and I needn't suggest one for you as you are already engaged here in one fitting your propensities.Kundan After Sundown 05:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:DNFT -- Samir धर्म 22:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Let us see what has happened

1. 05:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC) - Kundan After Sundown posts an Oppose Vote in a RFA
2. 14:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC) - Samir धर्म in the same page says Wow, someone chooses an obscene username, balks when he's called out on it, then expects his sophomoric opinion to have credence on the caller's RfA. Guess what: it doesn't.
3. 18:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC) - Kundan After Sundown in Samir's talk page says Hey user, your out-of-place remark [17] is in poor taste and in bad faith. Do you know Malayalam and the meaning of the word to guess that it is obscene? Or did you rely on the opinion of two users who looked at once credit-worthy because they cried foul on somebody's user name? If that is the case, you are relying on somebody who in turn relies on ignorance ("I didn't know the other meanings for it"). I can let you know that the two users concerned have plainly refused to look up the word in a local language dictionary and never denied the fact that it is a proper name among the scheduled castes of Kerala. Ignorance, lack of receptiveness, élitism and disdain for the peripheral lives- you have been party to them. And one user who googled the word in question and found that it meant a very loose cunt in some Icelandic language epitomises the wisdom of your ilk.
4. 23:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC) Samir धर्म says Hey troll. Here's elitism for you: I don't give any credence to anything you have to say. Go away and troll elsewhere. I suggest LiveJournal

In my opinion this is Uncivil. Let us finish this and get to other usefull tasks. Doctor Bruno  15:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC).

• Who was being uncivil. I just wanted to know how an admin could behave in this fashion? See how he responded. If Samir had admitted that, it would have been the end. He chose to ridicule me instead of answering my questions. The other admins were trying to justify Samir "somehow". Samir does not admit that he is violating any guideline( not even bending) but another admin justifies his action quoting WP:IAR , without looking at WP:SIR. Anyway this helped convince me not to waste anymore time here. I was under the wrong impression that Process is important in wikipedia. Clt13 06:11, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Emmalina

Emmalina was deleted and redirected as a result of its third AFD nomination. Currently, a blurb in the Notable YouTube memes article has all the information that the previous Emmalina article had. It is my understanding that such merges need the entire history intact at the redirect page for compliance with the GFDL. Therefore I request that a sysop restore the old Emmalina page and then redirect it to Notable YouTube memes. Hbdragon88 06:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with restoring this article is that its history appear to contain several revisions that should not be restored. Since Notable YouTube memes is also up for deletion, I suggest waiting for the conclusion of this other nomination. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 13:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Those were all hidden just before the admin deleted the article. I suppose that they're still visible to the sysops. I'll wait for five days (or however much longer the AFD has). Hbdragon88 23:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Abuse of Administror's right by User:Nlu

User:Nlu have abused his right of an administrator in the page of Goguryeo.
Because User:ABCBBCKBS had removed the entire section of Modern Politics, I reverted it to a previous version.
In addition, the previous version, which I reverted to, was similar as the version edited by [[User::Nlu]].
Even I reverted to the version that is similar as the version by Nlu, he said that the Modern politics violate the POV.
, and then he removed the entire section of Modern politics. Please compare the three version by me and Nlu.

 1. This is my reverting due to User:ABCBBCKBS [[18]]

 2. This is the previous version by Nlu[[19]]

 3. This is the version of Nlu by his abuse of administrator's right. [[20]]

The section of modern politics is entirely removed.
He warned me to block my id if I revert the article that has modern politics. I dont think that it is fair. I have dicsussed about this, but he dont want to discuss about it User_talk:Nlu. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hairwizard91 (talk • contribs) 06:36, October 20, 2006.

Stop venue shopping. Try dispute resolution. Shell ^babelfish 06:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes and it's alright to accuse an admin of misconduct if it's warranted but then please sign your posts. --Woohookitty^(meow) 10:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

And just how is this an abuse of admin rights, when it is just simply an edit? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Mig11

I'm edit-warring with Mig11 (talk · contribs), who insist in changing the name Kosovo for the Albanian Kosova, on the grounds that both are used in English, and that "Kosovo" is a Serbian name (thus POV). In the same way, he also changes Priština into the Albanian Prishtina [21] [22] [23].

Attempts to discuss seem to have failed [24], thus I'm stepping back and asking for a third party to intervene. - Thanks already, Evv 17:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

lol This is simple WP:V... I'm getting involved again, and removing all those unsourced, politically motivated "Kosova"s. - Evv 20:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

According to policy, if I'm not mistaken, articles' titles are generally supposed to be the ones that are the most commonly used. Both "Kosovo" and "Pristina" get many more Google hits than "Kosova" and "Prishtina", so you're probably right that Mig11 shouldn't be changing them to fit his POV.--Rouge Rosado Oui? 20:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Heads up...

We've been moving a lot of material out of Category:Copy to Wikibooks... see Wikipedia:Transwiki_log/Articles_moved_from_here/en.wikibooks. It would be helpful if these were deleted or fixed so we can see what's left in the category.

Also, please don't do copy-paste transwikis now that we have import (there are some procedures involved with transwikis, and we'd rather it be done in house). If something urgently needs to be moved, it can be posted at b:WB:RFI. Thanks! --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 00:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Why were copy-paste transwikis ever being done? Doesn't that lose attributions, thus contravening the GFDL under which the material was contributed to Wikipedia in the first place? Carcharoth 01:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Believe it or not, the import tool wasn't enabled until this week. Previous to that, the system was to either add a link to the diff that was copied, or the history was copy-pasted onto the talk page as plain text. I think the issue was with the potential for different users using the same name on 2 projects, but hopefully that will be put to rest soon with SUL. --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 03:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, would it be alright to just remove {{Copy to Wikibooks}} from these? I'm trying to keep track of what's already been imported (there's a backlog). --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 16:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

October 20, 2006 mass suicide

Obviously a vandal created page that should probably be speedily deleted. -- Sapphire 02:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

In the future, apply on of the WP:CSD templates to it. I've deleted it. Alphachimp 02:04, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Will do. -- Sapphire 02:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User:E.Shubee

Would another administrator review my action to make certain this was appropriate? I responded to a new request at WP:PAIN and discovered a legal threat posted by this user on 19 October.[25] Blocking is policy in this type of situation, but I'm not certain whether the indef block I issued is appropriate. Please review and shorten if my action was excessive. Thanks, Durova 02:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I would support the block, per WP:NLT. It is entirely counterproductive to have users running around making threats. Should the editor choose to retract his threat, I'd suggest rescinding the block. Alphachimp 02:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Also a single-issue editor: A sign of problems and not much loss. —Centrx→talk • 02:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the thumbs up. I've requested a checkuser on this account's suspected puppetmaster. Durova 03:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

New question, User:E.Shubee says that I misunderstood his earlier post. His reasons are complex so here's the diff:[26] Does anyone consider this a reason to shorten the indef block? He should probably still get a block for link spamming even if the threat is a total nonissue.

Personally I'm skeptical: he seems to claim that the mere existence of a Wikipedia article about a verifiable Christian denomination constitutes trademark infringement, and that his disputed edits protect us from legal action by a third party. Durova 04:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The trademarks disclaimer could be relevant here. Ansell 05:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Going through the history, this was/is obviously a troublesome user and some block was appropriate. However, when blocking for "legal threats," it seems to me that a link to the WP:LEGAL policy should be provided, along with advice that the user can request to be unblocked if he or she clearly withdraws the legal threats, which after all is the main thing we want to happen (I have seen this succeed more than once). Information on how to contact the WP:OFFICE can also be provided, to give the user a vehicle for raising any bona fide legal issue that he or she might think to exist, as opposed to just saying, in effect, "you have no rights, go away" which in the long term may just aggravate the discontent that resulted in the threats being made in the first place. In this case, the user may not be likely to ever become a productive editor anyway, but I think the blocking admin might still want to consider these ideas for the future. Newyorkbrad 13:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I hate to encourage any user to pursue legal means against Wikipedia or its editors. I think that if they wish to pursue anything like that, they should do it completely without our help, support, assistance, or backing (but that's just me). Alphachimp 17:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate these can be tough calls. Certainly urging the user to withdraw the threat is something we agree upon. It's more a case-by-case judgment whether, once the threat aspect is removed, there is a genuine issue to be addressed or not and how best to counsel the user to address it, or whether just to ignore it. In other words, whether tactically turning the person to the right instead of the wrong methods will help avoid long-term legal issues no one wants, bearing in mind that 99±% of legal etc. threats go nowhere. Newyorkbrad 17:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the user has been mildly misunderstood. I think they believe that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is going to sue wikipedia for trademark infringement because they sued Creation Seventh Day Adventist Church for trademark infringement. MyNameIsNotBob 23:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Either way, they've retracted the statement and I've unblocked the account. My checkuser request hasn't been fulfilled yet so I'm extending the benefit of the doubt - suggesting they join the mentorship program and edit at other topics. Durova 01:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kosovo

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

For edit warring, personal attacks, and other disruption, PerfectStorm/C-c-c-c is banned from editing Wikipedia for one year. For edit warring and incivility, Bormalagurski is banned from editing Wikipedia from one year. For edit warring and disruptive use of sockpuppets, Dardanv under any username or IP, is banned from editing Wikipedia for one month.

Hipi Zhdripi is limited to his one named account, Hipi Zhdripi. All edits by Hipi Zhdripi under another account or an IP address shall be treated as edits by a banned user.

Ilir pz, Hipi Zhdripi, Vezaso are banned for one year from editing articles related to Kosovo. Relation to Kosovo is to be interpreted broadly so as to prevent gaming. Either may be banned from any related non-article page for disruptive editing. All articles related to Kosovo are put on Article probation to allow more swift dealing with disruption. Editors of Kosovo and related articles who engage in edit warring, incivility, original research, or other disruptive editing, may be banned for an appropriate period of time, in extreme cases indefinitely.

ChrisO is warned not to engage in edit warring, and to engage in only calm discussion and dispute resolution when in conflict. He is instructed not to use the administrative rollback tool in content disputes and encouraged to develop the ability and practice of assisting users who are having trouble understanding and applying Wikipedia policies in doing so. .

Dardanv, Ferick, Laughing Man, Osli73, and Tonycdp are placed on Probation for one year. Each may be banned from any page or set of pages for disruptive edits, such as edit warring or incivility.

Ilir pz, Hipi Zhdripi, Vezaso, Dardanv, Ferick, Laughing Man, Osli73, and Tonycdp are placed on standard revert parole for one year. Each is limited to one revert per article per week, excepting obvious vandalism. Further, each is required to discuss any content reversions on the article's talk page.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 04:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Requesting "Hard block" on User:203.57.147.20

This address is my school's IP address. It has a long history of blocks due to various idiots vandalizing. I'd like to request a "hard block" (in opposition to a "soft block"?) to prevent users registering from that IP address. A couple of other students in my class thought it would be fun to vandalize the project; when they thought someone was "on to them" they registered new accounts. These users were User:Headmaster2008, User:ImaSpamThis and User:David2001. Altogether, "they" vandalized the Brisbane Boys' College page repeatedly, posting my personal info on there (I occasionally do RC patrol via the school PC's, thus they found it amusing to do so). Can someone please help with this? Also - if such a block were done, would it prevent me from logging in and doing RC patrol via that IP? Thanks. SMC 04:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes it would. A soft block means only anons are blocked, pre-existing registered users can still edit (I presume account creation is off also). If we hard blocked all activity from that IP is blocked, yourself included. Glen 04:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Kind of limits options really. Is there any way to turn off account creation for that IP? SMC 04:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, just reblocked. Anons only, no account creation (I assumed incorrectly, account creation was allowed previously). Expires in 6 days per the prior block, let's see if that helps. Glen 04:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, should help (I hope). Have a good one! SMC 04:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I just blocked User:ImaSpamThis - and I hope like hell you dont get caught by an autoblock. Place {{unblock}} on your talk page if you do... it sometimes happens Glen 04:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the warning. Thanks again SMC 05:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Diatribe

I'm an admin, but I'll admit I'm not sure of the rules on this: I know we are extremely lenient about leaving even vaguely on-topic remarks on talk pages, but it seems to me that this is trolling: Talk:Affirmative action in the United States#Racism. Can we delete this sort of thing? - Jmabel | Talk 05:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm NOT an admin, but IMO although it's nominally 'on topic', it's not a discussion about how to improve the article, and while I probably wouldn't delete it, I think there are grounds to do so, or perhaps to move the post to a sub-page with a note on the talk page asking the author to re-work it as a suggestion for improvement. Anchoress 05:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

For me, it would depend on context and the level of disruptiveness. If it was from a repeatedly problematic editor, a personal attack, on a widely trolled page (e.g. one where it threatened to begin a flame war), or filled with obscenities, I would remove it. In most other cases, especially a really new editor, I would leave the thread with a reply such as "This is not the place to elaborate your personal opinions.", and maybe give the user a civil note about posting rants on their talk page. This is because many people mistake honestly talk pages for forums, and simpy reverting their comments (especially without explanation) will often cause more disruption than leaving it. Of course, a similar rant on a BLP page would warrant a swift removal. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 07:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed a "repeatedly problematic editor"; see his talk page. And just yesterday he was disabused of any notion that the talk page on subject X is the place for a rant about X: see this. -- Hoary 08:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I've removed it. It was just a rant, as was obvious from the multiple exclamation marks, the numerous reminders that the writer was laughing out loud, and most obviously the assertion that it wasn't a rant. It didn't offend me at all; it didn't even sadden me, as I was already very aware of the popularity of this stance. It might offend others, I don't know. But it was about the subject, not the article, so I zapped it. The writer may now feel additionally aggrieved and thus inspired (?) by this grievance to add stupid comments in the article itself. If others disagree here with my deletion of this rant, go ahead and revert me; I won't take it personally. -- Hoary 08:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC) ........ PS Here is my deletion edit. -- Hoary 08:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Given that context, your action is fine. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 08:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a venue for negotiating ultimate truth. The use of article talk pages to assert or denounce some Eternal Truth is utterly inappropriate. A little banter is ignorable. A jeremiad isn't. There are people who live to find articles on subjects they hate so that they can symbolically enact their frustration. Their problems are not ours. Zapping is appropriate. Geogre 14:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Need assistance on violated 3RR

Avraham had violated Three-revert rule on Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad article. I've reported it on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR page, but one of his friends, that is also an administrator, insists that he didn't violated 3RR, because his first edit was not a revert, although it was a combination of a revert and adding some information. Please take a look, or tell me how can I request for a review. Thanks --Hossein.ir 05:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I reviewed the information presented and Jayjg is correct. What you listed as the first revert is not really a revert. Nor is it an attempt to circumvent 3RR, which is the only circumstance here where I'd count it as a revert. This was the first edit, not the last. Btw, this is the place to put something like this for review. --Woohookitty^(meow) 09:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Mig11

In responce to a section above where another user complained about this user changing the names of "Kosovo" and "Pristina" to "Kosova" and "Prishtina" in their respective articles, I did a google search and found that the original names were the most commonly used, so I messaged Mig11 on his talk page and told him what my search had turned up and that it is policy that the most commonly-used names are supposed to be used in articles. In responce, Mig11 accused me of being a sockpuppet of the original complainer because of my shorter edit count.[27]. I think that an admin should intervene in this issue.--Rouge Rosado Oui? 14:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I was

Being reading the new article here on Wikipedia called Housewife Bangers. The article had 2 contributors so far and existed for a while before I believe it was speedily deleted last night. Speedily deleted out of process I say. What happened to the article? Harthacanute3 15:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD-A1 article; also unencyclopedic in tone, no assertion of notability for the subject matter, no sources provided, wouldn't have survived AfD. Ground not salted, please recreated (citing sources and asserting notability) if you think it has a place here. Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 15:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

HarthaCanute3 has already been blocked indef as another Courtney Akins/Cheerleader sock. Newyorkbrad 17:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Jamie Lee Curtis and Nikki Craft

(from my talk page)

You edited (removed a portion of) my comments on the Jamie Lee Curtis page. This is not acceptable. I'm happy to discuss any differences of opinion I may have with other editors, but I won't accept other people editing my comments because they disagree. Blanking sections of articles is considered to be vandalism. Atom 16:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons says "Unsourced or poorly sourced controversial (negative, positive, or just highly questionable) material about living persons should be removed immediately from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and user pages." I noticed you used Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons as a reason to delete sources in Nikki Craft. I too have a problem with Nikki citing stuff at her own website to source claims on her bio page, but deleting the only listed source and leaving the claim makes no good sense. I also notice almost all your recent edits are sex related. So you want to pick a fight with me over my correct use of WP:BLP while you use it to delete sources instead of claims and your edit subjects are troll bait (but I have not reviewed your edits on those sex pages). Altogether a troubling pattern. WAS 4.250 16:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Atomaton, please read WP:OWN. Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

This thread is also on ANI, FWIW. It's at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User_talk:Atomaton. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The comments above were not placed here by myself. They were copied by WAS 4.250. The way it is placed, it gives the appearance that I am complaining here, when it was a conversation between myself and WAS 4.250 on his talk page. The issue has been resolved as far as I know. Atom 23:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Requesting consensus to unblock Mustafa Akalp

Hi all. For those of you who don't know already, Mustafa Akalp (talk · contribs) was recently blocked for RfA vote spamming. The block was later extended to indefinite, as there was somewhat of a consensus at WP:AN/I. Although what he did was wrong, I think it was too harsh of a punishment for a first offense. Furthermore, I doubt he will do similar things in the future. Most importantly, I believe that Mustafa is a good editor. He has contributed positively to numerous articles, most notably Imbros and Republic of Gumuljina. Therefore, I am requesting that we get some sort of consensus on his unblocking. I strongly support that we give him another chance. —Khoikhoi 18:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Khoi, this guy tried to gun you down by the worst way possible. Don't shoot yourself in the foot, or at least give him some time off (at least a week, like) to think it over... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

A quick glance appears to show that Mustafa Akalp was severely and nastily distruptive... because he didn't know that isn't how we do things. Which raises an interesting question about how far WP:AGF goes. If we AGF, then he should be unblocked. But if we work from his record, we must assume that he will break each one of Wikipedia's rules and guidelines, in ignorance, one at a time. We don't, for some reason, tend to look at whether a person's Wikipedia behaviour would be acceptable in Real Life. In this case, I don't think it would be. But this isn't Real Life, it's Wikipedia, and thus we should AGF.

And then watch his every edit, obviously. ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:24, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem/reason for the block is that he would persistently refuse that what he did was wrong. He sincerely believes that what he did was acceptable. I had requested someone (maybe Baristarim) to explain to him why it was wrong in his own language, as his level of English probably dosn't help him understand. If Mustafa understands that what he did was wrong, and apologizes, then I (and I am sure the rest of users who consented in perma-blocking him) will agree unblocking him. •NikoSilver• 19:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Support that idea. If we can talk to him in a way he will understand then there's an AGF hope. If we can't, or the result isn't good for his RL thoughts, then he must remain gone. And I know that's WP:ABF, but, well... ➨ ЯEDVERS 19:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Nearly everyone who screws up around here gets at least one second chance, even if he doesn't acknowledge that what he did was wrong. I would not want to see this user get the hammer because he does not have the right friends. On the other hand, I don't believe we should be overly generous with second chances. Thatcher131 04:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait a second. He doesn't understand guidelines and he doesn't understand english. What's he doing on the English Wikipedia? I'd say we give him a week to learn the language, another to learn the rules, and then unblock him on probation. yandman 07:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I suggested that myself first on WP:AN/I. Mustafa is IMO clearly not an (overly) radical Turkist. Heck, his first edit here was to move Chalki (Turkish island) to Chalki (Greek island) — (and he screwed badly, not realizing there are two Chalki islands, leaving double redirects all over the place). Yes, his votespamming was vitriolic; but the cure is simple—block him forever if he does that again. We don't block users forever for the first offense, and I think Khoikhoi's vote has more weight in this case. Duja 07:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Buy that man Duja a drink! Also, have someone explain to Mustafa why what he did was wrong in his own language! Heck, I hadn't realized it myself until recently, although what I had done was a lot more in-line (InShaneee may remember that). Please don't make me regret posting that WP:ANI incident in the first place! I never meant this guy should be permabanned. Keep in mind that you have made a Turkish user be defended by a Greek pov-pushing nationalist one! :-) •NikoSilver• 09:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This is simply a bad idea. The way I see it there's one less fanatic in wikipedia. Miskin 09:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe we should be guided in this by those who have had more contact with him. He has strong opinions and can be aggressive in putting those opinions forward, but he is not a vandal or a fanatic, and some decent explanation of why edit wars are a bad idea might put him on the right road. He has acted like a bull in china shop but he could be a valuable editor. If Khoikhoi (as the offended party) is asking for his block to be lifted and somebody is willing to explain to him how things work, I can't see any reason to object - it's not as if we won't be watching him. Indef block him on the next offense. Yomangani^talk 10:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. I've had previous dealings with Mustafa and have found him generally good-willing and prepared to learn, but of course quite strongly hampered in his interactions on Wikipedia by his rather poor command of English. The task of "mentoring" him should include discussing ways in which he can find useful tasks for himself on enwiki where this is less of a handicap. Trying to enforce his idea of NPOV language on ideologically sensitive issues is not really one of them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Having discussed issues with Mustafa quite many times as well (and though in conflict most of those times), i also have to say that i agree with those here asking for giving him a second chance... Future Perfect at Sunrise is right: Mustafa edits in good will and he is willing to listen and/or to understand and to collaborate on the ground of improving articles. Personally, i am sure that if he knew that he was doing something wrong, he would never had done it. Also, have in mind that he is quite a new user, so, probably he did not know what happened in Khoikhoi's previous RfA... (the similarities with this is what i think played the major role in Mustafa's permablock). Obviously, he is gonna have this on his record, so, he much be extra careful from now on... But i think he deserves this second chance. Regards Hectorian 00:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

---

OK, I'll unblock him; I guess that whoever had to say anything on the subject already said it. I'll warn him about the "probation". Duja 12:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

If he doesn't think he did anything wrong, he'll just do it again once unblocked. We CANNOT let this guy back if he's blatantly not going to care about policy. --InShaneee 13:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Is anybody who speaks Turkish and understands the spamming policy willing to mentor him? InShaneee's point is correct in terms of protecting him from being indef-blocked again! •NikoSilver• 14:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Huaiwei

My edits to airline destinations are reverted by user:Huaiwei with no valid reason given. [28] He claimed there was " major changes " while there was none, and he even couldn't tell what he considered to be " major changes ". What should I do? — Instantnood 21:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Do you guys never get tired of this? /wangi 21:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Additionally that article really is one designed to be AFD'd - Airline destinations - a list of all airports in the world served by airlines. OMG! Thanks/wangi 21:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I made slight improvements to an article (please refer the diffs), and yet he keeps reverting without any valid reason. — Instantnood 21:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing the edit wars to my attention. As both have warned constantly about this sort of behavior I hope both of you enjoy your blocks. Joelito (talk) 21:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Images on MediaWiki pages

WP:BEANS ALERT, but I think it's needed. Recently images have been getting added to a lot of Mediwiki: pages. I'm not gonig to argue the matter as to the approriatness of them at all, but increasingly they have been commons: files. Unless I'm totally misunderstanding this is leaving the interface open to image vandalism. An example I came across was at MediaWiki:Blockedtext, including commons:image:Octagon-warning.svg. I reuploaded this locally with the same name and protected it at Image:Octagon-warning.svg, noted it as {{hprotected}}. More images are making their way in to the interface, as recently as the one in MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext. Should protecting such images be required? Thanks for your comments! — xaosflux ^Talk 01:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that images should not be overused in the MediaWiki space, but where they are used (13 times according to Special:Allmessages I would support protection, or perhaps reuploading the file as a duplicate and protecting the duplicate, so that the original, used on non-MediaWiki: pages, could still be edited. —Mets501 (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The images (Information icon.svg, Octagon-warning.svg, Padlock.svg, Red copyright.svg, Nuvola apps kwrite.png, Symbol comment vote 2.svg and Commons-logo.svg) are all now protected local copies. None of them seemed to be gratuitously used (take MediaWiki:Uploadtext for example), otherwise it would have been better to remove them. --bainer (talk) 14:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks bainer, guess I was in line with the normal view here then. I updated the note at MediaWiki:Editinginterface to reflect this process. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Protected Double Redirect

I can not remove this double redirect as Austin Osueke is protected - can an administrator sort this out.

  1. Austin Osueke (Edit) →‎ Eigomanga →‎ EigoMANGA

Thanks ----Lethaniol 13:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it was already being taken care of. --WinHunter ^(talk) 13:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Lol - I am just too slow - Cheers--Lethaniol 13:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Honda S2000

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

SpinyNorman is required to edit using only one account. SpinyNorman may be banned from any article he disrupts. SpinyNorman is placed on personal attack parole. He may be banned for an appropriate period of time if he makes personal attacks. SpinyNorman is placed on revert parole. He is limited to 1 revert per week on any article, excluding obvious vandalism. Should SpinyNorman continue to disrupt Wikipedia he may be banned for an appropriate period, up to a year. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Honda_S2000#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 14:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for unblocking

My username is user:lil_crazy_thing i wanted to leave a message here because i know otherwise it will not get looked at. and i know i'm not ment to do this but there no other choice. i have very unfairly been yet again blocked by Yamla. He his always singling me out and applying rules to me and not others on wrestling images. He is forever basically harassign me and stalking me on wikipedia and i'm getting very sick of it, i never had any priblems at all on wikipedia until yamla started on me and ever since then he will not leave me alone and will find fault with anything if he gets the chance to he will also block me. I'm always being unfairly treated by him and all i want is for him to just leave me alone for once which he will not do. I add an unblock request but he said no and i think that very bias to have the blocking admin review it cos everyone will know that a blocking admin will not undo his own block. Please can someone please review it and if they want me to i can prove proof for every statement i've made if need be.80.47.161.10 16:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This user knows that it is not stalking to continue warning a user for repeated violation of policies (see WP:STALK). Additionally, the claim that I am applying rules to images uploaded by this user but to no other wrestling images is a blatant lie and this user is well aware of that (even apart from the rather strange claim that only wrestling images are relevant). I have provided examples of other wrestling images which I have similarly marked as inappropriate under Wikipedia policies. I welcome other admins reviewing this particular block, but in the interests of maintaining civility, I am taking a 24 hour break from responding to this user's accusations on her talk page. --Yamla 16:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The above anon has been blocked for trying to get around a valid block. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD backlog, again

Up to 158 articles, at least one of which is 12 hours old. --Calton | Talk 16:05, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hossein.ir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I am not sure whether this belongs here or not, but in y'all collective opinion, do you think that User:Hossein.ir is pushing the bounds of WP:AGF here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Avraham reported by User:Hossein.ir (Result:No violation), here: Talk:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad#Removing journalism from the top of the article and here User talk:Avraham#Please stop personal attack, thanks? I have tried to be civil in those places, as well as User talk:Hossein.ir, but it seems to be for naught. Any suggestions, besides deep-breathing excecises and full-body contact yoga ? Thanks. -- Avi 17:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Would I be correct in stating that the origin of your dispute is some removed material that Hossein.ir considered to be libel, but you considered the removal of the material to be vandalism? (Which in turn seems to have lead Hossein.ir to be offended at being called a vandal, which lead Hossein.ir to say things that seem to have frustrated you.) Well, I'd suggest mediation. Good luck! Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 17:41, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It is indisputibly not libel. Hossein.ir seems to have an issue with a number of people who do not share his view on Iran, Palestine, Jews, MA, etc. His lack of civility and constant attacking is getting to be somewhat distracting, however. -- Avi 17:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hossein.ir seems to be disputing it, which would probably make it a content dispute rather than vandalism, albeit a rather escalated content dispute. Private mediation is generally good when disputes get hot. Alternatively, you could try refactoring, although that generally works better when a person refactors their own comments, or when a neutral third party refactors them, given the controversial nature of refactoring. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 18:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. One question, though, in all the wikipedia guidelines and policies, such as WP:BLP, WP:RS, etc., bringing something from The New York Times or CNN is always considered reliable enough to be placed in biographic articles. We have the man's own quotes from CNN, ABC, and Al Jazeera for that matter. I believe Hossein.ir is using this as a bad-faith effort to whitewash the sourced and cited material. However, as he brought (what appears to be a bad-faith) nomination of 3RR against me (which was shot down by two other admins, AND in which he was warned for incivility and baitinig) I do not want to be the one to levy sanctions as I feel sysops must hold themselves to very high standards. If anyone can show me why this would be considered libel according to wikipedia, I'd be grateful. Otherwise, I am afraid he is merely trolling. -- Avi 18:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this,[29] I'm not sure why Hossein.ir considers it libel, given that many varied references (both Western and Islamic). However, with less than 500 edits, Hossein.ir seems to be new, so it's quite possible he doesn't understand Wikipedia policy. Being biased (because I know you), I can't be a neutral mediator, but I'm willing to try to talk to Hossein.ir. In the meantime, you could ask an uninvolved administrator to protect the page, if edit warring is a problem. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 18:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Slore

Can you please protect that deleted page? As of right now, it has been deleted 9 times. Two of those deletions took place today, one of them took place on the 20th, and five of them took place in other parts of 2006. It was protected to prevent recreation on 1/26/06, but it was deleted on 9/19/06 for a reason unknown to me. Thanks. Alan^{T - C} 20:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Page salted. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 20:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Major backlogs at Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies

There are some backlogs at Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies. One of them is the proxy servers to check section. There are 41 proxies remaining to check. The other backlog is at the blocked proxies section. It needs to be moved to the Meta project's blacklist. Unfortunately, the blacklist on Meta requires a Meta administrator to edit it, as it is fully protected. I therefore cannot move those open proxies to the blacklist. Jesse Viviano 21:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

This backlog is largely due to Burak18 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who is using a massive amount of open proxies and sockpuppet accounts to avoid his ban and continue his vandalism. He has created several sockpuppet accounts on October 8, which he used last week. He has now opened a can of accounts created on October 9. Is there a way to find all accounts created on that day, without having to flip through 60 pages of the new user log first? Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 22:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I would think that CheckUser might work, except that it does not help find sockpuppets of users who use open proxies because it matches socks and their masters based on IP address. Therefore, it can be used to find the open proxies used by known sockpuppets and other accounts, or it can be used to find the sockpuppets of a user that does not use open proxies. Jesse Viviano 23:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've found some other patterns in Burak's editing, so that I know what to look out for. I don't think it'd be wise if I said it here though, per WP:BEANS. Aecis ^{Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984.} 00:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Mess with the numbers in the URL. I'm sure this URL will be out of date soon enough, but try starting here. Also, I encourage you to softblock the proxies. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 00:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no need for a Meta administrator; IP addresses should not be moved directly to the blacklist from the English Wikipedia. Please move them to m:Meta:WikiProject on open proxies/Requested, where administrators on participating projects will block them before they are blacklisted. —[admin] Pathoschild 15:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism Detector Bot

Daniel Brandt has done us a huge favor with his Plagiarism Detector Bot ( http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/psamples.html), which scours our database, looking for key phrases that exist other than in Wikimirrors. I urge everyone to use this wonderful tool.

However, I do urge caution, since the bot doesn't recognize when large samples of text are public domain and hence I erroneously removed 90% of Charles Wheatstone, before realizing that the site Brandt's bot thought was the original source... had taken it from a book on Project Gutenberg (I have since replaced the material). DS 01:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Cute. It is good to know I will be able to do something while waiting for Wherebot to report suspected copyright violations. Thanks  :-) -- ReyBrujo 01:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. :) Garion96 (talk) 02:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

First 19 lines are now clear.Geni 01:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's not a bot, I think he actually ran 30,000 google searches by hand. At least that's the impression people got on Wikipedia Review. Anyway, I encourage people not to delete the articles wholesale, just remove the copyvio stuff, these all seem to be valid article topics and almost every one I looked at had at least enough non-copyvio text for a stub. --W.marsh 02:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

use selective delete to remove copyvio struff from history. It is a bot. Sure it had a fair bit of human supervision but it was a bot. So the challange is to build a better one (I can think of a few improvements).Geni 02:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah now he's confirmed that it was a bot... initially he didn't say that. Anyway, it seems it's not as easy for him to run as he implied. Nevertheless it generates useful results for improving Wikipedia. --W.marsh 02:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't figure out what is going on with Milton Bradley.Geni 02:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

dito Matteo RicciGeni 02:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I've created a list at User:W.marsh/list so we can hopefully organize this ad hoc effort better. Shouldn't take much longer. --W.marsh 02:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• We actually DO have a bot that works on this task, User:Wherebot, focusing on newly created articles that are copyvio and listing them at Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of these seem to have been created years ago and are just not very frequently editted articles. We catch most stuff when Wherebot is up nowadays. --W.marsh 02:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget that a lot of websites steal Wikipedia's content without attribution, so what you may be deleting from here is actually the original and it's the other site that's a copyvio. --Cyde Weys 02:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Not run across one like that yet (except perhaps the problem ones I've mentioned above) a couple form PD sources on credited.Geni 02:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok it happened assumeing the dates are correct Francis Cunningham was coppied from us.Geni 03:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hasn't a german journalist been fired because of copying and not citing the German Wikipedia? -- ReyBrujo 03:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that is any of our concern. More importantly is figureing out where the text was coppied from (the intial version looks like a copyvio but I can't find it).Geni 03:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That was called a "trivia". I believe we could contact the journalist and ask from where the information was picked. If from Wikipedia, we can request to quote us. If from another source, we know from where our version has been copied). -- ReyBrujo 03:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Two things, shouldn't the copyvio versions be deleted, instead of just reverting to the last sane version? Also, note that Jimbo modified the CSD:G12 criteria, now a blatant copyvio article can be tagged with {{db-copyvio}} at any time, not only in its first 48 hours. We may tag them as speedy instead of sending them to CP. Unless you want to wait for Jimbo's reply. More on this here -- ReyBrujo 02:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I recently had a discussion about that. According to this old page and the instruction on WP:CP reverting is good enough. Perhaps it should be changed. That would mean lots of extra work though. Garion96 (talk) 03:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Incidentally, the edit summary I'm using is "removed material as per Daniel Brandt's anti-plagiarism bot (thank you, Mr Brandt!)", which I feel is polite and considerate. I suggest that we all use it in this circumstance. DS 03:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This should be handled through deletion rather than editing.Geni 03:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

We're down to just 4. But there's more work to do, people should create stubs for the articles that had to be deleted. --W.marsh 03:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Finnished except Francis Cunningham and Francis Cunningham where I'm not quite sure what coppied what.Geni 03:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed the text from Georges Bizet (it was just 1.5 paragraphs) but couldn't find where it crept in. That's the last one left on the list I started. --W.marsh 03:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This bot does not look at article history, and it effect has way too many false positives, like Henryk Sienkiewicz. Please always verify in the article history that the allegedly plagiarized text was copied in a single edit. If it wasn't, it's most likely copied the other way. Taw 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. This bot should be thought of as a way to detect instances where Wikipedia articles and external (non-mirror, non-clone, non-GFDL) websites have identical text. It is not detecting copyvios, and it is not detecting who did the copying. That requires a human to answer the question: "Did they copy from us, or did we copy from them?" That was the reason for the 48-hour limit in the first place. If that 48-hour rule is being discarded, then more care needs to be taken, especially if sections of articles are being detected, rather than whole articles. Carcharoth 21:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, imagine what will happen if someone finds that an article that they wrote 4 years ago has been deleted from here and is now claimed by another website that gives no attribution to Wikipedia? The system will have failed in a massive way. Carcharoth 21:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The plurality of them were copy and pasted from Brittanica. I'm not too concerned about the feelings of the people who did that. Bizet apparently was swiped from Wikipedia without credit, but that's been fixed. --W.marsh 21:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Removing the plagiarism so quickly was a job well done and the admins who did it deserve a pat on the back. But now we really need to go after those who inserted the copyvios, see what else they've been up to and take appropriate action. That's going to be a lot more work. Haukur 22:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Brandt spent days of careful work weeding out false positives before publishing his samples. So while you should always double check, I think we don't need to worry too much here about accidentally deleting good stuff. Haukur 21:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Benitrimi

Benitrimi (talk · contribs) & 69.121.55.31 (talk · contribs) are/is reverting the article "Avni Abazi", thus removing an AfD template (added by User:Calton), removing wikilinks, and replacing "Kosovo" & "Priština" by the Albanian names "Kosova" & "Prishtina" (diff.). - Regards, Evv 03:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

He's been warned and it seems that he stopped. If continues, a block will be needed. I'll watch him. NCurse _work 07:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

"AOL proxy range maintenance"

With this innocuous edit summary, a bot is wiping all comments (mostly vandalism warnings) from AOL user talk pages. These aren't all old comments; they're recent. See this example.

If a non-bot did this, I'd revert the edit and post a complaint on the perp's own user talk page. But I'm not going to battle a bot single-handedly.

I realize that despite all the minatory white-hands-on-red, etc., WP gives more or less carte blanche to AOLusers to make as many stupid edits to as many pages as they wish. ("Blocking might prevent good edits by innocent users"!) However, for a bot to blank mere criticism of an AOLuser (and to do so with a bland and uninformative edit summary) seems several steps too far.

As for the warning (in red!) that warnings to AOL users go to the wrong place, this is untrue for certain AOL IPs. See this for example: an AOLuser with obsessed by dark thoughts about Elvis Presley. -- Hoary 03:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I cannot find any place where this has been discussed and approved (the talk page of the WikiProject on user warnings has several users complaining about this idea), so I've blocked the bot indefinitely until discussion here occurs. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Should we re-add the comments back? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 03:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just now reverted the particular blanking that I linked to. Unfortunately the "real world" has a pressing demand on my time and I can't look at the bot's list of recent "contributions" for now.

Incidentally, I'm no fan of melodramatic warnings on user talk pages. I think the warnings should be curt, clear, and uninteresting. But that's a different issue. -- Hoary 03:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm the operator of the bot in question. The bot is removing warnings posted to pages in the AOL proxy range, as distinguished from the AOL dynamic range. This is an important distinction which often leads to the opposition expressed above and on the User warning layout standardisation talk page (all of which have been answered there). A user in the proxy range changes very rapidly; it is said that the 'new messages' banner is permanent, and that clicking the link brings you to a talk page for an IP you've already moved from. Very conservatively, proxy users switch addresses within fifteen minutes, which makes all warnings older than fifteen minutes absolutely irrelevant. Leaving warnings after that point is the equivalent of warning Titoxd about hypothetical vandalism committed by Hoary, and arguing that they are relevant because someone has to be warned.

The AOL dynamic ranges are more traditional, randomly assigned on connection and generally stable the whole time the user is connected. Warnings on these pages don't need to be removed, since the user actually will see them. Those IP addresses should no longer be categorised by {{AOL}} rather than the generic {{sharedip}}, and updating those pages is part of the maintenance I was performing while reviewing each individual edit after the fact. —[admin] Pathoschild 04:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This does not appear to be one of the tasks this bot was approved to run at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals/Archive#Pathosbot, though our approvals process didn't require the detail it does now. I support the unblocking of this bot as long as it is now only running approved functions. Additional functions can always be requested. Due to this thread, if placing a new bot approvals request, please link that request to this thread if still active. From the bot approvals group, — xaosflux ^Talk 04:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

At the same time, the warnings on the proxy pages will still be visible, and blanking the warnings will just trigger the confusing orange bar again, and a user will get confused anyways if he clicks the diff link, so I don't see any benefit in blanking those pages. The case there is for not warning AOL users, not for removing the warnings already there. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The bot was approved for "tedious or slow tasks", which includes this one. The bot policy has changed since it was approved, which may require re-approval of such tasks, but it was originally given that scope.

As I said "does not appear", we have yet to go back through all the old bot requests (am working on validating several inconsistant pages) but "open-ended" bot tasks are no longer approriate. It would be just as easy to say that adding a new template to every page in the wiki would be tedious, but it is certainly wouldn't be acceptable to have a bot start doing this. User talk:Robchurch who approved your bot is not around to elaborate on the discussion though. It's simple to request bot task expansion, so I'd recomend you bring this there, and one of the first questions will likely be to link to a project page where this has been requested and consensus agrees it is in best interests. — xaosflux ^Talk 06:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Users are confused by the warnings themselves. Many emails we recieve on the Open ticket response system are from AOL users who believe they are personally being warned for something they did not do, despite the explanatory template at the top of the page. They do not email us complaining that someone dared removed such warnings from their talk page. Any likely confusion in this case was caused by the mass rollback that followed the block. —[admin] Pathoschild 04:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

See also the precedent set by AOL account when they did the same: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive52#AOL_Blocks. —[admin] Pathoschild 05:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The warnings have to be removed some time, and recency is not a factor for the proxy IPs. —Centrx→talk • 06:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Pathoschild. I hadn't noticed any differentiation by en:WP among AOL IP numbers, which I suppose is "my bad". Putting aside the question of whether your bot was authorized to do what it's doing, what it's doing does seem to be a good thing. So I eat most of my words. But not all: I still think "AOL proxy range maintenance" was an unnecessary, even misleadingly bland edit summary; it could have been "AOL proxy: Deleting all messages other than AOL template" or similar. -- Hoary 06:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Time ranges for these should be determined at bot requests and the bot should not remove recent messages, otherwise why waste the time donig anything on these pages, just blank (other then the template) and protect all of them. — xaosflux ^Talk 06:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Why waste the time leaving messages indeed. Time ranges should not be determined at bot requests, because the bot is incidental to the task— I could do the same task semi-automatically or manually (as AOL account once did). It should be determined at a relevant discussion page— the WikiProject on user warning layout standardisation, for example. —[admin] Pathoschild 07:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, determining the best use of these pages is not the role of bot approvals, but the implementation of those determinations is. Without further details the situations are endless (e.g. at the shortest possible intervals, all messages left on these talk pages would be getting immeditatley removed-even if a project group determined that having these pages blank is best, implmenting that by immediately reverting talks is obviously not useful. Sometimes project groups miss some details like this (usually not as obvious as that example of course) and when the bot task request comes in we refer the operator back to the project group for further direction. Most bot approvals are fairly straight forward, and the process has been streamlined in the last month or so. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

As for not leaving messages at all, is there a serious proposal for this somewhere, if so where? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This might sound like a radical proposal, but I do not think we should be leaving warning messages on the talk pages of AOL proxy range IP addresses at all. Not once have they been picked up by the intended recipient, with exception to a vandal who is seeking out these warnings. All that they do is provoke vandals and confuse the casual and innocent visitor. Can someone show me a diff that would prove otherwise? Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Does User:Pathoschild/Template:AOL look like what you have in mind? That'd be a very efficient solution. —[admin] Pathoschild 16:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems sensible. Or we could just block unregistered editing from these ranges entirely, with a suitably infromative block message. I was about to do that some months ago, but then some rumors appeared that AOL was going to get XFF support soon, which would've made blocking the proxy IPs pointless. Since this doesn't seem to be happening, I guess it's time to restart that proposal. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:38, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be even more efficient; feel free. —[admin] Pathoschild 20:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, AOL is sending XFF headers, but the whitelist needs to be modified to support CIDR ranges. You may want to poke Tim Starling about that, though. Titoxd^(?!?) 20:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Zaphnathpaaneah

This guy is completly out of control. User:Ryulong and myself caught this guy red-handed in a copyvio. So, he plays a race card, for crying out loud. I should have seen that little gem coming when I saw his user page. Take a look at User talk:Zaphnathpaaneah to see what I mean. He's been blocked for the next 24 hours on an civility violation. He's lucky it wasn't more. I'll run up an RfC if he comes back swinging. Thought you all should know. - Lucky 6.9 07:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm shocked it took this long for someone to block him. He totally destroyed the black people article, transforming it into an uncited POV personal essay and edit wars causing it to be protected. He even managed to destroy the black people talk page which is dominated by his ranting, raving, and race baiting. I got so tired of trying to deal with him that I put all my energy into the Definitions of black people article. If someone can redirect the protected and POV black people article to the well cited and neutral Definitions of black people article, that would be great. Timelist 09:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think that merging all of your work over at Definitions of black people back into Black people would be much better for the project, once it gets unprotected. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Or you could just rename the Definitions of black people article "black people" and get rid of the current black people article since it has very little encyclopedic content not already covered in the Definitions of black people article. Timelist 09:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No. That is not how things are done on Wikipedia. Black people will be unprotected, soon, and you will be able to merge your work at the separate article over there. Just give things time. If/when Zaphnathpaaneah comes back, and he starts up his bullshit again, then he'll be dealt with. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

However, someone should go through Talk:Black people/Archive 4, 5, 6, and 7 to see what damage this guy may have done, already. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 09:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• I've unblocked Black people for now, but I'll leave it up to the regular editors of the article to correct the POV. I've increased this user's block to one month and protected his user and talk pages since he threatened to continue to disrupt the site via his talk page. If any sockpuppets should appear, please let me know. - Lucky 6.9 16:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

After careful consideration and discussion with User:Timelist, I've permanently blocked this account for trolling, race-baiting, incivility and disruption of Wikipedia. - Lucky 6.9 16:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

What's going on here?

Could someone take a look at the contributions of RJBurkhart3 (talk · contribs), apparently formerly known as RJBurkhart (talk · contribs)? I don't quite understand what's going on there: is this just a little odd, or some massive promotional attempt? Adding Category:Memetics to Petrus Apianus and all the images, adding Category:Anticipatory thinking to Cybercrime (note in particular his sig on Talk:Cybercrime...), and then the whole Anticipatory thinking (futures) article with its "Pathfinder portfolio" stuff? Didn't check the rest; but to me, this sure looks weird. Lupo 10:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks like blatant spam to me. Very well done, though. Looks like it's time for a speedy-delete/rollback/block. yandman 11:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yup. See also futurethought.info, linked from User:RJBurkhart. He also edited as 65.30.117.192. If I read User talk:RJBurkhart correctly, this has been going for quite some time. I'll ask User:Rmhermen about this guy, he seems to have interacted with him... Lupo 12:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes this use has a habit of adding large number of low quality edits - along with some good ones. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be learning proper editing style. Rmhermen 22:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for blocking anonymous edits

To whom of the administrators it may concern,

I don't know if this is the right place to offer suggestions, and I have a feeling that this has been suggested before, but anyway:

It is my opinion that a lot of administrative work and undoing of vandalism could be avoided if WikiPedia were to stop allowing anonymous/non-account users to edit the WikiPedia content. I am also of the opinion that it would be a slight improvement for the community, and would enhance the community "feeling", if people had a better idea of who are who and who does what edits.

As such, i would suggest that The Wiki-Rulers consider making it mandatory for would-be editors to create accounts or them to be able to edit WikiPedia content.

Just my dime. - Peter Bjørn Perlsø 14:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

AS you guessed, this is a perennial proposal; as such, WP:VPE is the best place to ask. (Administrators would find it very hard to prevent all anons editing; it's more an issue for the developers, but they wouldn't change it without consensus within the community, which seemed unlikely the previous times this was proposed (for instance, I think anons should be able to edit; User:69.145.123.171 has a list of other anon-supporters if you're more interested.) --ais523 14:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll look in WP:VPE, thanks. - Peter Bjørn Perlsø 14:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Unusual request

I know this sounds a bit unusual, but can someone please block me for 1 day? I need to focus on classwork, and I am afraid Wikipedia is taking my time from that. Thank you. -- Chris chat edits essays 15:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Such requests are normally not granted due to the autoblocker. You could try using the Wikibreak Enforcer script at WP:US/S. --ais523 15:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Kely Support Group opinion needed

Could someone check Kely Support Group? Mainly because I don't want to look like I am harassing them (besides I don't have too much time, boss is coming soon), and because the history shows a user pattern. I believe it may qualify as a notable organization, but I would like a second opinion. Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 16:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's marginal, on the side of being sufficiently notable. However, I think you can in good faith submit an AfD and see what the consensus is. --Nlu (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Userpage question

What's the current policy on commercial promotion on userpages? I'm talking about apparent single-purpose accounts like User:Swissprivatebank or User:Privatebankaccount, where the user's only edits are to their own userpage. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 16:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a particularly pinpointed policy on this, but if I were you, I'd block both of them indefinitely as violative of WP:SPAM. --Nlu (talk) 16:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Since I don't have The Button, would you be willing to do the honors? -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 16:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I asked them to change username. If nothing changes, I'll block them. NCurse _work 16:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Since they now have zero contributions, isn't asking them to change usernames pointless? If they are legitimate users, they can easily just create new accounts, (which would be less hassle for them and the bureaucrats,) and if they aren't legit, then why would they bother requesting username changes to monikers that are less promotional? (Which would defeat the purpose of promotional usernames.) Picaroon9288 18:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Open proxy block causing inability to read articles?

I got an e-mail from Kskang3247 (talk · contribs), whose IP address (210.210.12.141 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) I had previously blocked as an open proxy. (The open proxy check site indicated that it is probably not an open proxy, but a lot of Web lists treats it as one due to poor security precautions by the ISP allowing access through the proxy.) Kskang3247 said that as a result of the block, he cannot read articles (after I initially wrote him and declined to lift the block, citing the open proxy nature of the IP and that he would still be able to read), and asked me to lift the block. He sent me a screen shot of the block message; however, that screen shot indicated that the message read that he is only blocked from editing, not reading. So my questions are, for those who might know more about this:

• Is it possible that an open proxy block causes someone to be unable to read articles?
• Whether this is true or not, should I convert the block (indefinite, as open proxy) to a soft block, and if so, should I also lift the block on creating user accounts from that IP?

Information/opinion are appreciated. --Nlu (talk) 16:22, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked users (and IP's) can read articles just fine. Not sure about your second question though, what's the difference between an open proxy and a proxy with poor security that allow anyone to use it? --Sherool (talk) 16:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I see no practical difference, although this brings the issue of this user possibly being an "innocent" user who is being hurt by the ISP's carelessness as opposed to a malicious user exploiting an open proxy. The latter is unlikely to be true, since such an user wouldn't be bothering to e-mail me, I don't think, as there would be other open proxies to find and use. --Nlu (talk) 16:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

How is using open proxies "malicious"? : ( Using open proxies, Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 16:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The main reason people use open proxies is to get arround something that stops them from accessing somewhere, be that filtering software in a workplace that forbids wikipedia use or wikipedia blocks. Plugwash 18:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

See m:WM:NOP --pgk 19:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Or because they are paranoid (with or without good reason) like me. (For example, if someone gets your IP, then assuming your ISP has records of IP assignment, someone with either a warrant or very good cracking skills can also get everything else on your ISP bill.) And yes, I have seen m:WM:NOP, so I guess if I get autoblocked it's my own fault. But although one reason Plugwash mentioned is relatively "malicious" (avoiding Wikipedia blocks), not all reasons are. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 19:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

So you don't trust wikimedia servers to be secure regarding your IP, but do some unknown provider of an open proxy? --pgk 19:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm proxy-chaining, with encryption. (The idea is that although some of the proxies may be untrustworthy, hopefully not all of them are.) And it's not Wikimedia servers so much as the things in between the Wikimedia servers and I, like my ISP. I'd explain in more detail, but that might be WP:BEANS for those who do want to use proxies to get around blocks. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 19:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I got more clarification by e-mail from the user. Apparently, the user mistakenly thought that red links lead to additional information, so when he clicked on one, he thought he was blocked off from content. I sent him an e-mail back explaining the situation and informing him that I'm not inclined to grant the unblock. --Nlu (talk) 09:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

history merge needed Gaim and GAIM

this is an *old* copypaste move that it seems never got spotted before. Plugwash 17:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

2 secs... -- Tawker 17:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Azlea Antistia

[30]. It was deleted. The reason was given is a copyvio. Please restore it. I don't knwo if it is a copyvio (I don't think so). I'll rewrite it and remove the (possibly) copyrighted text form the entry. --Haham hanuka 17:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I've reviewed the situation, and I believe it is a copyright violation. I've therefore explained on my own talk page (Talk:Nlu) that I will not restore the article. --Nlu (talk) 10:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sock of indef blocked user

User:CME46 is a sock of User:Andrew Lin, who is an indefinitely blocked user that has edited under many usernames. CME46 is definitely an incarnation of Lin, as the discussion of "25 Years of Beauty" (an article that Lin actually created over a year ago that was deleted) on CME46's userpage confirms. Additionally, the odd pattern of edits, especially relating to soda and odd comments on my talk page, are consistent with Lin's other edits. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/68.170.0.238 for the old Rfc on Lin that led to the indef block. · j e r s y k o talk · 18:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Al Gore III

If anyone else would care to weigh in a WP:BLP issue, please come over to the Al Gore III talk page. The dispute is about whether to include some, all, or none of Al Gore III's arrests in his encyclopedia article. Al Gore III is not in politics, BTW, and is only notable because he is Al Gore's son. Any opinions would be appreciated. Hopefully we can prevent this article from becoming another Office Action statistic. Sorry if this is not appropriate for the admin noticeboard, but I wasn't sure where else to post it. Kaldari 18:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

• Not only is this not the right page for it (a better place would be WP:3 or WP:RFC), by posting it here you're giving off an appearance of impropriety, namely that you're looking for a sympathetic admin to come over and do something by force. (To the admins reading this, I suggest you look at the articles AfD history and DRV; a lot of people want this article gone, but the consensus has always been to keep.) --Aaron 18:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Stupidity

This may be my.. er.. stupidity, but is there a better way of dealing with this: A vandal posted someone's personal info in this article, and it was reverted. Anger22 asked me to delete the vandal's edit. So I delete, and go to restore, and... yeah, I'm not going to click 1,920 check boxes. Is there a select-all function, or is anyone using a browser/tool/etc that could more easily do this? Thanks... --Aguerriero (talk) 19:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

In Mozilla, check the first, go the last and check it while keeping "shift" pressed. No time for doing it myself now, sorry :-( Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 19:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, what is required is a user with Oversight access to delete the offensive edit from the history of the article. Torinir _{( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options )} 21:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I've got a little javascript bookmark that checks all the boxes for me. However, I can't remember where I got it from or who made it or how to pass it on to someone else. Hmm. I think you paste javascript:for (i=0; i<document.forms.length; i++) { for (j=0; j<document.forms[i].elements.length; j++) { f= document.forms[i].elements[j]; if (f.type == 'checkbox') f.checked= true; } } void 0 in as the location and then give the book mark a name. Try that. pschemp | talk 00:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. However, I only removed an edit dated "18:46, 23 October 2006". When asking to remove single revisions, please also specify which ones are to be removed. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 11:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Moving deleted revisions out of the way

By the way, I think it would be nice if, whenever people are doing such selective history deletions, they'd also move the deleted revisions to a different title. That will make the job of any admin who needs to repeat the exercise later for the same article easier, and ensures that the revisions containing confidential information don't get restored later by accident. There are two ways to do this:

• Method A:
  1. Move the article to a new title (say, Stupidity/deleted revisions 2006-10-23).
  2. Delete the article.
  3. Restore all revisions except the ones you wanted to remove.
  4. Move the article back to its original title.
• Method B:
  1. Delete the article.
  2. Restore only the version you wanted to removed.
  3. Move the restored revisions to a new title (as above).
  4. Delete the moved revisions.
  5. Restore all the remaining revisions of the original article.

The second method takes more work, but has the advantage that you don't need to select lots of checkboxes at any point. Also, before doing selective history deletion, it's a good idea to always check if the article already has deleted revisions, and, if so, move them out of the way first. This can be done using a similar sequence of moves and deletions as above:

1. Move the article to a temporary title (say, Stupidity/temp).
2. Restore the deleted revisions.
3. Move the restored revisions to a new title (say, Stupidity/old deleted revisions).
4. Delete the moved revisions.
5. Move the temporarily renamed article back to its original title.
6. Continue with either method above.

(This should probably go to some "advice for admins" page, but I'll post it here for now since the subject came up.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Please comment/edit WP:SELDEL appropriately. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 11:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Renaming categories

Can someone explain to me how to rename categories? Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Howto for how to nominate for renaming. Deletion process Deletion process for how to close and rename, once the CFD discussion has ended (under "If the decision is Delete, Merge, or Rename") --Kbdank71 20:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Short version: Create a new category with proper name, re-categorise all articles to use the new one (typical bot work unless the cat only have a handfull of members), then delete the now empty old category. --Sherool (talk) 21:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Really short version: file a bug. -Splash - tk 21:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This reminds me of the first time I realised that category renaming wasn't possible in any simple way. I thought "that must be a bug". But actually, if category moving was as simple as page moving, the vandalism possibilities would be endless! A big clue that categories can't be renamed in any simple way, which I only spotted recently, is that there is no "move" tab for category pages. This also means that the history of any work on a category page is lost (well, technically hidden) if it is deleted. Now that really is a bug! :-( Carcharoth 22:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Michael

What is the current (socilogical) status of Michael (talk · contribs)/Mike Garcia (talk · contribs) et. al? -Splash - tk 21:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

He claimed to be Johnny the Vandal, a permablocked multi-username vandal, and I see no reason to doubt the claim, so he should stay permablocked, as far as I'm concerned. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Minors creating autobiographies

A new user has been creating his own autobiography, which I've deleted twice now and had planned on userfying if I see it again, but he has given his full name, the city he lives in, the school he goes to, his age (13) and the names of his friends. Should this be deleted? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely! Do not userfy. There are several possible reasons this might be big trouble. FloNight 22:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought so. Thanks for confirming it. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Permanent, untagged semi-protection

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I quote from the top of this page: Please be aware that these pages are not the place to bring disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour — we're not referees, and have limited authority to deal with abusive editors. We have a dispute resolution procedure which we recommend you follow. Please take such disputes to requests for comment, requests for mediation, or requests for arbitration rather than here.

I am thus closing this discussion - see my fuller reasoning at the end of it--Doc 01:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this is unfortunate to my mind. CSCWEM does lots of much-needed vandal fighting. As part of this he pretty regularly semi-protects things; articles mainly. Only he has never, in the last month, unprotected a single thing, except one restoration he did. That'd be ok, only he never actually adds a tag, category, anything, to the articles he semi-protects. Now I suppose they get bot-listed at WP:PP, but that's really only half the job and the tag and category exist for a reason. I can't get any response (to anything, at all, even why he blocked someone for 8.625 fortnights) from his talk page, I suppose he must not like me (fair enough, but still) so I'm kind of wondering whether this seems like a good balance to be striking or not? (The answer from IRC vandal fighters is naturally yes! protect anything!) -Splash - tk 22:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Trollish comment struck out. Let's stick with relevant material, shall we? Luna Santin 22:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Not a troll, 2 Can look after self. 3. Shall we? -Splash - tk 22:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm frankly confused by your pre-emptively adversarial attitude. This is a collaborative project, all editors should strive to get along, and divisive comments like that don't appear to add anything to the topic; worse, they take away from what could otherwise immediately leap into productive discussion. But I'll drop it after that -- I made my point, and I would like to move on. You're free to compose a clever rebuttal if you like.

For the most part, I try to appropriately tag pages I've protected, and I do dig through my protection log to unprotect every two or three days -- I'd encourage most any admin to do the same, I think. It does seem unusual that CSCWEM wouldn't reply to your message, though to be fair he might need or want more than sixteen minutes to do so; is there any history of bad blood, there, or is it just a case of a missed message? Or I guess more to the point, is this thread about reminding people to tag and eventually unprotect, in general, or about CSCWEM in particular? I'm guessing the former, or maybe both, but please correct me if I'm wrong on that. Luna Santin 23:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I more or less torpedoed his 2nd RfA if you're looking for blood. I gave him the whole day to answer the questions about odd blocks. It's about CSCWEM in particular; I've never come across such an imbalance and lack of tags. Nor such bizarre block lengths, and unwillingness, despite a full day's editing, to discuss. -Splash - tk 23:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to admit these blocks of 299 hours are really annoying when trying to determine how long the next block should be. I'm gonna leave him a message about that (since he's given out another since Splash first brought it up). -- Steel 23:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

299 hours appears to be 12 days and 11 hours; I can't see why that's useful. As for 8.625 fortnights, apart from being useless to the next admin is an extradorinary 120+ days. -Splash - tk 23:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Could you provide some examples? Snoutwood (talk) 23:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Protection log has 4 unprotects since July. If you look down the (current) top of [31] you can see 99 hours, 299 hours, and 8.625 fortnights. As well as crytpic codes. I asked about blocks [32], [33], [34], [35], and protection [36], [37]. (This is all available from logs, you know. That's why I didn't clutter with diffs; I'm not likely to be making this up, really.) -Splash - tk 23:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't add the tag either since the box ruins the article. I guess I could start adding them to the sprotected category (a self-reference in the cats is less serious), but as long as the bot is adding the pages I protect to WP:PP, I really don't see the need. The PP-list is much nicer to browse since it includes the date for when the articles were (s)protected. What does the category give us that the list doesn't? Shanes 23:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It is the imbalance that I'm principally interested in; he regularly protects, never tags and never unprotects (see above). He also hands out really weird-shaped blocks. I can't rustle up talk page reply on either point. -Splash - tk 23:31, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

You've gotta admit, his block times are a bit interesting to try and figure out how long he's gonna block for... livens things up a bit and it looks cooler than the standard week block we put on repeat vandals :o -- Tawker 23:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I do not admit that. It makes it hard to work out where are/not in the scheme of blocks, how long they may have left until the block expires and is generally way outside the usual, perfectly functional stuff. If things aren't lively enough, then, well, that's not everyone else's problem. Never unprotecting articles appears to contradict the notion of a number of fairly serious things. -Splash - tk 23:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

He is working to counter-act vandalism. On that end, he is protecting pages. He is not going to encounter many pages that warrant unprotection in the process of reviewing bogus recent changes. I doubt he looks through Category:Requests for unblock either, but that does not mean he is doing anything wrong in blocking the people. —Centrx→talk • 00:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say he was; it's the weird durations that I think are unhelpful. If an admin protects a page, they should head back later to unprotect. -Splash - tk 00:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

After reviewing the logs this looks like a spurious thread, even if it was not meant to be. It is de facto standard to lengthen block times for returning vandals including those on problematic school nets as long as logged in users can edit. My only concern is why you felt it was necessary to go as far as to unprotect for example Atlantic Records (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) which has a history of vandalism even while semi-protected. Why did you do this? Yamaguchi先生 08:06, 24 October 2006

Splash, you have the opposite problem. You unprotect articles that are facing heavy ongoing vandalism and then walk away from them. Some of these are then re-vandalized within minutes. Which is worse? --Cyde Weys 23:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't validate CSCWEM's blocking/protection habits. If Splash's unprotection is causing an issue, bring it up in another thread rather than using it as tit for tat. Snoutwood (talk) 23:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Considering this thread should never have been started here, it makes more sense to evaluate why anyone would have done so rather than discuss the frivolous complaint. —Centrx→talk • 00:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

And where, pray tell, should it have been? And which is the frivolous part? —Cryptic 00:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should have been. I tried the talk page, don't want to RfAR particularly, and can't RfC by myself, with an unresponsive other party. It's not frivolous. -Splash - tk 00:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

8.625 fortnights = 120 days = 4 months; AB = Autoblock; AO = Anon-Only; 299 hours = 12.5 days; 744 hours = 31 days; Calculator = programmed into most computers; most other blocks are pretty simple from CSCWEM. —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 00:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Calculator: Use your brain. —Centrx→talk • 00:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That was just plain rude. -Splash - tk 00:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

None of which actually explains their length's meaning, nor clarifies much in terms of the stuff I already mentioned. They are substantially unusual durations which are not part of the normal blocking vocabulary. It just confuses. 8.625 fortnights is not 120 days, and 120 days is not 4 months. 299 hours is not 12.5 days. -Splash - tk 00:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"the tag and category exist for a reason": What are those reasons? The page is already listed elsewhere, and a clearer message could be added to the MediaWiki page rather than cluttering the article. —Centrx→talk • 00:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Splash, use the dispute resolution process please. If others have complaints about Splash do the same. FloNight 00:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

How? A request for arbitration seems far excessive; an RfC is impossible if I'm an only user and the other party is not responding. Here is the standard place to start. An RfAr against me has already been tried and failed.... -Splash - tk 00:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, if it's set in hours, then we can determine how long the next block should be. 99 hours is his most common number he uses, but what is 99 hours but a little under 3 "31 hour" blocks? The use of fortnights is a little excessive, true, but it's nothing to start a discussion, RFC or RFAr about. I mean if he all of his logs in fortnights, I guess that would be a problem, but he doesn't. For the most part he uses hours, which we can always just do the simple math. semper fi — Moe 00:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Splash, I agree with Flo, and RfC is the proper course. If you want a general admin discussion on protection then fair enough, but it looks to me like you are here 'requesting comments' on an individual admin. Yes, RfCs need to be seconded - and there are good reasons for us requiring that. Don't use this board to get round that requirement. If CSCWEM isn't responding to you, you should ask someone else to have a word. If there's still no adequate response then RfC is the place to go.--Doc 01:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Asking someone else to have a word is exactly why I came here. I can't very well turn up on some random other talk page and ask said random to go and 'have a word'; that'd make no sense. Since it is actually ok to talk about things here, I took away the silly purple box. Ive not really understood the prevailing feeling that it's never ok to be critical on this page. -Splash - tk 07:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Splash, the issue is that you seem to be trying to turn this into an informal RfC on an admin rather than having a discussion about the issue in general, so I'm going to restore Doc's archiving. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 08:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone has undone it....oh well. I simply can't see how this thread isn't a 'request for comment' on CSCWEM.--Doc 13:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

For a third time, this is not a requests for comments forum. I am endorsing and restoring the archival notice. RFerreira 16:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pat8722

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

Upon returning to active editing, Pat8722 is placed on Probation for one year. He may be banned for an appropriate period of time from any page or set of pages for disruptive editing. Should Pat8722 violate any ban imposed under probation, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeat violations. After 5 such blocks the maximum block period increases to one year. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pat8722#Log of blocks and bans.

For the Arbitration Committee. Arbitration Committee Clerk, FloNight 22:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Tasc

In the light of this, this, his/her talk page archives and dense reversion history, I'm concerned about this user's manner within Wikipedia. Is there anything that might be done to encourage him/her to behave in a more collaborative, friendly and civil way...?  Thanks, David Kernow (talk) 23:05, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Short, sharp shock? I agree Tasc is being problematic and possibly even disruptive, and you have been more than accommodating, trying to work with Tasc but not getting any response. Carcharoth 00:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for responding, Carcharoth. If by the proverbial short, sharp shock you mean a block, I'm not sure if that would help; perhpas, though, you had something else in mind...?  I left a few (informal) requests for comment on the template discussion and am pleased to see a few folk have passed by; maybe this reminder that we all need to accommodate each other – even though, yes, it can be frustrating and time-consuming sometimes! – might be more effective. I hope so. If not, however, there's this thread as a point of reference. Yours, David (talk) 08:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

ChaCha Search

ChaCha has been removed several times, although the post is legitimate and non-adverstisement. Clusty, Squidoo, Google and Yahoo have all been able to stay on Wiki and the reasoning behind ChaCha being removed in unclear. Please advise as to the underlying issue.

Thanks. Roadrun33 03:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ChaCha Search. —Cryptic 03:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Extreme number of unremovable French links on Planets in Stargate

A few of the people working on the page: Planets in Stargate, have noticed that for no reason whatsoever, the link in the toolbox to the French version appears more than a hundered times. There was nothing in the code of the page that would indicate this, and no oone had made any edit that would seem to cause this. After trying to Delete the French link entirely, they were still there. Even after screwing around on the French version, we still haven't been able to remove the links. I think this might be a glitch in the software, or some sort of Vandal virus that reprograms the codes. We need an admin with very good technical skills to take a look. Tobyk777 03:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It was Template:Milky Way Gate Address. [38] Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 04:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Paul Hindemith

I seem to be having trouble with the Paul Hindemith article. I noticed some vandalism... "i am very bored and need to call someone!!!. A BOT then seemingly showed the removal of the grafitti.[39] When I however looked at the article it still showed the vandalism. I reported it here, at the Obvious Vandalism section. I followed the suggestions in clearing my memory and refreshing the article. It was still there, so I reported it again this time to user:gdo01 whome suggested it was my browser.[40]. I eventually got fed up and simply did the revert myself to the same version of:

(cur) (last) 15:38, 22 October 2006 Tawkerbot2 (Talk | contribs) m (BOT - rv 71.31.144.249 (talk) to last version by AntiVandalBot)

The vandalism has disapeared. However the history page doesn't show my edit.[41] I think there could be something else wrong with the wikipedia article. Or maybe I have something that doesn't allow me to refresh the page. (neverthe less I am able to refresh the WP:VAN Page) I think there is something wrong with the server? --CyclePat 04:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The behavior you describe happens sometimes when two editors (or an editor and one of the anti-vandalism bots) try to make the same edit at the same time. One edit will show up and the other won't. It's happened to me more times than I can count. If the end result is the same, don't worry about it.

I checked the article a moment ago and it looks fine to me - the last edit I see was by Antandrus, who is an admin and an all-around good guy. KrakatoaKatie 05:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Random username rule

I'm fairly concerned that few admins have weighed in with opinions on the "random" rule here as 1. admins are the ones who make these blocks and 2. no one noticed when it was removed without consensus, yet people still used it for a blocking reason. (Does that make it de facto policy since people use it regardless of the wording? I don't know.) I personally think that usernames are meant to be a human, understandable interface that promotes collaboration. A random string of garbage made by a vandal as a throwaway account such as User:1524gf86d3sf546 should be disallowed. (The only reason "vandalism" appears in that block summary is that rather than doing the usual usernameblock on sight, I've been checking first to make sure innocent editors aren't harmed. So far I haven't found any that were traumatized as has been claimed.) One argument seems to be that regular editors can't trust admins to make good decisions based on this policy, though I have yet to see evidence that this rule is rampantly misused. More discussion is on the village pump here, but again few admins have weighed in and they should (whether you agree with my view or not) since ultimatley we are the ones who deal with enforcing this. pschemp | talk 05:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the old descriptive not prescriptive. The policy itself gives various rationales and the lsit of inappropriate names is (in my understanding) not intended to be comprehensive just documents those frequently held to be inappropriate. As the policy states "...but it also means picking a name that others are comfortable seeing and collaborating with.", which is where I'd place the "silly" random strings, they aren't that easy for others to remember and work with. Also username blocks are generally without prejudice and autobocks removed without question. --pgk 06:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

mmm...well said and sensible. The issue I see is people saying we "can't" block these usernames if the random rule is removed or "only a suggestion". Perhaps that's just policy wonkism at its best? pschemp | talk 07:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well that's not the way it works anywhere else, wikipedia is not a bureacracy, Avoid instruction creep, wikilawyering etc. all cover this, we aren't an experiment in rule making and it is the underlying rationale/purpose/spirit which is important. The username policy is quite clear as to it's aim as indeed is the list it gives as "Wikipedia does not allow certain types of usernames, including the following:" which quite clearly seems to indicate it is not exhaustive. The question still comes down to are the names being blocked because of the rationale behind the username policy. It would be silly (and wrong IMO) to block a name just because it could be interpreted within those criteria and we adopted a rules is rules approach when clearly it isn't problematic (say a username of asfdg which is of course a random set of letters, but is not problematic in regards to a "sensible" identifier of a user it isn't that complex or confusing) , similarly usernames which are within the base raitionale and purpose of usernames should be blocked regardless of an explicit mention in that list. It still comes down to a question of discretion on behalf of the admin and indeed the username policy recognises that too "Fairly or unfairly, the line between acceptable and unacceptable user names is drawn by those who find the username inappropriate, not by the creator of the name." --pgk 11:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

People unfortunately are policy wonking out about this though, there was a bit of a revert war on the page where this was discussed, and one editor kept insisting that there is no consensus for this policy, even though it has been this way for a while, and when it was changed, a number of editors spoke out against the change and for the status quo. That editor gave every appearance of trying to ruleslawyer. So I'm glad pschemp brought this up here so it could be discussed further. ++Lar: t/c 11:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

People are wonking out in the extreme on the Village Pump and I'm the only person trying to contradict their premise. Basically they are arguing that admins can't be trusted to make correct decisions and interpret policy fairly but they seem to be in the majority right now so don't blame me when you get taken to arbcom for blocking User:1524gf86d3sf546. I've already got one nutter on my talk page ranting about this. Someone else might want to tell these people that "It still comes down to a question of discretion on behalf of the admin" please because they aren't listening to lonely me. pschemp | talk 15:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism: user Zacneoanderson

The user Zacneoanderson has created multiple pages that are in no way allowed on Wikipedia. Examples: Jake knight, Zac anderson, Callum mcdowel, Curtis waters. I thought this counted as vandalism. --Tinctorius 08:33, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the articles, but I'd wait a while before declaring him a vandal. He's only just created his account. Raven4x4x 09:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Long Live Chiang Kai-shek

Opinion requested: should Long Live Chiang Kai-shek (talk · contribs) be blocked as an inappropriate user name? (The user has also been POV-pushing.) --Nlu (talk) 10:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Because of his username and the area that the user is editing (China related issues), he is likely to cause a lot of un-needed trouble and arguments with that username (and his POV pushing). Because of his low ammount of edits, I'd block the username, and ask him to create an account under another username (one not so inflammatory). Someone should also have a word with him about following WP:NPOV. Thε Halo ^Θ 11:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Delete link

For any andmin who would like a "delete" link on the Whatlinkshere page and "Move successful" page, the delete link can be added by adding

function addDeleteLink() {
    var targetSpan = document.getElementById('specialDeleteTarget');
    var linkSpan = document.getElementById('specialDeleteLink');
    if (targetSpan == null || linkSpan == null) return;

    var targetLink = targetSpan.getElementsByTagName("A")[0];
    if (targetLink == null) return;

    var targetTitle = targetLink.childNodes[0].data;

    var deleteHref = "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=delete&title=" + escape(targetTitle);

    var deleteSpan = null;
    with (easyDom) {
        deleteSpan = span({ "class": "plainlinks" }, " (", a({ "href": deleteHref, "class": "external text" }, "delete"), ")");
    }

    linkSpan.appendChild(deleteSpan);
}
addOnloadHook(addDeleteLink);

document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mike_Dillon/easydom.js' 
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

to your personal js. I don't know any better place to let admins know, so here seems good :-) —Mets501 (talk) 11:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Would it be possible to clarify what this is used for? I'm guessing it is for when you delete one article (presumably as a speedy, as anything else doesn't really need a tool like this to save time, as they have to go through AfD), you click on "what links here" to see if the article was linked from anywhere else that might also be suitable for deletion (eg. walled gardens). But I'm wondering why this "delete" link is needed, as surely you have to go into the article and read it, and look at the history and so forth, first? After all that, how does having the delete button on "what links here" help?

I'm also concerned about the "move successful" page. I'm guessing this is for deleting the old page after a move (the old page turns into a redirect), but I was under the impression that this was only needed if moving pages out of the way to create space for moving another page to that location? I thought that in general, redirects after moving are nearly always left in place. Carcharoth 13:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Linkshere explains a bit of the history behind this. The idea is that when doing a speedy, an admin should check the page first, then the history, then the WLH (because you can't easily get from WLH to the history), and it speeds up the deletion as there isn't a need to go back to the original page. Not being an admin, I can't comment on how useful this would be. --ais523 13:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Glad to know that some admins do check the history and what links here before deleting. Sorry for being cryptic, but I had an argument with someone a week or so ago about this. :-) Carcharoth 15:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Block of Maryfualaau

A few recent edits of Mary Kay Letourneau were made by Maryfualaau (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Note that "Mary Fualaau" is the current married name of Mary Kay Letourneau.

Maybe it's the real Mary Fualaau. Maybe it's a vandal playing games.

In any case, I've blocked the user with a username block. Interested admins are cordially invited to review my decision in this regard, and revert if they feel my block was unjustified.

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction
13:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine. I think you should have left the user a message on their talk page explaining this, so I did it. Mangojuice^talk 13:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, what's the procedure for having her verify that she's the real deal, assuming that she is? --Ξxtreme Unction 14:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes a Wikipedian "knows" the real person through other channels and can contact them. Sometimes, the real person makes a contact "back in to Wikipedia" from an obviously valid source. I don't think there's a hard-and-fast procedure to follow yet for cases like this.

Atlant 14:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is odd...

Two editors, 14 edits total, one "certified" RFC on Jimbo. Did I miss the "comedy day" declaration or something? Tony Fox (arf!) 16:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Speedy delete. RFC was created and certified by single purpose accounts. RFerreira 16:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

NO! Add it to WP:BJAODN! :-) Carcharoth 16:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Beyond conceptually, there was nothing amusing about it, so no need to keep it. RFerreira 16:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

We could always reopen it next April first. -- llywrch 20:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

CSD assistance required

I'm firefighting at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion at the moment. I can't get past 125 articles and I have been working for an hour! Can one or more admins assist, please? (aeropagitica) 20:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)