User talk:Smalljim/Archive 11

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If you're small jim

where's large jim? --Saltedcake (talk) 18:24, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Don't know – you could choose one of these. However, I can let you know that Little Jim was a close relative. Now who were you?  —SMALLJIM  22:57, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

it's hard to say who i am specifically. I did IP-hop. I'm willing to start contributing now but I will provide further detail upon request.
(I choose little jim. Must be smaller than smalljim.) --Saltedcake (talk) 03:09, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Help

Hi - I have received messages about speedy deletion and I'm trying to edit the page and include sources as requested. I'm new to this and could do with help. Is there a way of editing the page in a draft environment and having it checked before live to ensure I meet the criteria?

@Cheryl Goddard: I'd suggest you don't edit the article at all since you're obviously involved with the company in some way – we have a conflict of interest policy about that. But if you insist on writing an article, once this spam-ridden version has been deleted, you should work your way through the Article Wizard. I hope this helps.  —SMALLJIM  12:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

My TP

Thanks for reverting the vandalism on my talk page, much appreciated. :-) --Ches (talk) (contribs) 13:33, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Important! Article Pratyusha Banerjee ‎

Two of the users (SAS3000 and Sohanpandey) who keeps adding that she died are autoconfirmed! Semi-protection is not working! You'll have to fully protect it, or block them. (I'm suspecting that all the users who added that she died are sockpuppets.) Peter Sam Fan 15:52, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Peter SamFan, I know. I'm trying to get someone to confirm if it's true. I'm unsure why an apparently good faith editor like User:Sohanpandey would keep adding it otherwise.  —SMALLJIM  15:55, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

His account probably got compromised. Peter Sam Fan 15:56, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Peter SamFan - there's some verification now http://www.abplive.in/television/balika-vadhu-actress-pratyusha-banerjee-hangs-herself-to-death-315132 Is this a reliable source, do you know?  —SMALLJIM  15:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

No, I don't know. I would add that as a source, then add the template {{better source needed}} Peter Sam Fan 16:00, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

It looks like the news, if it's not an unpleasant April Fool joke (do they do that in India?), is just breaking - there are more Google hits now. I'll leave you to help police it now - thanks!  —SMALLJIM  16:04, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

We'll see tomorrow. Anyhow, it's my lunch time! (I'm hungry.) --Peter Sam Fan 16:13, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I've removed the semi-protection since death does seem to be confirmed. Thanks for your help, even if you were a little over-eager at first :)  —SMALLJIM  16:15, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Barnstars for you!

		The Multiple Barnstar
		Three barnstars for everyone who fought the vandalism at Paint River. The Teamwork Barnstar for working together as a team to fight the vandal. The Minor Barnstar since rollbacks are, (for some reason) marked as minor edits. The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar for fighting the vandal overall. Good work, team. Peter Sam Fan 12:48, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Peter! It's always satisfying when a group of editors happen to come together to help defeat an outburst of vandalism. I hope you'll be around when he tries it again – that might be on Maneluk.  —SMALLJIM  17:31, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for helping keep up with reverting the nonsense on Kailey 2001's user talk and your fast blocks there. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:39, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

AddWittyNameHere: thanks to you too. It helps me keep the aged brain active :)  —SMALLJIM  21:41, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

No problem. Hey, since I'm talking to you anyway, any chance you could semi-protect Shannon (British singer) for a day or two? There appears to have been some controversy of some kind regarding her today, and as a result there's a lot of vandalism and BLP-violations ongoing. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:46, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

...looks like we crossed paths there. XD AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Yup, anything else I can beat you to?  —SMALLJIM  21:50, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, I've got a G7-CSD (User-blanked) for you, if you're bored...AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:53, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks again! Here, have a cookie. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:07, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

	Yum: an Edible Smile for You!
	Thanks for your hard work. Have a cookie! AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:07, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I'll have it with my lunch, thank you!  —SMALLJIM  12:35, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	Hey man, just wanted to leave you some wikilove! Thank you for being so diligent and being on top of all of the reports I've filed at AIV today, as well as blocking all of those sock puppet accounts of Link Smurf. It's great to volunteer beside you, and great teamwork today! ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 23:59, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! It's all selfish though – I wouldn't do it if I wasn't enjoying it ;-)  —SMALLJIM  12:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Neither would I :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 16:26, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Rev del time!

Hi Smalljim - we meet again! Thanks for blocking 220.253.13.82; you beat me to the AIV report ;-). There's two edits made by that IP that should be rev del'd, given the article involves children, and the vandalism that... ummm... yeah. Just wanted to let you know. Cheers! ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 16:09, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, I suppose so. Borderline necessary, I'd say, but I've done it for you.  —SMALLJIM  16:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I was told that we take that stuff pretty seriously. Just being the messenger. Thanks for doing that :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 16:15, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose you're right. Thanks for the heads up.  —SMALLJIM  16:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)I've noticed some difference between what one admin considers revdel-worthy versus another, anyway. I mean, there's stuff that every admin revdels on sight, and stuff where there are obvious rules regarding it, but a lot of the borderline cases tend to depend a bit on which admin sees it and/or whether someone went through the motions of asking for it to be revdel'd. *shrug* Suppose that means in spite of occasional rumors to the contrary, admins do not share a hivemind after all AddWittyNameHere (talk) 16:27, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

That's true in all actions isn't it? There's always a grey area between yes and no, do and don't do, etc. Sometimes it's so wide that there's no black or white visible at all, but at other times it's so narrow as to be invisible. And of course, the grey area appears different to every person. Whew – it's such a minefield that it's astonishing we manage to navigate life every day ;-)  —SMALLJIM  16:38, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Witty is very capable of rambling...

Aye; but more than that, the grey itself is not of uniform shade; one end of the spectrum tends towards black and the other to white, but each part taken separately also gets to some degree influenced by its context. A high-value grey (that is, a very light grey) surrounded by darker shades will appear to be more white than it is by means of the isolation and high contrast. This, on the other hand, will make the low contrast between the various dark shades not just low in numerical value, but also by the contrast with the high-contrast around the white-looking piece, so that the various dark shades may appear to melt together as one mass of mostly-equally dark grey, where the eye would normally have picked up some contrast between them (and thus seen some as lighter than the other) if not 'distracted' by the light grey. Our perception of colours is to a significant amount contextual, even in grey-scale, (Though now we're getting pretty deep into color theory—my sole excuse is that I dabble in pixel art, where stuff like this matters a lot) and our perception of actions really is quite much alike—indeed, for matters like 'assume good faith' to work, we need to lest it becomes a suicide pact. (After all, what is the difference in action between inserting "eats poop" in the caption field of an image on Coprophagia or in the caption field of an image on a BLP? None—yet we (rightly) perceive a difference between those two actions nonetheless). AddWittyNameHere (talk) 17:04, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Witty. Right – I did simplify the explanation because I assumed you were a beginner in the field of interstitial decision colouring. But I see that I was wrong, so apologies for that! However, your explanation doesn't seem to analyse the internalised process of evaluating which action to take. The apparent greyness of a particular action that must be taken can only have its shade affected by the proximal thoughts of the incipient decision-maker about similar actions that he/she could take, not by those generated by quite different sets of circumstances, nor by the thoughts of anyone else (unless opinions/consensus are sought, which, I suggest, broadens the issue too widely). I think that your examples miss this point. We're also ignoring the fact that most decisions, especially here in WP, are not of the type that must be taken, so we also need to consider the orthogonal dimension of whether to immediately take the action at all. For instance we could: purposefully leave it for someone else; sleep on it; do something else for a while and then do it if no-one has already done so; pretend that we didn't see it; give advice; wait until someone else has taken the action and then complain that they did it wrongly, etc. And, of course, each of these possible decisions has its own area of greyness to consider. It looks likely that several different colours in a multi-dimensional space would be needed to accurately model the problem.  —SMALLJIM  20:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I would disagree with you that it can only have its shade affected by the action-taker/decision-maker; or perhaps better said, that it can only have its perceived shade affected by such a thing (for it is, after all, the perception of shades that is influenced by its proximity to other shades; the shade itself remains the same), for while intent (or, in wiki-terminology, good/bad/neutral faith) in its broadest sense plays a large role, it is not magic or pixie dust—is a car crash less injuring or fatal if the one that caused it didn't mean to?—indeed, the shade of action is at least to some degree coloured by the decision-recipient. That is, after all, why we have such lovely essays and guidelines against feeding trolls, templating regulars and biting newbies. Such a matter is of course at least in part one of perception, but not solely perception by the recipient but also by any and all bystanders who may then indeed complain loudly about how biting an action was—even when the recipient itself had no issue with it.

(Alas, sometimes a newbie needs a good bite and some regulars are hard to get to pay attention without slapping them in the face—figuratively speaking, of course—with a shiny warning template, but that's a wholly different discussion)
In so far as it did not take into account the internalised process, correct—because I believed that would muddy the field too much for someone I believed to be a novice in 'interstitial decision colouring' (you do not mind me stealingborrowing that term, do you? ), something for which in return I too must give my apologies. You are right that the internalised processes most definitely influence the shade of an action, as does a comparison with the other actions that one could have been taken and of course with what would have happened had the action not been taken at all (someone cutting off another person's finger is bad; a doctor cutting off a finger to save the arm isn't; except when that doctor could also have saved the arm by a far less destructive method, unless of course that method would have taken so long the person had a far higher risk of losing the arm after all), but the problem with internalised processes is that they are, as the term says, internalised. We cannot witness them; we may see some of their symptoms and their results (or, if the result is one that leads to no (visible) action, not even that), but we see not the process itself—we cannot even necessarily see whether or not such a process has taken place at all. As a result, we can at best make guesses in regards to this; guesses that depend yet once more on the external context moreso than on anything else. Hence my focus on the external context in my previous post: not because the external context itself is to so large a degree important (though it plays a role, it in and of itself is but of minor importance), but rather, because it provides the clue and symptoms regarding the presence or absence of the action-taker's internal course. Though, of course, in the eyes of the percipient, the context itself then too influences the shade more than just provides clues to the action-takers thoughts—sometimes balancing the perception, more frequently giving an ever-so-slight additional push in the direction of the shade's perception.

This, of course, still is an abbreviation and simplification of all that influences the way in which an action's shade is perceived—indeed, we are trying to describe a three-dimensional full-colour image with a flat, grey-scale diagram. However, lest I ramble a wall of text on your userpage so long, it would put the average "List of Lepidoptera of (Country/Area)" to shame (and they are browser-crashingly bad in edit mode, at least when trying to replace a name-without-diacritics with its proper form that occurs a few hundred times in an article—hell, I crashed AWB on one of 'm once...) I figure I ought to keep it with this unless and until you show you do not in fact mind me continuing to write half a novella on your talkpage. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

You make some interesting points that I'm not at all sure I agree with. We may be partly talking at cross-purposes. However, since the decision to sleep on it before replying further is coming up a very pale blueish pink, I'll go with that for now :)  —SMALLJIM  22:37, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

We may indeed be talking at cross-purposes, but that's fine. It's nonetheless interesting us both well, unless that is in fact a white lie from your side? (interesting terminology, and pretty clearly connected to our conversation—if anything, it's a white-perceived lie, or a near-white lie, but the act of lying in and of itself can be grey, can even be black, but can't be true-white), after all. Have a good night's rest and dreams (in psychedelic colours, maybe?)AddWittyNameHere (talk) 22:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		For sticking up for me on my user talk page. :-) Kailey 2001 (talk) 00:09, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

No problem, thanks!  —SMALLJIM  12:18, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you

It's nice to be encouraged by an admin, thanks so much — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historywiki11 (talk • contribs)

New Material,,,same heading

Hi, you previously deleted some content I posted and would like to resubmit with edits, how do I go about doing this? ~~iAmWebsite~~

(I've replied on User talk:IAmWebsite.)  —SMALLJIM  09:26, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

You user page

I'm surprised that you haven't had it protected until now. Make sure you've move protected it, too :-P ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:26, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

It's been protected for years! But I was briefly tempted by WP:IAR to use the new extended confirmed protection level when reinstating it :)  —SMALLJIM  12:52, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to Favonian for taking the obvious step of fully protecting against pagemoves. D'oh!  —SMALLJIM  10:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

PopeyetheSailorMan90

I would suggest removing their ability to edit their talk page, as they are using it to continue attacks. Thanks 331dot (talk) 00:28, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning this 331dot. This has happened before with sock of Bigshowandkane64 (talk · contribs) so your followup is appreciated. Cheers to you both. MarnetteD|Talk 00:49, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Lucy Jones

Hi Smalljim

I hope you're well. You were very helpful to me recently on the Tim Marshall page and I just wanted to pick your brain one more time if that's ok? I've created a new article for someone called Lucy Jones ...thing is there was already a seismologist on wiki with the same name so I've created the article under the heading Lucy Jones (Journalist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Jones_(Journalist)

Thing is I'm thinking that she'll never appear clearly in search results as the former Lucy Jones always appears and my article only appears if I type 'Lucy Jones Journalist Wikipedia'...it also appears low on the internal Wikipedia search. Someone recently created a disambiguation structure with Tim Marshall's wiki page as there were other Tim Marshalls on wiki ...see link below...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Marshall

I'm thinking I need to create something like this for both the Lucy Joneses wiki pages so they all get a fair chance for searches but how do I do this? I looked at the wiki pages but couldn't figure it out.

Thanks so much for any advice you can give, Kind regards Bumbledog Bumbledog (talk) 18:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

@Bumbledog: WP:DAB is what you want. But I think it's more important to talk about the larger problem with your article – Jones' notability. You've added a lot of references, but they are not about the subject. See Talk:Lucy Jones (journalist) for more on this.  —SMALLJIM  09:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Smalljim. Just to say I've added lots of references in the article for Lucy which talk about her known in media circles she has also been the subject of media articles her music journalism...she has also been interviewed on BBC radio the link for this is 87.224.2.215 (talk) 09:40, 11 April 2016 (UTC)up on the article...I'm not sure what else I can do at this stage but more is likely to come out in the coming months I'm sure

Best wishes Bumbledog 87.224.2.215 (talk) 09:40, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I should have said, please continue any discussion of this on the article's talk page.  —SMALLJIM  10:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

User: 50.204.33.172

Hello @Smalljim (nice name, by the way), You recently blocked the user with the IP address 50.204.33.172, and said it was "[l]ikely a school based on behavioral evidence." You were right--kinda. This address actually belongs to a county in Virginia, which issued chromebooks to all of its middle and high school students at the beginning of this school year. Is there a way you could permanently block this account, since all that will happen at the end of the temporary block is the same thing that's been happening since these were issued; it would be a heck of a lot easier than just re-blocking it each time. Thanks Packer1028 (talk) 23:18, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Packer1028. Hmm, the records show that it was Gilliam who blocked 50.204.33.172 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), not me. The principle of increasing blocks normally applies – the latest block is for three months: if the vandalism continues after that expires the next block will be for 6 months or a year, and so on. But ping Gilliam in case you want to extend the block based on the above info.  —SMALLJIM  09:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have misread the flag. Thank you Packer1028 (talk) 23:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

User: M.D. SUMRO

Hi Smalljim. You indef'd User:M.D. SUMRO back in May 2015 for being a spam/advertising only account. I noticed this post at User talk:Theroadislong#Page deletions problem and being a little curious checked the the edit history of Mainudin. It seems their first edit was to this to the user page of M.D. SUMRO. Seems a little unusual for the first edit of a newly created account. Anyway, this sandbox was deleted by Liz per WP:U5. I cannot see the content of the sandbox anymore, but perhaps there's way for you or Liz to check to see whether it was about M.D. SUMRO. If it is, then might be a case of WP:BE. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

It looks like the same editor, Marchjuly. Same name, same age. The sandbox was just your standard personal profile that we see by the dozens every week from new editors that they can set up a profile like on Linked In or Facebook.

Even though it looks like block evasion, I don't think that criteria applied to either account as neither was spam or advertising oriented. They both tried to set up biographic articles about themselves. I wish they could move to writing content that didn't have to do with themselves and I'm inclined to give them a second chance but then I'm kind of a soft touch. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:06, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Liz. I'm happy to leave this up to you and Smalljim to deal with. It was just something I noticed and thought worth pointing out. One thing though is that User:M.D. SUMRO is still showing the profile information. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:15, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Marchjuly: I basically agree with Liz – they are just another young person in India more intent on making their mark than using WP for its true purpose. See the junk he's uploaded to Commons, too. Anyway Bradv opened an SPI and Materialscientist has blocked him now, so we'll see whether he "gets it" this time, or pops up again...  —SMALLJIM  10:17, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

No worries. I saw the SPI and also Liz's message on his user page suggesting that he find some other way to contribute. Unfortunately he did not take her advice, recreated his user sandbox after it was deleted and got himself blocked. As you say, hopefully he gets it and doesn't try and do the same thing again. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The sockpuppet

I'm sure that User:Sillybabbit will continue to vandalize the pages listed in his sandbox under other accounts. Would you please protect them? Peter Sam Fan 19:13, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah. It was Kumioko. Other admins are far more familiar with the case than I am, so I'd prefer to let them deal with it appropriately. Ping Favonian to advise of your message. Cheers!  —SMALLJIM  19:20, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Protection is kind of pointless as he'll just find other articles for his chest-beating. WP:RBI is the best approach. Favonian (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Noted, thanks. OK Peter SamFan?  —SMALLJIM  19:31, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

@Favonian: Noted. Peter Sam Fan 00:17, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Looks like you have an imposter...

User:Snallljim. Just leaving you an FYI. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh, you already took care of it. Cool :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

He's had a go at me before. There'll most likely be more, but I tend to ignore them after a while.  —SMALLJIM  20:06, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

User talk:86.180.152.22

Why did you block this IP? They were only cleaning the sandbox. In terms of edit warring Winterysteppe is just as guilty. (Yes, the "war is on" thing, but provoked...) BethNaught (talk) 20:04, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Looks like block evasion, being the same person as 31.51.108.229 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Favonian (talk) 20:09, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

I've actually unblocked - I might have been a bit hasty. He's still on that IP address, so I'll watch to see what happens next. There's a lot of it about tonight!  —SMALLJIM  20:14, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Help required - Deleting revisions

Hi, I would require some help deleting a couple of revisions of a page. If you are online, could you please reply here? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Lemongirl942: Yes I'm still around for a short while.  —SMALLJIM  21:59, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. These 2 revisions [1] and [2]. (National Registration Identity Card nos have been posted. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 22:00, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

I think that's done it.  —SMALLJIM  22:04, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Great! Thank you so much. Would it be possible for you to request oversight in this case (since it is non-public personal information)? --Lemongirl942 (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Since you know more about the case than I do, I suggest you do it: see Wikipedia:Oversight.  —SMALLJIM  22:08, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

No worries, I will email the oversight team then. Thank you so much for hiding the revisions. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 22:09, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Happy to help. 'night!  —SMALLJIM  22:10, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

deleted file

Hi Smalljim, yeah I just caught sight of the file you deleted, which said "Bucksham cooperative". Might that be User:Bucksham Co-operative? If so, I'd alert Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Henry Mazzer where I reported Bemorang. I need to be careful there brandishing accusations, I have been explained. Roy Howard Mills (talk) 19:21, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Done.  —SMALLJIM  19:28, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

?

Some one is hacking into my account so why are you blaming me. I wouldn't mess with your accounts unless i had something real to say but i think you wot believe me so i Just say sorry man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Who are yo (talk • contribs) 22:24, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Recurring vandal

Dear Smalljim,

While looking through the blocklist, I noticed that you had blocked several accounts impersonating yourself, whose names are too offensive to post here, on the basis of "Block Evasion". I have been observing recurring abuse from this user who creates attack pages directed at specific users and spawns new impersonator accounts such as Passengerpigeon on tyres (talk · contribs), and have asked multiple users about who the sockmaster could be, but to no avail. Do you know who the sockmaster responsible for these accounts is? Possibly Starship9000 (talk · contribs)?

Thankyou, Passengerpigeon (talk) 13:31, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

@Passengerpigeon: The original was Willy on Wheels whom many have since impersonated ("... on tyres"). To be honest I don't waste time considering which of the several persistent vandals any particular incident originates from. They've all been around so long that they're just flies to be swatted away, though there's some pleasure to be gained whilst vandal patrolling by spotting and dispatching them quickly :)  —SMALLJIM  14:01, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

why

why bro why — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baller17shrekislife (talk • contribs) 22:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

I've left a note on your talk page User talk:Baller17shrekislife.  —SMALLJIM  22:10, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Created an SPI for socks you've been blocking

Just to tidy it all up. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aleksig6. Thanks for your help. Doug Weller talk 10:46, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Well spotted. You could add User:OinkieBack and probably several others to that list too!  —SMALLJIM  10:54, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Added OinkieBack, couldn't see any others you'd blocked. Doesn't matter really, we have enough. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Journalist trying to get in touch

Hi Smalljim,

I'm a reporter with Fusion (fusion.net), trying to reach you about the Rachel Roy wikipedia page and what happens when you get a deluge of people editing at once as happened this morning. Any chance you could send me an email? I'm at ethan.chiel@fusion.net

thanks, Ethan Chiel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.240.185 (talk) 14:42, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

No thanks. I'll just say that my anti-vandalism program alerted me to a spate of vandalism on that page, so I stopped it. If I hadn't been doing something else at the time, I'd have protected the page sooner :)  —SMALLJIM  16:21, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Unit 999

G'day from Oz; you blocked an IP for a vandalism edit to Unit 999 yesterday, it may be worth protecting the article because another IP has done the same thing since. This type of edit has now happened nine times since the beginning of the month. Cheers YSSYguy (talk) 23:10, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, YSSYguy. It looks like it's just one person using IP addresses in Hong Kong. I've protected the page for a while and added it to my watchlist in case the vandalism resumes after the protection expires.  —SMALLJIM  09:43, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The same sort of weird-arse editing has started again recently. YSSYguy (talk) 02:16, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Rachel Roy

Hi, Smalljim. It might be worth protecting Rachel Roy again. She made a press statement this morning which appears to have revived interest, and already at least one anon-IP vandal has attacked the page. Thank you for any help.--Tenebrae (talk) 14:34, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Tenebrae. I've been enjoying the real world today, but I see that Widr re-applied protection before too long. I've added the page to my watchlist in case the vandalism continues after the PP expires.  —SMALLJIM  20:15, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thanks. :)

AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:14, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Cute! We must continue our academic discussion some time :)  —SMALLJIM  21:17, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Yup, we should. If only we weren't both so busy, eh? (I suspect you had my user/talkpage on your watchlist, what with how fast you reacted, by the way? :P) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 21:22, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I enjoy tweaking this, and novel vandalism helps make it better.  —SMALLJIM  21:43, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Hm, it says "At present I don't plan to put in the additional work that would make AddBad suitable for wider use, but could be persuaded if there's enough interest" somewhere near the end of the page. Add me to the mental list of "is interested", then. Sounds like it could be quite useful. (Though it probably won't replace the tools I currently use, but rather become yet another one I use alongside the others. I tend to work from a mixture of Huggle and Twinkle, with any of the following added in if/when/where appropriate or needed: User Creation log, the reported IPs and accounts at AIV, the reported accounts at UAA, the reported pages at RFPP, the Special:Contributions page for users/IPs that are repetitively-vandalizing, my Watchlist, New Pages and sometimes even "plain" Recent Changes thrown in for good measure. Depends on what kind of vandalism I'm coming across a lot, and that differs from day to day and sometimes hour to hour) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 00:15, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Great – you're the first on the "is interested" list! It won't realistically happen though, because Perl is the wrong language to have written it in if it's intended for distribution (and I'm not fluent in any other programming language). Most of what you've listed as input that you monitor is already incorporated into the AddBad scoring. I don't yet use UAA reports, though, so I'll look into incorporating them – thanks!

If you want to add something else to your armoury, you could start monitoring Special:AbuseLog. The edit filter system (previously known as "abuse filter") is woefully underused: there are about 140 live filters on en.wikipedia providing a constant stream of useful AV information that is mostly being ignored (edit filter hits don't appear in Special:RecentChanges, for instance). Even though you won't see the details of hits on private filters, these hits still alert you to usernames/IPs worth watching.  —SMALLJIM  17:27, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, that's a pity. If a good non-Perl coder or two were interested, that'd make it more likely to happen, I'd assume? (Sadly, I'm not fluent in any coding language.) Yeah, UAA can be useful somewhat, though the majority of what ends up there is a. false positive, b. non-vandalism but still problematic, usually in the way of ceaselessly promoting non-notable businesses or c. so blatant I've likely already found it elsewhere. More useful for correcting problematic edits than vandal-fighting in strictu sensu, except for a couple of vandal-puppeteers who keep choosing names that get bot-reported (Referendum-troll has a fair number that get listed by the bot under the 40+-characters criterion, for example). There's some specific filters I keep an eye on every now and then, but those are mostly the allow-and-tag kind or the sleeper-account-throttle, and even then under specific circumstances. (Whack-an-evading-troll, certain types of raids/strikes, certain types of real-life events or social media developments that tend to involve several pages and several editors but aren't raids in strictu sensu) I only really monitor all of them/the abuselog as a whole when dealing with a couple of specific repeatedly-evading high-speed-hopping LTAers/puppeteers when I've already seen signs they're active, or in case of certain kinds of strikes. (Trying to stay light on the exact details, I know/strongly suspect that at least two of the recently-active evaders/puppeteers have been monitoring admin talkpages recently) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 03:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

...the irony of making a grammatical "whoopsie" in the edit summary of fixing a grammatical whoopsie. ('get' should have been 'getting') In my defence, I've had less sleep over the past five days than I should've had in three. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 03:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The program? – I think the principles behind it are what's important (accumulating badness points, using the edit filter, extensive customisation, ranking the results with colour, etc) rather than the particular implementation that I've written. Someone will realise this eventually :) I've just noticed that Huggle now includes some sort of scoring system, but it's very rudimentary.

That's interesting feedback about Special:AbuseLog. Of course I'm used to seeing edit filter hits via AddBad which aggregates the hits, often resulting in a clear view of a vandal's activity, in many cases before they manage to get an edit through. Patterns like this would be difficult to see in the raw data where the hits on every filter look the same, even though they vary widely in their value as indicators of vandalism (and the good ones are private, to make it even harder for non-EFMs). Monitoring the filters separately doesn't reveal when multiple filters are triggered by the same attempted edit, which is the best indicator of vandalism. And to make it even less user-friendly, although the private filter numbers are shown in the irc feed, they aren't shown in the Abuselog, even though the filter descriptions are shown there, which makes it possible to work out the filter number via the edit filter management page that lists all the filters, and although private filter hits are included in the Abuselog, you can't see a list of their hits individually (unless you're an EFM) – weird choices! Reading that over, I'm not sure if it makes much sense: *my* excuse is that I've had a busy week!

Anyway, one thing I've spotted from doing a bit of research around this conversation is that Mr.Z-bot has recently restarted logging edit filter hits at WP:AIV , but the list of filters that it logs is very out of date: nearly all of them have been deleted. So there's some useful work to be done in updating that.

Finally, to pick one more item from your reply, yes, I keep seeing the referendum-troll too. Have you come across the "<insert pokemon here> is my homeboy" accounts yet? There's been at least a dozen today (I've blocked nine), continuing a trend that's about a week old. Overall, I just assume that all the persistent vandals are the same person, and that he (it's bound to be a he isn't it?) eagerly follows everything I do and write here ;-)  —SMALLJIM  23:07, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah. With some puzzling here and there, even without the EFM-right, the filters can be useful to a degree, but outside a handful of specific filters, it takes a fair bit longer to uncover vandals that way than most other ways and it tends to be harder to get them blocked on AIV for tripping disallowing filters than for actual edits. Worth it when dealing with certain serial evading pests, or with coordinated strikes where it's hard to figure out just who all are involved on exactly what articles, or for certain patterns of subtle-but-disruptive vandalism that deals more with a certain type of article than a specific list of a handful or two of them. Otherwise, there are more efficient ways for a non-EFM to uncover vandalism. Slightly rambling, but yes, I could understand what you were saying

Good to know that has started up again. Yeah, there's work to be done in updating that, all right. But that's Wikipedia for you, isn't it? There's always work to be done. It never ends. Neeeeevvvveeer (-cough-It doesn't really help being one of currently maybe three active editors on a WikiProject dealing with over 90k of articles, redirects excluded, and the only oneone of two editors active in the area (the second's not a project-member, but rather implementing fixing throughout all such taxonomical articles...which has the same effect anyway) with any significant inclination towards repetitive maintenance-work -cough-)

Referendum-troll, yes, but also the explicit-pic-troll called Nolantron. Because clearly, posting pics of flaccid dicks is going to result in anything except either the pic being deleted or being added to the image blacklist. Uhuh. What is he, 12? The Pokémon-homeboy I've seen before, I think, but not really dealt with much. One of the few persistent vandals I can say that about, which I suppose explains why currently both my userpage and usertalk are semi-protected. Trying to decide whether I want to see about getting the talkpage unprotected or just wait for it to run through. I just can't be arsed to care about what a vandal has to say about me, I guess. (Hell, some of JarlaxleArtemis' abusive mails from 2015 should still be somewhere in my email inbox—too much effort to click delete. XD) I mean, all it means is that I've got to be doing something right, y'know? XD AddWittyNameHere (talk) 00:02, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Quick reply. My thinking on "the persistent vandal" is if I can draw his fire for some time, it means that he isn't doing something worse elsewhere. I've just kept him occupied for over half an hour (see my block log of blocks made). Being an admin helps, of course. Thought about working towards it yet?  —SMALLJIM  00:11, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I think roughly the same way, hence trying to decide whether I'll be asking someone to unprotect my talkpage. Better me than article-space or the talkpage of someone with not as thick a skin. Yeah, admin is something I am sort-of, kind-of keeping in mind as I work. The tools would be very useful, but I know that if I were to run now, my chance is at best barely above a snowball (~10.5k of edits, light on AfD (though not CSD, which sort-of helps I guess), relatively little content work and just back for five weeks after a 9-month health-related absence...yeah, let's not waste the community's time by running now. My vandal-troll-sock-fighting and gnomish-work experience won't be enough of a counterweight as things stand at the moment. If I can keep my activity of this month up for a few more months and maybe find a bit of time to work on content and a few other things, I might consider running near the end of the summer or early fall Northern Hemisphere seasons, though. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 00:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh yes, don't go for it just yet. But you know what needs doing: just make sure you can meet all 45 bullets at WP:RFAADVICE and you'd be fine :) I found it helpful to have taken part in discussions about refining our policies and guidelines, but there's a different set of challenges nowadays. Your perseverance on those small fluttery things is impressive. At least your moth sock hasn't been such a nuisance recently.  —SMALLJIM  12:20, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, the recent long absence alone would be enough to make it fail never-even-mind the other issues, I figure. Yup, I know what needs doing. Activity/edit count, which will both fix themselves with time, content/creation-work—pity that useful redirects by the dozens, species stubs where there really isn't much else known about the species yet and small content additions over hundreds of pages are likely to be disregarded by a fair number of folks, but oh well—and more AFD/the various other deletion processes experience should be the main three. Most other areas I've either got covered already anyway (like AIV, which accounts for about 2-2.5% of my edits), are helpful but not strictly necessary, or both.

I've been intending to create some more missing articles anyway. Just after I've gotten through the worst of the stub-sorting issues (more than a dozen Butterfly/Moth-stub sub(-sub-etc.-)categories with well over 1000 articles in them. Ouch.) and maybe cleaned out at least the worst backlogs on non-diffused diffusing Lepidoptera of X-categories, and repaired the half-collapsed pieces of the categorization structure, and added missing categories to articles and maybe made some more progress setting up redirects and tagging existing ones and moving monotypic genera to genus-name articles and corrected diacritics in lepidopterists' names and figured out a few of the taxonomically messy cases and...y'know what? Nevermind. I'll get around to it when I get around to it, I suppose. XD (On a related note, I badly need to clean out my watchlist again, it's about to hit 2800 pages...)

Yeah, good thing he hasn't been. Trying to implement proper stub-sorting, proper categorization, about a dozen other gnomish things, alongside references, alongside content, alongside images where commons has them across what amounts to well over 90000 pages (well, in the long run. I'm insane, but not that insane. One cluster of articles connected in some way (whether by genus or location or something else) at a time) is impossible enough without that one muddying the waters. There's already quite enough articles on moths that turn out to be synonyms, that turn out to be at the wrong place, that turn out to be misspelled and what-have-ye, or that consist of 1-2 lines, an infobox and if one's lucky, half the needed categories, a stub-template that's at least near what it should be and one or two "External links" that really are general references. (And that half of the time point to a place from whereon one can search for the info used, instead of the exact location of that info. Or, on the other hand, seven-lines-long ref-urls that can safely be stripped of the last 5-6 lines and still point at the same place) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 16:16, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Revdel

Could you remove the attack page from my Twinkle's history log. Thanks Feinoha ^Talk 22:01, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Zapped!  —SMALLJIM  22:03, 26 April 2016 (UTC) – and thanks for your help :)  —SMALLJIM 

Sock or not

I blocked User talk:2 time hall of famer as a sock because he posted at two admin's talks. I pasted a voa block template. Is that ok? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:58, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

No problem here. I restricted myself to warning because I've only just started monitoring, so wasn't sure. Was there similar activity earlier?  —SMALLJIM  11:08, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

All's probably well. There's been that spate of socks with odd usernames and I hastily blocked this one as such. After I looked, it didn't fit. All's well that ends well. And dear, oh dear do you ever get your share of sock vandalism at your page. I've probably blocked four thousand by now and hardly get the attention you do. You're a good egg and take things so well. Whenever I picture you, I see the image at your userpage. I would have loved to have known that man. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:38, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Kind words indeed! I think I draw the attention of "the persistent vandal" because I make a point of RBI'ing quickly and repetitively (the above chat with Witty is partly relevant). Regarding the image, have you looked recently? I've aged in the last 10 years: and though it doesn't look as if I have any skin at all now, it's still good and thick ;-)  —SMALLJIM  12:16, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Wow, that is actually a really nice painting. It looks so familiar. I wonder where it is displayed. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:46, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Museo del Prado, Madrid, if the article on the painting has it right. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 18:59, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, at the Museo del Prado. Then I definitely didn't see it. I remember being outside that museum years ago and we decided not to go in for some reason. Probably late for the train to Barcelona or something. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Darth duck

Would you mind looking at Darth duck when you have the chance? I CSD'd it a while ago, but it still has not been deleted. Thank you. Peter Sam Fan 20:09, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Zap! Any reason you wanted it disappeared quickly?  —SMALLJIM  20:18, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of my page

Hello, I'm trying to create a page for Bank Cainvest, though my page is always deleted. I have authorization from the website to use their content. And even if I didn't have, I have no clue how to place my content and make clear that I am taking the website as a reference, and that I am, indeed, copying what is written on it. Can you help me, please?? So my page doesn't get deleted again...?? Thanks a lot, MsCam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mscam (talk • contribs) 13:29, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I've replied on User talk:Mscam.  —SMALLJIM  16:18, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

User:Tsarnaevsucks

May wish to revoke talk page access as well.--Cahk (talk) 08:58, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

JBW dealt with it. I haven't been here much for the last few days.  —SMALLJIM  10:24, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

The West Country Challenge

Hi, Are you going to join in at: Wikipedia:WikiProject England/The West Country Challenge. I'd particularly appreciate your help with getting the right things included in the core articles & missing articles lists at this stage as we are still preparing for the contest.— Rod ^talk 15:37, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

@Rodw: If there's anything specific that I can help with, do let me know. But I probably won't join in the actual challenge, since I'm not competitive like that.  —SMALLJIM  15:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

OK - I'm not into prizes etc, but it works for some people. Currently the work needed is making sure the core list, missing articles etc includes everything which should be included, so I'm asking people with knowledge & experience of the wp articles on the area.— Rod ^talk 15:46, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

@Rodw: It would be good to complete the list of parishes in Devon (redlinks in Template:Devon parishes). I have a go now and then, but quickly get bored! Is this the sort of input you want? —SMALLJIM  16:15, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Working on it - see Wikipedia:WikiProject England/The West Country Challenge/Missing article hotlist hope the format works OK?— Rod ^talk 17:20, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

@Rodw: Looks good, thanks. What about some likely notable women of Devon, as included in Todd Gray's Remarkable Women of Devon (2009)? [3] I can draw up a list of candidates from the book, and perhaps elsewhere, if you think that would be appropriate.  —SMALLJIM  22:19, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Yep that would be great.— Rod ^talk 06:43, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

@Rodw: There were fewer than I'd hoped, but I've added them to the end of Wikipedia:WikiProject England/The West Country Challenge/Missing article hotlist. Please do what you wish with them! There are some existing articles that could be expanded too, if you want a category for that.  —SMALLJIM  14:42, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - hopefully will get picked up by someone curing the competition. If the expansion ones are important to the county you could add them to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England/The West Country Challenge/Core articles but otherwise I think "could do with expansion" could be applied to almost every article on wp.— Rod ^talk 16:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

AN/I

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 10:07, 19 May 2016 (UTC))

Not even close ;-)

In re: Not even close to a record. For example, the original deployment of the visual editor and the performance-killing first version of the universal language selector were 24 hours apart, and I think that we will all agree that this pales in comparison.

There are many dozens or even a few hundred changes to the sites every week, and most of those changes reach the Wikipedias en masse on Thursdays. If they "only" screw up 1% of the changes, then there will usually be about two unwanted problems landing here on Thursdays. And 1% might be low, when you consider not only the potential for unintentional bugs but also for things that seemed like a good idea/work everywhere except enwiki/break everything except enwiki/were requested by this group but are now opposed by that group (watchlist styling has some history there)/etc.

The good news is that most of the problems can be fixed, usually quite quickly, but problem-free changes should not, alas, be expected. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:41, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello. Well it was just a guess! You won't see me very often in the areas you inhabit: I'm not a campaigner, but when I get annoyed about something I'll throw out a few tetchy messages. This sequence of events annoyed me because I'd just decided to do some AV work after a short break and discovered that rollback had been replaced by some eye-candy rotating circle and a popup instead of the (to me) obvious display of a diff showing what you've just done, so you can check it: who wouldn't want that? And then I discovered it didn't work well with Twinkle, screwing up my well-practiced AV workflow. And then this morning almost everything javascripty had stopped working altogether on the browser I use. As I write this, rollback still hasn't has just been fixed. That's nearly 24 hours that all the main AV tools have been running inefficiently or not at all (plus I don't know how long it will take to restart Cluebot NG). I don't think enough attention is given to those who spend day after day fighting vandalism (I don't include myself in that – I just come and go), and this treatment of them is poor: WP would soon fall apart without its recent changes patrollers. That's enough moaning from me!  —SMALLJIM  20:07, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I spend a bit of time moaning about these things myself. I think that the devs are getting used to me telling them that any problem that affects me personally is an important problem. I recognize that I'm a total power user – even the code for wikitext tables and magic words flows easily from memory – but a 24-hour-long outage can be disruptive to individuals, especially if those 24 hours happen to be the only time that I can set aside for volunteering.

Probably someone needs to tell me that I'm feeling too entitled and that back in the day, the whole site would fall over without warning, so I shouldn't complain so much about the little things. It is an amazing place. ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:25, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

2016 Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Community Survey

The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has appointed a committee to lead the search for the foundation’s next Executive Director. One of our first tasks is to write the job description of the executive director position, and we are asking for input from the Wikimedia community. Please take a few minutes and complete this survey to help us better understand community and staff expectations for the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director.

• Survey, (hosted by Qualtrics)

Thank you, The Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Steering Committee via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

File:Chroma noise in Uriconium.png listed for discussion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Chroma noise in Uriconium.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Kelly ^hi! 13:03, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

The West Country Challenge

Hi. I was wondering if you'd be interested in participating in Wikipedia:WikiProject England/The West Country Challenge in August. A chance to win £250 as well! If contests aren't your thing we welcome independent contributors too. If interested sign up at participants. Cheers!♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:53, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

The reappearance of A Dartmoor book

You will be pleased to hear that A Dartmoor Century has reappeared in my flat. It was hiding in a wardrobe with the other missing book, Walks in the Dartmoor National Park 2, South West Dartmoor. All the best, DuncanHill (talk) 16:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Duncan. Things not being where they should be is an obstinate annoyance, so I'm glad you found them. It sounds as if you have the same 'too many books' problem as me (boxes in the garage in my case). I still haven't acquired a copy of Somers Cocks' book, though as my absence from here indicates, my interests have temporarily moved on to other things. I'll be back :)  —SMALLJIM  10:02, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh I dream of a garage! I recently cobbled together a temporary bookcase out of banana boxes from the supermarket to enable me to reclaim the settee. I wouldn't describe the problem as "too many books" rather as "lack of a library wing on my flat" and "lack of a tame librarian to corral them all". Hope you are well, DuncanHill (talk) 10:11, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi again. The real problem, for a certain type of person, is that books always expand to overflow whatever space is available for them, so neither a garage nor a library wing are viable solutions. I have a friend who used his oven for storage and just used the rings on top for cooking. Several of my "temporary" bookshelves are supported by the cardboard rolls that held A4 rolls of photocopy paper in the late 1970s. Good and sturdy, just the right height for many paperbacks, and look reasonable if painted :)  —SMALLJIM  10:22, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Smalljim. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:49, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Bruce Boxleitner

I added a new spouse to the page and the infobox disappeared. How do I get the infobox including the photo back in view? Pokerdealer123 (talk) 18:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)Pokerdealer123

Pokerdealer123, you obviously figured this out yourself. Good! You should provide a reliable source for the info you added though, else someone will probably remove it as an unverified statement.  —SMALLJIM  22:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 7 November

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Manor of Flete page, your edit caused a broken reference name (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:21, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Just a note: another bot fixed this before I saw the above.  —SMALLJIM  16:01, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Smalljim.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Hello Smalljim: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Class455 (Merry Christmas!) 17:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Thank you! It must be time to get the decorations up...  —SMALLJIM  19:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

War memorials

Thanks for your comments on the Devon County article, and for your offer of feedback on other FACs. Sticking to articles about Devon is a noble cause. There's so much work that still needs doing on Wikipedia it's breathtaking. But one project at a time. War memorials have been keeping me busy for a year now and I've got a way to go before I even finish the Lutyens' memorials (though all 44 of them have articles now!). But I will come back and do Exeter (City) War Memorial at some point, and Ilfracombe's needs an article. So does Torquay's (a cenotaph—sort of—but by Blomfield of all people!)), and there are probably several others. Something needs doing with Plymouth Naval Memorial, but that might be best merged into one article covering Chatham and Portsmouth (Portsmouth's own war memorial is also impressive), and some of the other nautical-themed memorials around Plymouth Hoe might be notable. The sheer number of them is staggering. There's something very moving, and deeply upsetting, about a small village war memorial when you realise you can't see as many houses as there are names on the memorial. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:32, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Harry. I've always admired people who can follow large projects like that through to completion (unless they get totally possessive about their own work, of course). It's not in my nature to do that – I flit about a lot, as my contribs indicate. I have, though, collected rather a lot of books about Devon, and sporadically feel some responsibility to make use of all that paper and printing ink. Let me know if it might contain anything useful for something you're doing: I'll be pleased to look it up for you.  —SMALLJIM  23:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Smalljim!

Happy New Year!

Smalljim,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Class455 (talk | stand clear of the doors!) 18:34, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Thank you! Now it'll soon be time to take the decorations down again ;-)  —SMALLJIM  18:47, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Smalljim!

Happy New Year!

Smalljim,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Donner60 (talk) 06:01, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Thank you! Best wishes to you too.  —SMALLJIM  10:54, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

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Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Can we talk about Huggle?

Hi Smalljim,

As part of the Edit Review Improvements project, we are exploring ways in which new filtering capabilities can better support different review activities. As part of this effort we are considering how some of the ideas could be integrated into Huggle among other tools, and we want to better understand how these tools are used, identify where and how the new filters can be more useful, and discuss some initial ideas.

We plan to organise a small discussion session during the coming weeks, and since you already provided useful feedback on the ERI-Huggle talk page, we think you are an ideal candidate to participate. If you have time for a quick 30min. session, let us know.

To participate, please email the following information to me, pginer@wikimedia.org:

• Username
• city/time zone
• Best time to talk to you?
• Email where we can reach you
• Please use the subject line: Huggle User Conversations

Thanks! Pginer-WMF (talk) 10:27, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pginer-WMF: I thank you for the invitation, but I assume this is some sort of live discussion and I'd be no use in that kind of environment. If I can provide any information in my own time, I'd be happy to try to help, though most of what I could say is already in my post on mw. I should also point out that I haven't done any recent changes patrolling for some nine months now, and I don't at this stage envisage returning to do so in the near future.  —SMALLJIM  22:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

You are right. The session was organised as a live discussion where participants use screenshare and voice to show how they use Huggle. As the project moves forward there will be more opportunities to participate in different formats. Thanks for your useful comments on the talk page and feel free to provide more. -- Pginer-WMF (talk) 09:13, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Hillersdon House

I have suggested that Hillersdon House be renamed to Manor of Hillersdon as its contents have changed significantly since it was first created. I would welcome your input over at Talk:Hillersdon_House. --NHSavage (talk) 08:13, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.

The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.

To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.

We really appreciate your input!

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 20:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Devon?

Hi Smalljim, I hope you don't mind my dropping by, but I'm on a clutching at straws mission to try and find someone who lives either in or near Newton Abbot, Devon, in the hope that they could take a free image for me with regards to my next featured article. I see you have had a little to do with the Devon Wikiproject, which suggested to me that you either live/lived there or there was another connection, which is why i've come to you; I apologise if I'm barking up the wrong tree. If you do live near to there, or if you know of someone who does, I'd be very greatful for any help. It worked so well for me on my last FA, when I needed an image, I thought I'd try my luck again. Obviously, I'm conscious of OUTing so please feel free to email me rather than post here. Best regards. Cassianto^Talk 11:44, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Cassianto: Sure, let me know what you want and I'll see if I can oblige.  —SMALLJIM  10:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. I need an image of the two buildings which are between BHS (if it still exists) and Graham's Cafe, Union Street, preferably the top parts, although it doesn't matter if the shop fronts get included. For ease, see this as I'm not sure if either of the two shops I mention above, still exist; in fact I'm pretty sure at least one of them doesn't, including the pensions of the poor bugger's that used to work there. Any help, much appreciated. Cassianto^Talk 11:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

That's in Union Street, Torquay, not Newton Abbot. I have to ask why those two buildings: is that where Matcham lived? Or do you really want a photo of the nearby Central Cinema (ex-Lyceum Theatre) here, per your text and this?  —SMALLJIM  18:55, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

My apologies. I need the photo of the properties in Union Street as it was the Matcham's address (next to BHS) while they were living there in the 1870s; the one next door to Graham's was the Matcham Employers, the Bridgemans. Seeing as I've got my arse confused with my elbow, I'll understand if you'll be unable to do this. Cassianto^Talk 21:10, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

No, that's OK, anywhere around S. Devon is pretty much the same. I can get a photo, but it may well be a couple of weeks or so.  —SMALLJIM  18:34, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

That would be ever so helpful and much appreciated, thank you. Please, no rush for this as I still have a fair bit to do, writing wise. Thanks again. Cassianto^Talk 19:53, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

@Cassianto: You were in luck! I had cause to go that way yesterday and with a short diversion was able to get the photo. I took one of the Central Cinema too, since there apparently wasn't one on Commons, and there is a Matcham connection. HTH  —SMALLJIM  12:30, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Jim, that is ever so helpful. Thank you very much! I shall add these to the Matcham goings on in my sandbox. I will read up on that cinema; it's great to see it still standing as most of his buildings have long since disappeared. Thank you so much. Cassianto^Talk 15:48, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Happy to help a likely FA that's related in some way to Devon!  —SMALLJIM  17:10, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

John Fortescue (Captain of Meaux)

Dear SmallJim

Being interested in the history of West Country people and places, like others I have had to put up with the heavy presence of LobsterThermidor under his many aliases. In the spirit of give and take, I have not seriously crossed swords over his many idiosyncrasies until today.

He reverted some changes I had made to the article above, trying to prune some of its archaisms, eccentricities and errors. When I tried to correct some of the false information he had reinserted, unfortunately he was online and reverted my reverts of his reverts. Childish behaviour I want nothing to do with.

I believe you have slapped his wrists before and am therefore asking if you would please think of doing so again.

Clifford Mill (talk) 15:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Clifford Mill. I'm glad to hear that you're interested in Devon – there are few such editors around today. I'm one of the absentees, partly due to Lobsterthermidor's intransigence. I must correct your assertion about his many aliases though: I don't know of any evidence that he's used any other accounts. I don't see his archaic style of writing or excursions into unrelated topics as major problems either, except when he changes any improvements back to his preferred version. However, his extensive use of ancient unreliable sources and original research, and his combative attitude and lack of interest in the community are, to me, problems for Wikipedia, and I still believe that he should be publishing his research on a website of his own, not here.

You're aware that I have in the past tried to get the community involved but was unable to gain any interest. His contributions give a good first impression – lots of photos and references, but they are on such obscure topics that it's necessary to invest a great deal of time to tease out the flaws, and very few editors will do that unless there's evidence of intentional wrongdoing. I did for a while, but no longer!

He still pops up regularly on my watchlist and although I make the occasional edit when I see something particularly egregious, I no longer try to engage directly with him. The unvoiced community consensus is that the benefits of his edits outweigh the problems, but I believe this consensus is based on a lack of knowledge. If you choose to do the necessary research and try to get the community involved again, do keep me informed.

Ping Lobsterthermidor out of courtesy.  —SMALLJIM  12:55, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks for your reply. Since writing to you on 20 October, this particular article has been padded out with swathes of garbage. I see no point in attempting to engage with such an obtuse person and am only sorry that Wikipedia's administrators seem unable to curb his widespread manipulation of articles under multiple false identities. Until he is banned, I shall avoid contributing further on the past of Devon and adjoining counties. Clifford Mill (talk) 13:11, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I've given it a much needed scrub... Hchc2009 (talk) 13:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

And here's me thinking there's nothing interesting in Weare Giffard! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:47, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I see you've joined the Devon WikiProject, Harry. As the lucky 44th member, you win the enviable task of cleaning the place up!  —SMALLJIM  15:25, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Seriously though, is anyone aware of Lobsterthermidor abusing multiple accounts? Twice claimed by Clifford Mill – I can understand the frustration, but provide evidence or retract, I say.  —SMALLJIM  15:25, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Not having written down suspicious identities on coming across them, all I can suggest are Renamed user 2931-018233 and Lionheart0317. Of the latter, I am pretty confident. There are others, using IP addresses or mobile phones, but I've made no note of them anywhere. If, by the way, you would like to see an utterly trivial example of rudeness, obstinacy and absurdity under his own name, just see the recent revision history of Nicholas Carew (died 1311)....Clifford Mill (talk) 19:18, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Not the first one, for several reasons. Lionheart0317 looks more likely, but I'm not convinced. Any thoughts, Hchc2009? A couple of involved IPs seem to be 74.106.245.139 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 173.59.238.5 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), but they're in the USA. There's no evidence of collusion that I can see anyway, so it's not a heinous crime even if it was all the same person.  —SMALLJIM  23:10, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Dear SmallJim,

I have never made any edits to the John Fortescue (Captain of Meaux) page or the Nicholas Carew (died 1311) page! I also do not use any other aliases. I felt it was necessary to respond since I was being wrongly accused!

Regards, Lionheart0317 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lionheart0317 (talk • contribs) 01:17, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

If I was wrong, I am sorry and do apologise. The problems remain, however: uncritical reliance on outdated and often unreliable sources in print (visitation pedigrees, for example, were usually accepted on the word of the applicant in exchange for a fee, while often old county histories sycophantically glorified the landowning families who bought them); avoidance of modern online sources which can be checked; hagiography of gentry and nobility who may have no intrinsic notability; inability to discern significant detail from dross; use of Latin rather than English; use of archaic rather than 21st century English (instead of having children like the rest of us plebs, these elevated souls have “issue” or “progeny”); and downright arrogance and rudeness in avoiding reasoned discussion and reverting other editors who try to remove, correct or enhance the text. Good luck to you all....Clifford Mill (talk) 11:17, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks both.  —SMALLJIM  22:09, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Manor of Alverdiscott

Just to continue this, the newly-created article Manor of Alverdiscott exemplifies many of the content problems that we've been discussing. I've added a comment to its talk page.  —SMALLJIM  15:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

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John Fortescue (Captain of Meaux)

From the discussions on Talk:John Fortescue (Captain of Meaux) it seems quite doubtful that he was called Captain of Meaux. To me, the title 0f the article should be changed to drop Captain of Meaux and replace it with something else, perhaps (died after 1432). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dthomsen8 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure. If you google "john fortescue meaux" there are a number of hits that include Meaux in the item title. So even if he wasn't captain, "Meaux" seems to be the word that best distinguishes him from his namesakes, and that is a significant factor in determining an article title. You could propose a change on the article talk page, but I doubt if there'd be much interest. It's probably best to move the article to the title that you think is best and see if it sticks. I hope this is some help,  —SMALLJIM  23:51, 30 December 2017 (UTC)