Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive15

Archives of WP:AN, October 2005

Be careful when blocking 202.180.83.6

The 202.180.83.6 IP has been the source of lot of vandalism lately, unfortunately it's also the IP of a good admin, so care should be taken while blocking the ip (as to minimize inconveniences to Grutness. User talk:202.180.83.6 has been protected so the vandal cannot remove the notices and explanations, so it shouldn't be unprotected unless necessary. Please don't remove the explanation and comments either, so admins unaware of the issue won't block grutness for long periods of time. -- (drini's page|☎) 08:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Using rollback

Mindspillage recently changed Wikipedia:Revert to including the following:

Using admin rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism is strongly discouraged and should in most cases be avoided. Reverting a good-faith edit as if it were vandalism sends the message that "I think your edit was no better than vandalism and doesn't deserve even the courtesy of an explanatory edit summary." It is a slap in the face to a good-faith editor; do not abuse it.

I'm reposting it here to draw your attention to it (I wholeheartedly agree). In support of this, I suggest we change MediaWiki:Revertpage from

Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1

to

Reverted obvious vandalism by $2 to last version by $1

Changing this message without warning is clearly a bad idea. If there are no objections in, say, the next week, I suggest we do this. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I like the strong wording of it though. Yes I agree it should be for vandalism, but say if it weren't used for that, the it would definately be sending a message of "I reverted you for vandalism" when it wasn't intended. ∞Who?¿? 02:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • The point of changing the wording is to effectively prohibit use of rollback except in cases of obvious vandalism. If we do this we should strengthen the wording at Wikipedia:Revert from strongly discouraged to something more like never to be used except in cases of obvious vandalism. Using rollback in any other case is (IMO) simply rude. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:47, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• I agree, it is, I've just had to do it when extremely buzy with CFD, like when a user rv's my bots changes for no apparent reason. While were discussing changing it, maybe add the talk page link;

Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1 see talk

which may encourage admins to provide reason (when necessary). ∞Who?¿? 02:51, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the change because, as Who points out, there are some few other cases in which it is appropriate; moreover, the wording is inflammatory and will only make misuse-of-rollback disputes more acrimonious. Also, this will aggravate a situation in which an admin rolls back an edit by mistake (as I have done several times); an editor who is already offended at having his work rolled back will not be mollified to see it called "obvious vandalism". — Dan | Talk 02:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• It's news to me that rollback should only be for vandalism. I don't remember coming across that before. Quite frankly, with that wording you might as well disable rollback. I wouldn't think twice about using rollback on adspam, or a newbie test, but I would never call it vandalism. I have used rollback when I messed up a reversion (e.g., manually reverting without realising someone else had reverted, etc.) The whole idea sounds like a bad idea to me. Guettarda 02:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• As for the suggestion that a link to the talk page be added: this is contrary to the purpose of rollback, which is to save time. I'm not about to start explaining every time I revert "PENISPENISPENIS" on George W. Bush. — Dan | Talk 03:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

If it's changed so that the message says "reverted obvious vandalism..." or the like, then the "rollback" button needs to get changed so that instead of saying just "rollback", it says something that warns the user that that's the message he or she will send. Besides, I've occasionally reverted my own edits when they were not vandalism. Michael Hardy 03:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• This change is ill-thought out. It suggests changing a fairly innocuous message into an insult. If it goes through, I will stop using the rollback option altogether and go back to manual reversion with an edit summary of Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1 as I used to do before the rollback option was invented. I would encourage other editors to do the same. After all rollback is just a convenience and if it's made inconvenient there's no point in using it. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • If this goes through, I'll use rollback to undo it :-) --Carnildo 04:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I think this is a solution looking for a problem. There's other things that are reverted using rollback that aren't vandalism, (a good example would be a clearly POV edit) and using obvious vandalism would just end up agitating editors and ending in flaming wars. Leave it the way it is, it has worked fine until now. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Indeed, rollback can be and is used for edits that aren't vandalism but are bad, generally without the least bit of controversy. Newbie tests have already been pointed out; I for one happily rollback copyvio text dumps (e.g. [1]) and edits that are probably well-intended but are obviously erroneous (e.g. [2] and [3]), and I suspect other sysops do this as well. (In the latter case I'll explain the revert if someone repeats the edit, but that usually isn't necessary.) If some sysops are misusing this power in edit wars, then those sysops need to be reminded that rollback is not for edit warring; it is not necessary to make life more difficult for all of the others. —Charles P. (Mirv) 03:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
• The idea that rollback is for vandalism only comes up occasionally but is not our policy and is not a change that I support. There are many situations where it can and should be used where the narrow Wikipedia definition of vandalism does not apply. Among these are groups of closely related edits to which a shared rationale for the revert applies (such as category changes), self-reverts, bulk removal of link spam (or other spam), and reverting the edits of a banned user or sockpuppet. The important thing IMO is to be sure that the reason for the revert is presented somewhere, on the affected editor's talk page, for example. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I do not support the proposed change. As pointed out, there are multiple reasons why rollback is appropriately used. Fawcett5 04:22, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yeah, the rollback feature is being abused by many admins, and some focus on when not to use it is good. But I think changing the edit-comment in that way is too drastic. There's also differing opinions on what to call vandalism. But s polite reminder on the rollback-abusers talk-page should be enough if anyone want to start nagging admins with messages like that. Hmm, I might start writing them myself. It's really just lazyness, everyone can aford the extra 5 seconds and make those extra clicks to revert the old way and fill in a better edit-comment when a revert can't be expected to be obvious to the person being reverted. Shanes 05:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I have to disagree, because the Wiki has been so slow these last few days that those "few extra clicks" can take three minutes in a page the size of Hurricane Katrina or similar. That is when the rollback button really comes in handy. Titoxd^(?!?) 05:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Agreed. It's not always obvious vandalism- is there anything wrong with using it on newbie tests, so long as the user then adds {{test}} to that user's page? I would never use it during an edit war, but certain things can and should be rolled back that aren't vandalism by the strict definition of the word. Besides, let's not bite the newbies...calling someone's edits "obvious vandalism" when in some cases they're merely a page blanking test is abusive. I understand the reasoning behind this suggestion, but it's really not a good idea to change it. Ral315 W_S 05:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Second that emotion. Exploding Boy 05:59, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I use rollback only for vandalism, but I strongly oppose the change. If another admin used rollback for other things than vandalism, the previous editor would be mistakenly accused of vandalism. — JIP | Talk 06:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I use rollback only when the reason I'm reverting is quite obvious (i.e. newbie tests and outright vandalism), or when I want to quickly take back a misguided edit by myself. Things like a newbie adding "Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!" to an article is "rollbackable", but should not have the edit summary "reverted obvious vandalism". Newbie tests are annoying, but they are not vandalism, that is why we send the polite test1-templates. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Inflammatory wording is never a good idea, and sometimes it's hard to draw the line between a clueless newbie test and malicious vandalism (was this "obvious vandalism"?). Both are revertable, but calling it "obvious vandalism" bites the newbie. As others have pointed out, reverts are also applicable to linkspam, self-reverts, abusive sockpuppets evading 3RR (eg, recent history of Empire of Atlantium (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) with Crankshuick 1 thru 17), and probably other cases. -- Curps 07:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I completely disagree with the proposed change to MediaWiki:Revert, and I agree with Sjakkale and Curps above. Additionally I think the wording on Wikipedia:Revert should also be clarified to explicitly allow for reverting newbie tests. As it stands it incorrectly implies that the admin has to have made a judgement that the edit was malicious, or alternatively that any admin abuses the rollback when they revert a newbie test. --RobertG ♬ talk 09:02, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree; this is a really bad idea. About half of my rollback reverts are not clear vandalism at all, and even if they were, this is not the way I want to handle it. Filiocht | The kettle's on 14:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Many of the situations cited for non-vandalism rollback on multiple articles could be more appropriately handled by inserting identical but more explanatory edit summaries when reverting. Using copy-and-paste shortcuts, this doesn't take that much longer than rollback.

However, because we encourage a narrow definition of vandalism for other reasons (notably civility), it is difficult to enforce a strict rule that rollback can only be used for this purpose. The narrowest interpretations would make rollback nearly unusable, and there is a case to be made that its use is reasonable in certain other situations. So I would suggest that "rollback is only for vandalism" is the underlying spirit, but should not explicitly be the letter of the rule. --Michael Snow 19:41, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I admit to being guilty of discussing this one mainly on IRC first, and not finding significant dissent. It was probably ill-considered; I do think rollback is abused overmuch, but it's difficult to discourage that without running into legitimate cases, and my statement was poor. Too hasty a change, it looks like; I'm not defending it. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I've come across this disccssion rather late, but I thought that I'd mention that I'm also against the change. I've been attacked for using rollback for edits that weren't vandalism (but were PoV, or disruptive, etc.), on the grounds that it's already policy that one shouldn't (Everyking and Kelly Martin were the main critics). I don't use it when the editor has given an edit summary, and when the edit in question is clearly good faith, though. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I've come across this discussion rather late, but I thought that I'd mention that I'm also against the change. I've been attacked for using rollback for edits that weren't vandalism (but were PoV, or disruptive, etc.), on the grounds that it's already policy that one shouldn't (Everyking and Kelly Martin were the main critics). I don't use it when the editor has given an edit summary, and when the edit in question is clearly good faith, though. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:57, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Obvious vandalism? Gee... that's not what I use the Rollback button for... I just use it on fussy bots or broken ones. --AllyUnion (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

There are clearly objections, so I won't make this change. I would encourage everyone to consider when using rollback that the supplied summary is well known by many users, and carries with it an implication akin to "speedy delete" (appropriate for vandalism, obvious nonsense, and newbie tests). -- Rick Block (talk) 00:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

New idea

How about adding a variable to the MediaWiki:Revertpage edit summary? It would read like this:

Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1: $3 

That way, we could type something along the lines of "Reverted edits by Titoxd to last version by Titoxd: obvious vandalism" in the edit summary. Then, if $3 is blank, just show the current summary:

Reverted edits by $2 to last version by $1 

Comments? Titoxd^(?!?) 00:33, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

But of course. Great idea. ~~ N (t/c) 00:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

But in that scheme, the colon would still show up, would it not? I like the idea regardless. --HappyCamper 00:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Umm... where would you type in the third field? There's no edit summary field in a revert... Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 00:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Where? I'm not sure, since I don't have rollback... but it could be placed somewhere near the rollback button. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:46, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't get it. As far as I can tell, mediawiki expects Mediawiki:Revertpage to have two variables. Where would it get the content of the third from? --fvw* 00:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Have the devs add a text field. ~~ N (t/c) 00:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Make a feature request, it doesn't change current software behaviour so it doesn't need any support here. It's just there are so many feature requests I'm not sure this one will be done any time soon. --fvw* 00:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Nice idea, but not a great one unless the revert-summary is strictly optional. I don't want to have to explain why I have just reverted the blanking of George W. Bush for the 100th time. It's feeding the trolls. Admins should know well enough to be conservative in their use of rollback. The whole point of rollback is to make it much easier to repair the damage than to make it. Making our own lives harder to make sure we don't bite the trolls is doing ourselves a disservice. -Splash^talk 00:47, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Splash, if $3 is empty, the revert summary should be identical to the summary seen today. It is strictly optional. Titoxd^(?!?) 16:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

This is still a solution looking for a problem. There is nothing wrong with the current message and process so why are we suggesting that developer time be wasted on something that really isn't necessary ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

NO. Absolutely NOT. Lets just delete the rollback button! --Phroziac^(talk) 16:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Templates in edit toolbar

The Finnish Wikipedia is using a set of buttons in their edit toolbar, which add templates such as {{roskaa}} (meaning the article should be speedy deleted as garbage) and the various {{test}} templates into the article contents. Shouldn't we have such a feature too? I'm suggesting this here because it seems to be doable with the normal admin powers without need for developer intervention. — JIP | Talk 09:18, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Block links should be available on more pages

The ability to block users is of little use if I don't have access to links to the block user page. AFAICS, currently the only page where a link to block a specific user appears is on the Recent Changes page. On any other page, I would have to write "Special:Blockip" in the search box and manually type the user name. I currently only use User:Lupin's popups for blocking users, because they seem to be the easiest and fastest way, by far. — JIP | Talk 13:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Philosophically, I'm not sure that we want to make blocking a rapid and efficient process. Very few vandals tend to persist after a warning; either they take the hint or they get bored and leave. Getting blocked–in some cases–is exactly the attention they're looking for. There's also an argument that overreliance on blocking is contrary to our open principles.

Practically, I've found that when things are ugly on RC patrol I keep Special:Blockip open in a browser tab in the background, and I can pull it up very quickly if I need it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

However, I wish there was more consistency about the availability of the block link. For example, there are links to Blockip in my Watchlist and Recent changes, but not on the History page, diff page, or, as would make the most sense, the User page. It is a little confusing, especially for new admins. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I especially wish that Block links would be available on the History or User page. Having them on the Watchlist or Recent changes is useless. For the links on those pages to be of any use, you would have to block the user before you get to see what changes they have made. You would therefore have to think "Hmm, this is a known vandal, I'll block just to be sure" or, worse yet, "Hmm, this new user/anonymous IP looks like it could be vandalising, I'll block just to be sure", and then only see the changes afterwards. A far better solution would be to view the article's diffs or history first, and then have a Block link to block the user if the changes were indeed vandalism. Or this could be on the user's user page or contributions page, so you would get to it by clicking on the user's name on the history page. — JIP | Talk 16:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

If you add the link to Sam Hocevar's ubergodmode to your monobook.js, you'll have a button to get to the block and blocklog whenever you are on a user's user- or talk-page. If you debug it a bit, the block button opens a window for blocking, and changes the current page to the user's blocklog so you can see if you've been beaten to it. -Splash^talk 14:49, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. I'll have to ask Sam Hocevar about it. Thanks. — JIP | Talk 16:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Add document.write('<SCRIPT SRC="http://sam.zoy.org/wikipedia/ubergodmode.js"><\/SCRIPT>'); to User:JIP/monobook.js (if you use monobook). -Splash^talk 17:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

When to bring out the heavy guns to fight vandalism?

As a newly-mopped admin, I'm not quite sure when it's appropriate to block users or protect a page. I'm watching the current Featured Article, Wario, get subjected to an endless stream of vandalism by many different anons. It seems abuntandly clear that it's intentional, so going through a normal sequence of {{test1}}, {{test2}}, etc, seems like it would be a waste of effort and time. Would it be appropriate to just slap a 24-hour block on each vandal as soon as it happens? Or, alternatively, just protect the page. How do you know when it's time for these tools? --RoySmith 19:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

No and no. It's getting vandalised because it's featured, that's all. Just revert. Remember that most of the anon vandals are just people trying out the software "you mean the'll let me edit?" These people are potential editors of tomorrow. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 20:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Never should a page linked to from the front page be protected, because it discourages newcomers. Usually, I start with {{test1}} unless it's clear vandalism (i.e. "Ral315 has intimate relations with farm animals"), in which case, going straight to {{test2}} or {{test3}} is appropriate. Ral315 W_S 21:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

What Theresa said. When you've been doing RC patrol for a while, one tends to think that they're all the same people and you get fed up and impatiet and want to block everybody. At least I get that urge after hours of reverting nonsense on the same article. But I bet 90 percent of all nonsense edits there are made by different clueless first-time editors. And just giving each one the polite first test-template will 1) inform them that, yes, the edit they made are indeed visible for the whole world, and 2) "Hey these guys watching Wikipedia are cool guys, I made this silly change and they took it really nice and even liked that I was interested in editing. I like wikipedia. I'll tell my friends." Being angry and rude will have the opposite effect. Try being patient and polite as long as you can. And when you're getting tired of it and it's not at all fun, just take a brake from watching the FA and let those not yet tired of it do the watching. Shanes 21:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

For the people blanking pages, or adding random four-letter words, I can see them being clueless newbies. But, it's hard to imagine the people who added sophisticated things like piped links or templates are first-timers. Still, I will continue to use the small mop to clean up the mess, and hold the really big mop in reserve. --RoySmith 21:22, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with all the above comments. If they continue to do little vandalisms, and no one else has blocked them, after leaving all the test templates, if you feel uncomfortable blocking, try asking for another admin to assist. You might also consider blocking them for 15 minutes with a very polite note to cool down, rather than the standard test template. ∞Who?¿? 21:27, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I would never directly block anybody for vandalising a FA the first time — blanking, and inserting comments like "Cool, wahahaha" (or something like that) is just newbies experimenting. However, if someone inserts a large picture of an inappropriate grapphical image (you know which ones), then I've done 24 hour blocks. It is clear that these people have malicious intent by placing offensive images in the article. Thankfully, though, this type of vandalism has been dropping after many such attacks on Hurricane Katrina. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 21:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

In case anyone missed the earlier discussion (above somewhere), I created templates {{blatantvandal}} or {{bv}} for using as a 'first and final warning' for vandalism that goes way beyond newbie tests. It both welcomes and warns - and indicates that an imediate block will follow any reoccurance. --Doc (?) 23:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I changed them to use {{tl}} so we could click them easily :) I also like them, better than skipping directly to {{test3}}. ∞Who?¿? 23:57, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Request for m:CheckUser

I realise there's still very little policy on the matter, but with the vandalbot whose autoblocks appear to be hitting AOL proxies, I think we really need some more people with checkuser. I've been bold and posted a request for checkuser on en: at m:Requests_for_permissions#CheckUser_on_en:. Please post comments there. --fvw* 22:53, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Angela has asked us to ask the Arbitration Committee about this, since they're the ones that currently hold that power. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

See my reply there. --fvw* 23:42, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Mind explaining where there is? -Greg Asche (talk) 01:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

At m:Requests_for_permissions#CheckUser_on_en:. --fvw* 01:40, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry if I seemed a bit curt in my last comment. -Greg Asche (talk) 02:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, I was just wondering how you managed to miss the big blue bit in my first comment. --fvw* 14:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I just wasn't sure if you meant the meta page or the ArbCom talk page. -Greg Asche (talk) 00:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I tried that and failed (but thanks for all your support). I'm going to try the slightly longer route now, please cast your eyes on Wikipedia:Quick and dirty Checkuser policy proposal. --fvw* 14:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

See CheckUser policy for longer-term discussion about this. Titoxd^(?!?) 00:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I've opened up the voting to get a sense of whether there's support, Please register your opinion, we need forty votes and we need them quick. --fvw* 22:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Right, the proposal made it, though not by a wide margin. The policy is at Wikipedia:Quick and dirty Checkuser policy, I've immediately nominated myself, I'm egocentric like that. --fvw* 22:19, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely Disgusted

I would hereby like to register my absolute disgust at the manner in which this proposal has been rushed through straw polling. I should also like to point out that I am somewhat concerned with FVW's eagerness in the matter, and his campaigning for votes:

...we need forty votes and we need them quick...

The proposal didn't "make it" if there was a narrow margin; indeed, a straw poll alone would not be enough to authorise this kind of change. Furthermore:

...I've immediately nominated myself, I'm egocentric like that...

Does not begin to produce any sort of trust for this user having access to such information. Indeed, FVW has previously claimed that "we can already get at this information" - if that is the case, then this needs looking at pronto, as it indicates some of our administrators have not been totally scrupulous.

In any case, I don't see that anyone can begin to request CheckUser status when the clear consensus in the policy proposal was that, regardless of all else, a log for CheckUser has to be implemented before anything else happens.

A number of things about this whole issue worry me, and the community apparently isn't pausing to think even for a second. I don't like that one little bit, and I don't like that certain individuals are being permitted to rush the proceedings. Rob Church ^{Talk | FAHD} 17:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Undeletes for transwiking

Didn't know where to mention this, but I'm undeleting some of the AFDed webcomics articles for User:RJFJR to transwiki over to Comixpedia. (More info here.) Just so anyone watching RC knows why I'm undeleting stuff deleted by consensus. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 01:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget to delete them again afterwards. And I'm still uncomfortable with transwiki to non-Wikimedia wikis. -Splash^talk 02:05, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's a GFDL wiki, so there shouldn't be any legal problems. And I'll make sure I redelete them. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 02:19, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Potentially offensive usernames in other languages

What's the policy for usernames that might be offensive in other non-English languages (eg, Zhopa (talk · contribs), GovnoTebi (talk · contribs))? Should we care? -- Curps 03:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd say yes. This is a polyglot sort of place, and somebody's bound to get offended sooner or later. And we don't want to be in the business of providing loopholes to people who are just dying to wield offensive monikers. Slac speak up! 03:54, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, what do those two mean? android79 03:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I guess it would be "ass" and "shit to you", respectively. -- Curps 11:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There's some precedent, RickK blocked a User:PutaMadre or maybe it was User:Putamadre ("Whore mother" in Spanish) a year or two back. Pakaran 22:00, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Harassment at Speedy Deletions

Currently there is an editor filling up loads of space at Wikipedia:Speedy Deletions with long long, rambling ad hominmes against me. An administrator should deal with this disruptive behavior and move the diatribe against me to a more fitting place. 172 | Talk 10:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Material removed - that is a place for requests to delete user spaces not articles! --Doc (?) 10:46, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Lets finish the copyright problems page

Now we can speedy a lot of copyright violation material, the Wikipedia:Copyright problems page should not grow very quickly, but it still has a big backlog. If every admin deals with one or two (or more!) then it will be finished in no time.

See Wikipedia:Copyright problems/Advice for admins if you don't know how to help.

Come on, you know you want to. Martin 11:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the scope of the new speedy is probably less than 2% from anecdotal experience. It applies only to things like newspapers and encyclopedias and has already been challenged at CSD talk on those grounds, without resolution. I spend quite a bit of time over at CP, and I don't think it's made much, if any, difference at all. -Splash^talk 12:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I have personally speedy deleted lots of copyvio stuff, 2% is way off the mark. I know certainly not all of it can be speedied, but definately the majority. Martin 14:20, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but absolutely not. The new CSD, as demonstrated at CSD talk applies only to website that make providing content their business. If it were to apply to any commercial website it should be rephrased to say so. That might have been the intent, but it wasn't the implementation and, as it stands, speedy most copyvios is wrong. I'm a fan of the original intent, but it just wasn't how it wound up being: it was basically neutered by the requirement that they be a commercial content provider. If that is not the way we are to use it, then it should be rephrased as a matter of urgency. The comment at CSD talk about "using common sense" isn't very applicable: if I used my common sense when speedying things, you'd see AfD a fraction of the size that it is. -Splash^talk 14:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The intent was to restrict it ot only those websites where we can be pretty much 100% sure that permisison will not be forthcomming if asked, and where we can tell that in advace, without discussion. The rule suggested was "commercial content provider", which was intended to mean people in soem way making money off the content -- it was explicitly intented to exclude advertising pages by commercial firms for their products, corporate profiles, and the like, because those might be things a comapny would chose to release under the GFDL. If people think we should revise this to make it broader, a proposal to do that is always a possibility. DES ^(talk) 00:48, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalbot has made AN/I inaccessible (at least for me)

The recent vandalbot invasion seems to have crippled WP:AN/I to the point of inaccessibility, at least for me. I can get to that page all fine, but it displays "SUPER COOL." and when I try to view the page history to revert the vandalism, the browser's request gets stuck and never receives a reply. Has the vandalbot caused the page's history to grow to several million edits or something? If this problem persists I may have to contact a developer about it. Do you know where I could find a page to get their attention? — JIP | Talk 14:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Odd that, might be worth looking into by the devs. Fixed with rollback though. --fvw* 15:05, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I've also had exactly the same problem. I've not been able to get diffs or history for AN/i, or the other vandalbotted pages. We really need someone to help us out here — eventually the bot is going to overwhelm what mere humans can respond to. -Splash^talk 15:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I had the same problem - no diffs so no revert possible. Indeed for some time no one was reverting. We need to do something about this vandalbot quickly. I wonder about a)creating a project page to discuss quick fixes and longterm solutions. b)creating a 'vandalbot alerts' page - which is constantly v-protected - for communication when ANI, AN, and VIP become unusable. And asking some folk with technical know-how (pref some developers) to keep it watched. --Doc (?) 16:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Only history inaccessible for me. I can see last diff from watchlist and get to previous diffs from there. I unprotected it since there have been no new random usernames created since on the hour. --RobertG ♬ talk 16:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Same problems - I can't get diffs, and history is really slow. Don't hesistate to protect further vandalbot pages; all of the major ones (WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:VIP, WP:RfAr) have already been protected. THanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 21:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Update: Apparently an IP address performed the same action the vandal bots were doing: 83.92.128.1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Could someone check if this is an open proxy? In any case, I've blocked it indefinitely, and hopefully this will stop the creation of new vandal bot accounts. Here's the Whois information for 83.92.128.1:

IP Address : [83.92.128.1] 0x535c8001.lo1.hrnxx5.ip.tele.dk
IP Location: Denmark Denmark [DK]

% This is the RIPE Whois query server #1.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% Note: the default output of the RIPE Whois server
% is changed. Your tools may need to be adjusted. See
% http://www.ripe.net/db/news/abuse-proposal-20050331.html
% for more details.
%
% Rights restricted by copyright.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/copyright.html

% Note: This output has been filtered.
%       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

% Information related to '83.92.128.0 - 83.92.191.255'

inetnum:      83.92.128.0 - 83.92.191.255
netname:      TDC-TELEDANMARK-BREDBAANDSADSL-NET
descr:        TDC BB-ADSL users
country:      DK
remarks:      +--------------------------------------+
remarks:      | For abuse and security issues please |
remarks:      | contact abuse@post.tele.dk           |
remarks:      +--------------------------------------+
admin-c:      AS5071-RIPE
tech-c:       AS5071-RIPE
status:       ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by:       TDK-MNT
source:       RIPE # Filtered

role:           AS3292 Staff
address:        TDC Net
address:        Sletvej 30, A039
address:        DK-8310 Tranbjerg
address:        Denmark
phone:          +45 50 12 29 47
e-mail:         staff@ip.tele.dk
remarks:        trouble:      staff@ip.tele.dk
admin-c:        MILY1-RIPE
admin-c:        NINA1-RIPE
tech-c:         NCB1-RIPE
tech-c:         MILY1-RIPE
tech-c:         HV72-RIPE
nic-hdl:        AS5071-RIPE
mnt-by:         AS3292-MNT
source:         RIPE # Filtered

% Information related to '83.88.0.0/13AS3292'

route:        83.88.0.0/13
descr:        TDC
origin:       AS3292
remarks:      +---------------------------------------+
remarks:      | For abuse and security issues contact |
remarks:      | csirt@csirt.dk, http://www.csirt.dk   |
remarks:      +---------------------------------------+
mnt-by:       AS3292-MNT
source:       RIPE # Filtered

I'm not sure what to do (if anything) with this information, but the IP address seems to be originating in Denmark. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 22:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I've fixed that up so you can read it... Alphax ^τεχ 00:36, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Limited ban on ArmchairVexillologistDon

2.3) ArmchairVexillologistDon is banned from the editing of any Wikipedia page related to vexillology, fascism, or Canada pending a decision their arbitration case. What constitutes "Vexillogy," "fascism," or "Canada" shall be interpreted broadly. Fred Bauder 21:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

User:ArmchairVexillologistDon has violated this injunction twice so far. I banned him for 24 hrs the first time and for 48 hrs the second. I don't think I should be the one imposint the ban though, so I am going to lift it - another admin should examine his edit history since Fred's post (which was also posted on AVD's talk page) and act accordingly. Homey 04:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Non-existent user page/user talk page

Vandal User:165.123.172.107's talk and user pages appear to be inaccessible. When I try to navigate to the pages I'm redirected to an error page. Could this have been done deliberately by the user, or is it just an irritating coincidence? Exploding Boy 22:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I see no such error. ~~ N (t/c) 22:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

It turns out to have been an irritating coincidence. Now that another editor has posted a first message on this user's talk page I can access it. Exploding Boy 22:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

It sounds remarkably like the IE bug that's reported elsewhere. (If it recurs on non-extant user pages, and you're using a recent version of IE, that's probably the reason). - Nunh-huh 00:31, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Anonimous vandal report User:72.144.150.28

Vandal User:72.144.150.28 is keep hidding behing anonimous IP.

In mean time he made very serious editing in the last 15 days, including several vandalistic reverts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=72.144.150.28

Can someone please block him and advise him to register?

Thank you

Macedonian 02:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Page move

Could someone please help me move the page Arvanitic (language) to Arvanitika. I have left a notice on the talk page stating the reasons for the move and saying that if anyone objects, to do so within a seventy two hour deadline. No one has protested, so I am assuming that all editors are in favour of the move. I cannot move it myself, as there are cetain technical issues (ie double redirects) which I cannot fix on my own. I would by grateful of any assistance. I would have posted this request on the Requested Moves page, but as I seem to be the only user editing the page, I think that it may be redundant. REX 14:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Done. Grutness...wha? 14:33, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Digg

I'm confused about this page. According to Wikipedia:Protected pages, the page was supposed to have been protected from recreation following a series of recreations after it was defeated in VFD: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Digg. I don't see any record of it being undeleted, but I don't see a list of previous deletions in the admin view of the page's history. Can someone more familiar with this topic follow up on this? If it is recreated deleted content, it should be speedied if it did not go through the proper undeletion process. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

This was discussed on VFU ad nauseam. It is not substantially identical to the deleted version, therefore it is not eligible for speedy deletion. Please don't delete it out of process. Another admin did this a few times, and the consensus was to undelete. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Digg (2nd nomination) for some discussion. Here is an old revision of VFU which contains the digg discussion. Rhobite 17:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm going to put a link to that discussion and the VFU log on the talk page so that there is no confusion in the future. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Request for guidance re. blatant advert

User MConnect created a page, Mconnect,Inc. which is blatant advertising. I flagged it for speedy deletion, which the user reverted. Two things: first, was I right to flag for deletion (there is no specific category for blatant advertising that I could see, but it's clearly not what Wiki is for); second, what do I do if the user repeatedly reverts? Flag as vandalism? Sorry if this is hopelessly naive. --Just zis Guy, you know? 19:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

• Blatant advertising, annoying as it is, is not speediable per the criteria. You can nominate it for regular-speed deletion (AfD), as I have done now. Feel free to participate in the deletion discussion. android79 20:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
• It's important to remember that what's blatent to one person, may not be to another. I've put stuff on AfD that I thought was pretty blatent only to be surprised when other people had other views (and, on occasion, made me change my own mind). Personally, I try to change my mind every 3 months or 3000 miles whether I need it or not. --RoySmith 20:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks chaps. - Just zis Guy, you know? 20:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Vandalbot accounts

A new wave of vandalbot accounts were created today, and most were blocked promptly. During that time, there were several accounts named something like "This account's password is XXXX", which proved to be true. I've logged in to each one of these and changed the password and then subsequently unblocked all of them since they are now secure. For each of the accounts, the given email was "wikiwikinastyvandal@yahoo.co.uk". In addition, I can provide the internal number of these accounts if it can help in tracking down the vandal bot. Can that number in the preferences help track down the IP number of the (presumed) vandal bots? Thanks. Oh, if anyone wants to try the email address and see if it's valid... Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 20:43, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

How the heck did this happen??!! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 20:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

They were probably still logged in as that user, I suspect changing the password doesn't invalidate the session. --fvw* 21:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, the internal ID is just a sequential number. --fvw* 21:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to indef block these accounts? They're obviously bad faith. (Just indef blocked User:Fvw is a fascist (my pass is pass) · Katefan0^(scribble) 21:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless you think you'll hit it with the autoblocker there isn't much use though, none of the accounts appear to get reused. --fvw* 21:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The reason I was going in and changing the password and then unblocking was because I read somewhere (possibly somewhere above this post) that many indefinite blockings would eventually create a server strain, so I figured if the password has been changed, there's no use to block. But I'm sure blocking wouldn't do any harm, either. Is there anyway to find out whether or not the email address is valid short of emailing to him/her? Thanks. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 21:32, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Just saw User: Blockme&I'llmultiply... I didn't block, but was tempted. Any takers? · Katefan0^(scribble) 21:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC) Eh. Now there's User:The-more-U-block-the-less-I'll-stop; I'll do the other too. · Katefan0^(scribble) 21:44, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I sort of knew this kind of nonsense would happen the moment the new users log was created... --cesarb 22:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

It's always a game of cat and mouse unfortunately. It was either not using a new user's log and waiting for Willy's accounts to show... or just patiently abide our time for when the vandalism struck. --AllyUnion (talk) 05:02, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Logically, indefinitely blocking such accounts can do little harm(unless the IP turns out to be a proxy). They are clearly in bad faith, so deserve to be blocked, and the IP auto-blocker will prevent them from ever editing from that connection again. Obviously, they can fulfill their threat by using a different IP, but they could do so any way, and it's unlikely that your blocking would make a difference. Don't be intimidated. Superm401 | Talk 23:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

User:JimmytheStick410

Why is it, when I click on this User's User page, instead of getting an edit page, I get an HTTP 404 "The page cannot be found"? User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Randomness? I don't, I get a blank userpage ripe for editing. -Splash^talk 02:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. It's normal for me, too. - Nunh-huh 03:02, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Normal with me too, so I don't know. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:03, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Grutness was having the same problem; check the WP:VP, technical section (I think). android79 03:04, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It turns out it's an IE bug. I hope it gets corrected soonest. User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:19, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm confused... I'm using IE, and it renders properly. Titoxd^(?!?) 03:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and User:71.38.227.189

71.38.227.189's edits have been reverted by both myself and User:Spangineer and he puts them back. Some of his edits contain relevant/good points, but all of them are presented in a POV format. Although he has not yet violated the three revert rule, I don't think that will stop him. Just wanted to give you guys the heads-up. Cookiecaper 05:52, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

If they contain relevant and good points, why are you reverting? Merge the edits in after correcting the POV problems. Superm401 | Talk 23:48, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Resources for interwiki admins/editors

Is there any organization for administrative issues that go in-between language wikipedias? I noticed on es:Café (ayuda) that User:Paul Klenk (who has many inter-wiki accounts) found that a spanish user had claimed his account there. Is there a precedent for dealing with inter-wiki impostors? Are there resources for inter-wiki issues like this in general?--DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:18, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

On a semi-related note, do any spanish wikipedians know what the analogue for Wikipedia:Requested moves is on the spanish wikipedia? I can't seem to find it, and there's no interwiki link provided. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:20, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

You probably want to ask at [4], the Spanish WP Embassy. There's a full list of Embassies and Ambassadors at meta:Wikimedia_Embassy. From a quick Babelfish of es:Wikipedia:Cómo cambiar el nombre de una página (How to change the name of a page) it appears there is no equivalent of RM, and you'll just have to ask a Bibliotecarios (admin). the wub "?!" 11:33, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• To answer your first question, you may also want to look on Meta for m:Stewards that work on the interwiki you are looking for. They maybe able to fix the issue. ∞Who?¿? 12:06, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• When someone impersonated me on fr: one of the developers blocked the account. -- Arwel 19:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

WP:RM notices & backlog

Hi everyone! I managed to get rid of most of the backlog on WP:RM (requested moves) today - but there's still quite a bit left, anyone want to help me finish it off :)? I also made some wording changes to the intro there, and noted the templates available to admins. Let me know what you think! Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 09:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Good work. But it occurs to me that there's now so much instruction on the page (top and bottom), that maybe it's worth separating the procedure from the substance, as WP:AFD does. It probably wouldn't need doing by date - just a WP:RM/List page might be enough. I think that would be helpful in itself, but also facilitate making the instructions as clear and concise and well-structured as possible. Rd232 13:34, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Article creeping into yellowpages status

DSL around the world is getting worse with time it looks like. I am too tired right now to take it on. Qaz ^(talk) 14:02, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Additionally I suspect that some of the companies listed on this page with links of their own might fail WP:CORP

Another Willy on Wheels report

There was a recent Willy on Wheels account created, with the username User:Nidnid. This user decided to add a WoW template to his own userpage first. I deleted this, and replaced so that the edit history shows an administrator adding the template. It also seems that he made a few edits to his monobook - I wonder if there would be some insight gathered from looking at the code used. Anyway, it was just an observation... --HappyCamper 15:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you should have deleted the page so it looks like they didn't tag themselves. It feels like destroying evidence. They got blocked by bot anyway I presume. If it needs an admin to prove it somehow then add to the page - not delete and remake. Secretlondon 17:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Undelete the edit in question and the problem is gone. Titoxd^(?!?) 17:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, that account wasn't blocked by a bot. It was blocked by me as far as I can tell. I've undeleted those edits now. I thought you two were admins? --HappyCamper 18:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, not an admin... Titoxd^(?!?) 18:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Secretlondon is an admin and bureaucrat, if I am correct. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 18:17, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see! Well, for the record, I wouldn't have minded if it was undeleted by someone else, although I liked the instructive purpose of doing it myself. I should mention in passing that fixing those page moves was quite confusing...The articles were moved to "X on Wheels", with an edit summary "on Wheels", which made it hard to tell whether it was moved to "X on Wheels on Wheels" or "X on Wheels". Perhaps my eyesight (!) is going away, but I simply didn't see any of the brackets separating the edit summary from the article name. Hmm...--HappyCamper 18:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes I'm an admin and a bureaucrat. However I don't see why that's relevant. Yes I could have undone your work - but I'd rather discuss it first.. Secretlondon 18:42, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Me too. --HappyCamper 19:01, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Re the monobook.js - it's an auto WoW script. Alphax ^τεχ 23:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Zen-master Arbitration case closed

The Zen-master Arbitration case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zen-master, has been closed, with the following remedies:

• Zen-master is placed on Wikipedia:Probation for one year from the date of closing this case. Should any sysop feel that it is necessary that Zen-master be banned from an article where they are engaged in edit warring, removal of sourced material, POV reorganizations of the article, or any other activity which the user considers disruptive, they shall place a template {{Zen-master banned}} at the top of the talk page of the article, and notify them on their talk page. The template shall include the ending date of the ban (one year from this decision) and a link to Wikipedia:Probation. The template may be removed by any editor, including Zen-master, at the end of the ban. If Zen-master edits an article they are banned from, they may be briefly blocked from editing Wikipedia, up to a week for repeat offenses.
• Zen-master is banned for one week for making personal attacks.

Many thanks to all sysops who implement the Committee's decision.

James F. (talk) 16:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

We've got a couple of probationers now. I have a question:

When a sysop bans an editor from an article, is the length of that ban always the duration specified by the Comittee, or is it discretionary? I'm a little concerned that your average sysop is going to be reluctant to summarily ban an editor for such a long period, and is likely to face very stiff opposition from many other editors and sysops. If the length of the article ban is discretionary, there would be less cause for concern. Also, can another sysop reverse the decision? Can we have probation wars? -Splash^talk 16:31, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe only ArbCom can put users under probation(and presumably reverse themselves). Superm401 | Talk 20:17, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmmm? They just did put Zen-master on probation. And the ruling says that any sysop can act on that probation. -Splash^talk 00:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I thought you were asking about whether sysops put people on probation. They can't, but they can implement probation. I think if one sysop bans Zen-master from an article, that's the end of it. None of the other sysops can do anything; he's banned for a year, definitively. Superm401 | Talk 18:29, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Wording of MediaWiki:Newuserloglog

I don't know, but "created the user Foobarbaz" seems a little grammatically incorrect for such a message. I think "user Foobarbaz created" sounds better.

-- Denelson83  04:17, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the log itself, it makes more sense, as it's preceded by the actor (the one who made the action), as in all the other logs: Example (Created the user Example...). --cesarb 19:35, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposing a redirect log, similar to the page-move log

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Redirect and un-redirect log.

Redirecting a page is a fundamentally different concept than editing it. Actually, it's exactly like a page move, except the "page move" target already exists. So it should be logged distinctly. It would help spot cut-and-paste page moves, which are troublesome whether committed by clueless newbies, edit warriors who don't want to go through WP:RM, or vandals. -- Curps 04:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The trouble is, it doesn't necessarily fit with the way MediaWiki works right now. Either redirecting would have to be its own process, similar to moves, or the software would have to parse for

"#Redirect" on every edit. Either way sounds cumbersome. Ral315 W_S 08:28, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not "parsing" as the term is usually understood, it's a very simple check. If the first non-blank character isn't a "#", then it's not a redirect, so the check would be short-circuited nearly always after checking only a single byte, which shouldn't be too inefficient at all. You could just use a regular expression.

The only difficulty is if there are some tricky variants with HTML comments preceding the #, or using &#x23; or &#35; instead of #, or space between the # and 'r', or lack of space between the 't' and the '[['). This can only be verified by checking the source code or a little empirical testing. -- Curps 09:07, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I just did a little testing. Absolutely nothing can be before a redirect. No blank spaces, no line breaks, no HTML comments, no <nowiki></nowiki>(not as if that had any point). Thus, the parsing wouldn't be hard at all. Furthermore, redirects must already be detected on save. Think about it. How else does MediaWiki know to send you to the "redirect=no" page? If it first detected redirects when you visited a page, it would happily save the redirect, send you to the page you just saved, then stupidly redirect you to the target. Whatever block of code "says", "Wait, this is a redirect, send them to "[...]?title=pagename&redirect=no" can add a log entry before hand. And if the software already can tell on creation whether a page is now a redirect, it can also tell us when it now isn't. Then, it just has to check whether it had the page stored as a redirect. If there's a change, it makes the log entry. It's not difficult, and a good idea. In fact, I'll take a quick look at the code myself and see if I can make sense of it. Superm401 | Talk 18:54, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Main Page featured article

The protected featured article snippet on the main page has bad grammar. Please see Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/October 16, 2005. Superm401 | Talk 18:56, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Overzealous blocking by administrator Curps

User:Curps is blocking new users without appropriate use of block summaries, often simply "user..." or "contact me for verification". Please review his actions, as I am certain legitimate editors are being treated unfairly here. [[5]]

Adam Kazaki 19:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE: "Adam Kazaki" has now been blocked by David Gerard as a MARMOT sockpuppet (presumably he has checked the IP addresses). -- Curps 14:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

If anyone needed proof that the vandal reads these message boards... -- Curps 14:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

To clarify: he was coming through the same NTL proxy making the same sort of edits (IMO) at about the same time. It's not 100% nailed, but it's close enough IMO. Same for that whole set of accts I blocked at that time - David Gerard 15:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

They appear to all be user names that are seemingly random strings of characters, so this strikes me as a legitimate move given the recent vandal bots. Gamaliel 19:29, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Either random characters, reincarnations of banned user JarlaxleArtemis, or inflammatory names like User:Jews must have a thing for anus?!. Yeah, I don't see anything to get upset about here. A better blocking reason than "user..." might be in order, but this looks like proper administrative action to me. android79 19:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I would say that about 90% of his blocks are in order, which really isn't good enough. Adam Kazaki 19:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I would say 100% are ok. I dont think explicit edit summaries are needed when it is so obvious. Martin 19:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I concur. In the first 1000 blocks, there is very little which indicates the blocks were out of line. --HappyCamper 19:44, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

No way - if someone really has blocked 1000 users then something is seriously wrong. Have you any idea how few admin blocks are actually reviewed? Blocking is not supposed to be something taken lightly - blocking first and then asking questions later is utterly anti-wiki. Secretlondon 05:53, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

These are not "1000" users, these are "1000" newly-created sockpuppets created over the past few days by a vandal with a script. Please read some of the other discussion at AN/I if you're not familiar with what's been happening. Indeed, there's something seriously wrong... namely, the actions and attitude of this vandal. -- Curps 07:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Do you have a specific block or set of blocks you're concerned about? If not, you're essentially saying "Curps might be doing something bad, but I can't be bothered to verify if he is or isn't." android79 19:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• 18:42, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:是, 维基百科實際上是法西斯主義" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)
  • Legitimate block. This translates as "Yes, Wikipedia is actually fascism". --MarkSweep✍ 19:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• 19:05, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:즈리피시 은 나쁘다" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)
• 18:33, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:Dvsqt jt b gbtdjtu" with an expiry time of indefinite (please contact an administrator for verification purposes, as described on this page)
  • Legitimate block. Looks like an account by the mass account creation vandal. --MarkSweep✍ 19:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
    • It's 1-based Caesar cipher for "Curps is a fascist". — JIP | Talk 07:20, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
• 03:34, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:Chlcbhcaslc" with an expiry time of indefinite (please contact an administrator for verification purposes, as described on this page)
  • Legitimate block. See above. --MarkSweep✍ 19:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• 00:32, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:I8rjhif;v" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)
  • Legitimate block. See above. --MarkSweep✍ 19:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• 03:31, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)
  • Legitimate block. See above. Could also be a Willy sleeper. --MarkSweep✍ 19:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
• 14:15, 15 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:Mickey0oo0miki" with an expiry time of indefinite (please contact an administrator for verification purposes, as described on this page)
  • And this one? What did this user do to deserve a life-ban without going through any of our dispute procedures? Secretlondon 05:55, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Adam Kazaki 19:49, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, the first in Chinese essentially says "Wikipedia is Fascist", and the block seems in line with the "Wikipedia is Communism" sockpuppets... --HappyCamper 19:54, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I see no reason not to block any of those. Can you read Chinese or Hangul and tell us what those usernames mean? (post edit conflict: Well, I see HappyCamper can!) -- Arwel 19:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Is having a non-Latin user name a life-bannable offense? Where exactly is this written in policy? Secretlondon 05:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

No, but having an offensive username is. As is sockpuppeteering. --MarkSweep✍ 06:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for joining this discussion late. I am not randomly blocking non-Latin usernames, I believe such usernames should be allowed on the English wikipedia. The non-Latin usernames I blocked on October 16 were:

• Chinese/Japanese "alphabet soup", this is just random characters and not readable text in Chinese or any other language. Note there were multiple blocks done here by accident, there are really only ten unique usernames, of which the middle eight were created nearly simultaneously:

23:51, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㢾⿉⾷⾨⾥⾾⿎⿍㠯㗴㟴㫪㫳㼯a (infinite) (a href" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:交万㟨㮍䵷亮㟴与㐬互䟽㐧" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㠯䯒䒑丨㡜亮下丶予一䗪亊㫗䳄䦰也" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㠯㡜㽗亻亭㫗㐅乾" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:亥䯊㟴㫗乘亮㟁亻䧧丐亭㕣乩䖸些䒑" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:丁㬚个䓔亙交䙁事" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:乳㠀㐬么争䔥㫖㞍䧺丈丘" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㯰㟴䔍不㟢丶乾㠯㔟㺊䓔上䔈㯃㹦" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:47, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:䵷亡㤚㬢䡄㐬㽵㟽䚮亼䑶㺃" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:26, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:乳㠀㐬么争䔥㫖㞍䧺丈丘" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:26, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:䵷亡㤚㬢䡄㐬㽵㟽䚮亼䑶㺃" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:23, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㠯䯒䒑丨㡜亮下丶予一䗪亊㫗䳄䦰也" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:23, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㠯㡜㽗亻亭㫗㐅乾" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:23, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:亥䯊㟴㫗乘亮㟁亻䧧丐亭㕣乩䖸些䒑" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:23, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:丁㬚个䓔亙交䙁事" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:23, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㯰㟴䔍不㟢丶乾㠯㔟㺊䓔上䔈㯃㹦" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:20, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:亥䯊㟴㫗乘亮㟁亻䧧丐亭㕣乩䖸些䒑" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:20, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:丁㬚个䓔亙交䙁事" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:20, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㯰㟴䔍不㟢丶乾㠯㔟㺊䓔上䔈㯃㹦" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:19, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㠯䯒䒑丨㡜亮下丶予一䗪亊㫗䳄䦰也" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

21:19, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:㠯㡜㽗亻亭㫗㐅乾" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

19:19, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:⿉⾷⾨⾥⾾⿎⿍㠯㗴㟴㫪㫳㬎㬚㬜㬢㭭儞儚儘儗" with an expiry time of indefinite (please contact an administrator for verification purposes, as described on this page)

• "Curps"-message-related usernames Babelfish-translated in Korean/Greek/Japanese/Arabic, and Wikipedia fascism/communism messages in Chinese and Japanese:

19:05, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:즈리피시 은 나쁘다" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

18:48, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:Το χuρψ είναι ο διάβολος" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

18:42, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:是, 维基百科實際上是法西斯主義" with an expiry time of indefinite (user...)

18:36, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:维基百科不是共產主義!" with an expiry time of indefinite ("Wikipedia is not communism" this time??? Please contact an administrator for verification purposes)

16:19, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:クラパサは全体主義の愚か者である" with an expiry time of indefinite ("Wikipedia is communism" vandal)

16:17, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:كربس سيذهب إلى جحيم" with an expiry time of indefinite (apparent "Curps"-related username (Wikipedia is communism vandal?). Contact an administrator)

16:12, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:ウィキペディアは全体主義である" with an expiry time of indefinite (sock of Wikipedia is communism vandal)

• "Allah" user

04:31, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:ﷲ" with an expiry time of indefinite ({{UsernameBlock}}, this is "Allah")

• various spoofs of Jarlaxle Artemis

• "Curps is a fascist" message, off by one letter: C→D, u→v, etc.

18:33, 16 October 2005 Curps blocked "User:Dvsqt jt b gbtdjtu" with an expiry time of indefinite (please contact an administrator for verification purposes, as described on this page)

You are probably right about User:Mickey0oo0miki, that may have been an overreaction, and is now unblocked. Like all the others, this was a newly-created account, not an established user. -- Curps 06:48, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, this thread was started by "Adam Kazaki" at 19:25, three minutes after he registered his username:

19:22, 16 October 2005 Adam Kazaki (Created the user Adam Kazaki (Talk | contribs | block))

-- Curps 07:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

NOTE: "Adam Kazaki" has now been blocked by David Gerard as a MARMOT sockpuppet (presumably he has checked the IP addresses). -- Curps 14:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

To clarify: he was coming through the same NTL proxy making the same sort of edits (IMO) at about the same time. It's not 100% nailed, but it's close enough IMO. Same for that whole set of accts I blocked at that time - David Gerard 15:16, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

He is being a little overzealous. At one point last week, he blocked User:Carnildo's test account, which really was a test account I created. --Carnildo 07:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I figured that if it was you, as an admin you could just unblock it yourself with a minimum of fuss. The problem is, we block impostor accounts on sight (for good reason... remember the mess created by User:Uncle Ed's major work 'bot ?), and with a name like this it's hard to tell. -- Curps 08:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

At least that's easily remedied by "hi, it's really my test account, not an impersonator, I've unblocked it". If anyone sees a variation on my name, I'd rather they blocked on suspicion of impersonation, because then it can be sorted out later ... - David Gerard 15:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, most of the blocks by Curps appear to be legit, although I would like to see more descriptive reasons rather than just "user..." --Ixfd64 08:12, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Cosmetic bug in unprotection of pages?

I noticed today that when I try to unprotect pages on Wikipedia, the button that shows up when one does this says "Protect" as opposed to "Unprotect". Is this a cosmetic bug in the software which should be fixed? --HappyCamper 22:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• I've "fixed" the problem. --Ixfd64 07:57, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Seriously incompetent admin behaviour

a single user came in and copypaste moved the content from Manchester to City of Manchester and changed manchester into a redirect to Greater Manchester he was reverted and then he re-reverted. At this point user:Celestianpower came in and protected the result of the copypaste move. I consider it gross incompetance to protect the result of a single unilateral edit that is also a copypaste move (which is considered disallowed in itself). Plugwash 23:10, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Why such intensifying terms used? Can the problem be fixed? Have you talked to Celestian about it? Perhaps a gentler "Hmm...I don't think that page should have been protected because of X, so I've unprotected it so that we can do Y"? --HappyCamper

Arg, a mess. I merged the histories of the two together. Manchester is moved to the City version properly now, and the greater one is a seperate article. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 23:30, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

You people realize that Celestianpower hasn't been an admin for more than two days, and is still learning the ropes. Leave the a nice note on his talk page and remember that there is such a thing as a learning curve for an admin. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I second Titoxd's comment. Fixing cut and paste moves is probably one of the most complicated tasks that a new admin has to learn. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Um, just to clarify - I wasn't referring to Celestianpower, just the cut n' paste mess. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 05:44, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed changes to Wikipedia:Requested moves - EVERYONE PLEASE COMMENT!

OK, I've been literally the main maintainer right now, and no other admins are taking part in current discussion - we need you guys! For those who don't know, requested moves is like AfD, only discussion happens on the talk page - its just like AfD where an administrator determines consensus with support/oppose opinions.

Anyway, at the talk page I have a few proposals:

First off, "consensus" is being set at 60% currently - this has led to many disagreements and revert wars. My proposal is to set consensus the same as AfD - - not only that but not mention it on the front page (the idea is that there should already be consensus in most cases before resorting to WP:RM).

Second, I propose that requests are archived instead of deleted as they currently are. There have been a lot of comments about not being able to tell if a page has been on RM before.

Third, I propose that instead of the notice sticker being posted on the talk page of the article to be moved, the notice sticker is posted on the article itself - that way people KNOW when a page is proposed to be moved - otherwise they may not know and the page may get moved under their noses!

Also, I have a proposal for a new look with new consensus wording at User:RN/RM which mirrors AfD more.

PLEASE COMMENT! Right now its basically me and two non-admins, one agreeing with me on the consensus part and another disagreeing and claiming consensus. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 08:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no numerical value for "consensus". --Tony Sidaway^Talk 21:48, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think that a move is as big a deal as a deletion - after all, anyone can move a page, and RM only applies where there is need for admin intervention in a move. As for resembling AfD - making RM more like AfD would, in my opinion, be a bad thing, since AfD has such a bitter taste. I wouldn't want that stink contaminating more pages.
• A move is purely an editorial matter, thus I don't think that there should be a banner on the page. For most people the move is invisible, thanks to redirects and the people who fix redirects.
• As Tony said - consensus is consensus. IMO, moves should not be made over strong opposition unless the name does not fit with the naming convention. When the process was moved from RM to the appropriate talk pages it was to discourage voting.

Guettarda 22:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I support redirecting Wikipedia:Requested moves to m:Instruction creep. Snowspinner 22:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm - then the move requests would come here. Guettarda 22:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why. People who want to move pages should, well, move them. Snowspinner 04:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The reason why RM exists in the first place is to discuss proposed, controversial moves so that there are almost no page move wars. RM is also used for newly registered users who are not able to use the move feature yet, due to the security features. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Non-admins can't move pages if the destination exists. And RM is the place where we notify the community that a page move is being discussed. Rhobite 04:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

All of these functions are well-carried out at article talk pages and, in controversial cases, WP:RFC. In the case of moving to where a destination exists, when I was a non-admin, the handful of times I required this I just went to an admin, explained the situation, and asked them to fix it. Snowspinner 04:47, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Snowspinner's right. We should replace WP:RM with a couple of template/categories: one for uncontroversial moves and one for controversial moves. The talk pages are where to discuss the controversy. Replacement of WP:RM with a pair of category pages will reduce the admin load. -- !Derek Ross | Talk 05:27, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Who decides what the controversial moves are? An uninvolved admin might not realise a move is controversial if it's added to the wrong category (by accident or on purpose). Talrias (t | e | c) 09:25, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

That's easy. If some one reverses your "uncontroversial" move then it's really a "controversial" one. Actually that's the way it works right now. If I were to use "Move this page" to move "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (section)" to "Wikipedia:Janitors' noticeboard (section)" in the next five minutes under the mistaken impression that this would be an uncontroversial move and therefore didn't need to be put on WP:RM or discussed on the talk page, I'd find out double quick that I was dead wrong. The fact is that even if an individual editor does move a page mistakenly it's extremely straightforward for anyone to reverse the move. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

How about one requested moves category, with a rule that you put the reason on the talk page so admins can look, and, if the move is controversial, see the debate that would ensue there? Snowspinner 17:27, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Have a look at {{CapitalMove}}. Talrias (t | e | c) 09:25, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I made some major changes. Let me know what you think. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 01:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Something odd: contributions by non-existent user, database inconsistency??

Yesterday, the account User:! ! ! was created [6]:

22:19, 16 October 2005 ! ! ! (Created the user ! ! ! (Talk | contribs | block))

However, the user and talk page User:! ! ! (edit | [[Talk:User:! ! !|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and User talk:! ! ! (edit | [[Talk:User talk:! ! !|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) were both created back on June 26. The talk page is a standard welcome message, and the history shows it was created by User:Y0u; the history of the user page shows it was was created by Exclamation_mark__!_! (talk · contribs) (note: double underscore/space before the first "!").

However Special:Contributions/Exclamation_mark__!_! shows this user has no contributions! In fact, if you go to User:Exclamation_mark__!_!, there's no "contributions" link in the left-hand-side menu, which is usually an indication of "no such user". The same is true for the single-underscore version Exclamation_mark_!_! (talk · contribs).

On the other hand, the history of the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rab - Villains on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (see history and [7], [8]) shows edits by User:Exclamation mark__!_! at 01:42 and 01:44 on August 16 (signed as "! ! !"). So there are at least three edits in page histories by a user who has no contributions and does not appear to exist... and what's up with the double underscore anyway?

Maybe I've been sitting in front of the computer too long and I'm missing something obvious? -- Curps 09:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

1. Very interesting. Look at this page.
2. Place your mouse pointer over Exclamation mark ! !, below Revision as of 01:42, 2005 August 16 and Revision as of 01:44, 2005 August 16. You will notice when you read the tooltip, and the link that appears in the menubar of a Firefox browser, and in fact the emboldened Exclamation mark ! ! which is a direct copy paste, that this User account has only one underscore before the first exclamation mark.
3. However, when you click on the contribs link, either on the diff page or on the history page, it links to an account with two underscores before the first mark. Whenever you try to check the contributions made by the account with one underscore, it always takes you to the account with two underscores. This includes the link you have provided above: Exclamation_mark_!_! (talk · contribs)
4. This sounds to me like a database problem/bug/whatever the correct terminology is. For some reason we are unable to access the contribs of User-with-one-underscore. The user, whoever it is, may be aware of this. Lord knows how many edits he has already made, without being trackable. encephalon 10:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

• Woops, hang on. The contribs link here: Exclamation_mark_!_! (talk · contribs) does take you to the (aaparently) correct page. And if you follow the link from this page and remove one "+" from the URL before the first mark, you'll also get a blank contribs page. So it's not just a link problem: User-with-one-underscore also does not seem to have contribs. Needless to say, this is a problem for all you tech wizards to figure out; this humble computer illiterate resigns to a corner :) encephalon 10:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I contacted the developers about this general problem a while ago. See bugzilla:3501. --MarkSweep✍ 18:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, great. I was going to go post this conversation at VP Technical, but since it's a recognized bug, no need I guess. Thanks for the info. encephalon 13:26, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if this can be related to the mysterious disappearance of my account on Wikisource. The result was similar - there were contributions (mine) from an account that no longer existed. See [9] --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Famsis

This user was just banned from ja: and has been trying to cause trouble for User:Aphaia, who was the one to request his ban. She's not particularly active here, but is a sysop on the Japanese wiki (and is generally trustworthy; she was one of the users overseeing the Board vote). So far the only edits by Famsis to en: have been his user page, a user subpage to keep tabs on Aphaia, and a request to Tim Starling for user investigation. I do not speak any Japanese and can't read what he's posted but it might be wise to keep an eye on him. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:51, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm totally clueless about this situation nor do I speak japanese, but I felt I had to say a good word for Aphaia. Aphaia had helped a friend of mine when he was a WP-newbie and had the patience to explain a lot of things to him. +MATIA ☎ 09:47, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, folks. And thank you for your caring. By the way I hope Mindspillage doesn't mind if I correct her kindly introduction .. I am not a sysop on any Wikipedia, though serving as sysop on two other projects. Back to the topic. The user mentioned began another rant for me ... and that is all his editing here. He blames me as someone's sockpuppet who seems to leave from the project. I would like English project not to let him continue his rant only because it is written in a foreign language. And I should say he is banned from the Japanese project because of his similar rant. I asked him to stop the rant. I expect English project is not so fierce to let him continue to bite other editors. --Aphaea* 15:15, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I listed his uploading Image:Unjust account doubt e01.jpg already on ifd, just for your information. Personally I would like you to ban him from editing. He is doing almost nothing than troll biting here on English project. --Aphaea* 00:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

*Troll users

Can we get an IP check on SuperTroll (talk · contribs) and HyperTroll (talk · contribs)? I have a feeling this is only going to continue... android79 15:27, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Add EL ZORRO (talk · contribs) to the list. --GraemeL ^(talk) 15:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

All three appear to be the same person, using DHCP dialup addresses (yay) in one city; one match with User:REX (My apologies to REX, this is not a solid link after all - completely wrong timing, particularly given it's DHCP! But REX now knows which provider the troll is coming in through ;-). Proceed with whack-a-mole, IMO - David Gerard 16:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh goody. I hope we have enough whackers. android79 16:07, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Not REX at all - one IP match, but the time difference is way past the apparent DHCP change rate. My abject apologies to REX for bringing his name into it - David Gerard 16:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Add Lsa ibn Maryam (talk · contribs) to the list. +MATIA ☎ 19:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I blocked 3 or 4 of them but they will continue as it is dial-up, not much we can do. Sasquatcht|c 02:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

134.161.138.166

Not sure where I should ask about this. Looks like User:134.161.138.166 is engaging in a revert war with User:Codex Sinaiticus... Though the anon is putting personal attacks in their edit summaries, while the few from Codex that I looked at have no such attacks. --Syrthiss 17:19, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• It is a revert war, and I'm talking to both parties. Both have been communicative, and although 134.161.138.166 has violated 3rr, I don't believe he should be blocked, as he has stopped when asked to. Should he continue, then a block will be appropriate. I've referred him to Wikipedia policy (NPA, Assume good faith), and I don't think this will be a big problem at this rate.--Scimitar ^parley 17:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

  Thanks for looking into it. --Syrthiss 18:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Adolfo Carrión Jr. -- persistent copyvio

I'm not sure what do to about Adolfo Carrión Jr.. User:69.118.135.72 keeps adding copyrighted material. The user claims (see User talk:69.118.135.72) to be the copyright owner, but I'm not sure how to go about verifying that. My guess is the user is somebody working in Carrión's election campaign, which would mean the copyvio issue goes away, but then the article just becomes advertising/vanity and fodder for AfD. I don't have enough admin experience to know how to proceed here. --RoySmith 20:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

It should be blanked as usual with {{copyvio}} and an email sent to the person who own the copyright. There is an example boilerplate email at Wikipedia:Confirmation of permission. Once they respond, if they give permission, the email should be forwarded to permissions at wikimedia dot org and the page can be reverted to before the tag. -Splash^talk 21:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

There's no need to blank and apply the copyvio template in this case—a non-copyvio stub exists in the article history. I've reverted to that version. If the reinsertion of hte copyvio persists, the article should be protected. (If permission is forthcoming, the article would need to be rewritten anyway—Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and we're not here to host campaign literature.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible for some other admin to run with this one? Since I live in the Bronx, I'm one of Carrión's political constituents; it might make more sense for somebody who is totally impartial to take the lead here --RoySmith 22:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Instant blocking for vandalizing high-traffic articles

There's been some edit warring on George W. Bush over a hidden warning at the top of the article ("Anyone who vandalizes the page may be blocked for 24 hours or more without further warning"). In order to get consensus on whether it is OK to block people for vandalizing a high-visibility article, I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Instant blocking for vandalizing high-traffic articles. Rhobite 00:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

comments moved to Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Instant blocking for vandalizing high-traffic articles

Project Tiger OS

Do we have a procedure for dealing with anon editors who keep creating nonsense articles? We've got this guy creating a bunch of articles on a hobby OS Project Tiger OS which doesn't actually exist yet. This was voted on and deleted according to consensus a few hours ago Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Project Tiger OS. AlistairMcMillan 00:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Speedy as a recreation. If he continues, warn him a few times and then block for vandalism. --fvw* 00:48, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Blocked the page. He has already been warned a few times, but seems to be on a dial-up. Uses a different IP address every day. Not sure how we block that. AlistairMcMillan 01:25, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Odd links?

I was looking at the user contributions of User:207.200.116.5, and got this page instead: [10] - is this normal? It directs me to a page that says "Wiki does not exist". I have never encountered this on the Wiki before...has anyone else? What is going on? --HappyCamper 00:50, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, it worked fine for me...maybe the wiki was just acting up. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been happening all evening, I think one of the web server machines is misconfigured. Just reload until it goes away. --fvw* 00:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I got the same error too, so maybe report to devs? Titoxd^(?!?) 01:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Yea, I figured it was a server error.. I hope this message is along the same lines. There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Please hit "back" and reload the page you came from, then try again.. «»Who?¿?^meta 01:07, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, that's a different issue altogether, that happens when your edit token isn't deemed valid (I think). --fvw* 01:33, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought of that, was about to logout and log back in, but it worked the second time. So I figured it had to be relevant to a server not responding correctly. «»Who?¿?^meta 01:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Granted it did say reload the page. So I could be wrong. «»Who?¿?^meta 01:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The "session hijacking" message said reload the page? That's all wrong, it's supposed to say reload the page you came from. --fvw* 01:41, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Special:Allmessages

It has gotten to the point that I have to put all of the MediaWiki pages on my watchlist, everytime I turn around something has been changed with little to no discussion. Anyone have any feelings about proposed changes being posted here first? I necessarily don't see a problem with changing them, but if there are only 3 or 4 people involved in the discussion on the talk page of the particular item, if you aren't watching that page, no one will know about the change. Since these affect all users, the proposal should be posted where it will gather a larger audience. «»Who?¿?^meta 04:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm certainly fed up with random parts of the interface being changed with no warning. Maybe there should be a page to discuss these things first - and only an admin can change them? Secretlondon 05:39, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

At the moment, not all of them are protected, which I think they should be. I was also thinking there needs to be a policy or guideline on editing them, if there is, I haven't found, or looked very hard for it. «»Who?¿?^meta 06:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I definetly agree... Mediawiki should not be free to screw around with. Sasquatcht|c 06:41, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The guideline should include "no April Fools Day foolishness" to avoid some of the weirdness that happened on 1 April 2005. BlankVerse ∅ 06:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

What? Which MediaWiki messages are not protected? All MediaWiki messages should be constantly kept protected. We don't want any vandals changing the interface at their will. (Only newly-appointed admins who want to test their AdministrativePower. Well, actually not even them.) — JIP | Talk 06:52, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, MediaWiki are protected for non-admins, even if they do not have the "protected" status. --Ixfd64 07:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh yea, I forgot about that. «»Who?¿?^meta 08:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

That's what I thought. I still would like to know if there is a current guideline/policy on this. «»Who?¿?^meta 08:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

fixing Wikipedia:Survey guidelines

I think many of us may be interested in fixing survery guidelines proposal. When this project was first proposed in June, it received some support on my userpage and no objections on the official page. Since there have been no comments for over 4 months, I am begining to assume there is a general consensus for those changes and I will update the survey rules accordingly in a few days, unless there are some new significant comments. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 13:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

You've had one comment on that page - and it is a negative one from Kim Bruning. I've also added my opposition. Wikipedia isn't a democracy - we don't want binding votes. Secretlondon 14:17, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

If not by vote (or a vote-like process), how do you suggest we get community input on policy? ~~ N (t/c) 14:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The idea of binding votes on articles is nightmareish. Non binding votes are different but tend to put people into factions. Secretlondon 14:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

By discussion and convergence to a consensus. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 14:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that dicussion is good, but in any large group determining consensus can be very hard to do without a vote/poll/survey/what-have-you. ~~ N (t/c) 14:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Quick request

I was wondering if it would be possible to block me for 2 hours. I need an enforced WikiBreak. I had contacted Morwen, but haven't heard back. Just give me a heads up before you do. Thanks. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure we can't as you may share your IP address with other people and they will be blocked as well. Just close your browser/turn your computer off/go for a walk or something. Secretlondon 14:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we could just revert anything he does for a day? :-) --RoySmith 14:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Crap, I forgot about that. Hmmm... I guess I'll just have to fight the urge. Stupid Wikipedia being so addictive. Darn you Jimbo! You created a new drug! I just can't stay away. I'll do my best for the next little while. Thanks folks. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 14:49, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Unprotected page displaying as protected

I recently rolled back a vandalism edit at Australia, and afterwards I noticed the "unprotect" tab at the top of my browser. The page couldn't have been protected because a non-admin edit had just been made. To verify, I clicked the "unprotect" tab and was asked to verify unprotect (I proceeded no further). This page (Administrators' noticeboard) is also displaying the "unprotect" tab on my browser. I'm a new admin so maybe I'm missing something. Thanks. —Wayward ^Talk 19:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The page was probably protected from moves only. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 19:32, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes. But it's extremely confusing. The protection log also makes no distinction between regular protection and protection against page moves, it reports them the same way. And there doesn't seem to be any way to protect a page against both page moves and editing, unless perhaps you do the protect twice (not checking the checkbox the first time and then checking it the second time). The user interface and logging for protection against page moves could certainly be improved, it seems it was tacked on in an ad hoc way. -- Curps 20:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Protecting against both page moves and normal editing is easy - just protect it normally. (Otherwise, Willy would be moving Main page every day or so.) It's protecting against normal editing but not page moves that can't be done, though I can't think of a reason why you'd want to. —Cryptic (talk) 21:55, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I could swear I've seen edit-protected pages being moved by a pagemove vandal. When was pagemove protection added and were existing protected pages (at the time) upgraded to also be pagemove protected? -- Curps 03:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, never mind. It was the talk page of a protected page that got moved by a pagemove vandal. When a page is protected, its talk page isn't protected, obviously. But if edit-protecting a page has the side effect of move-protecting it, perhaps its talk page should also automatically get move-protected (though not edit-protected). -- Curps 03:26, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

So if you wanted to protect Australia from edits, you would have to first unprotect it (thus removing the move protect) and then reprotect it, correct? —Wayward ^Talk 22:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Exactly (you can, however, hand-edit the URL to go directly to the action=protect mode and do it without having to unprotect; I've done it once. If you do so, however, always check if it worked — when I did that, the MediaWiki version was still 1.4). --cesarb 23:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello all, if you are intereseted in improving those confusable apparences, please vote Bugzilla:1735 - Clarified user interface needed for pages that are protected from moving. ;-) --Aphaea* 01:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the developers have indicated they ignore bugzilla votes. [11] --Tabor 21:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Two anon users making subtle edits to date pages?

I want to see if others are as suspicious as I am of these edits. I placed 71.112.115.22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) on the ViP page in IP Low last night after observing their edits, and today there are similar edits by 131.107.0.80 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (just using the vandal tag to make it easier to pull the contribs). Both users have comments on their talk pages to leave edit summaries and I don't see any return comments from them explaining themselves on the commenting user's pages. I'm worried that they are bots that are introducing subtle vandalisms (considering some of their edits are coming in minute-by-minute timestamps). Thanks. --Syrthiss 16:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The first one looks fine - appears to be adding info on Nobel Laureats to date pages. A random sampling of the second looks like their date of birth/death date additions are the same as in our articles. Secretlondon 16:50, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

An example of an unwarranted edit IMO [12] that I reverted (tho I kept the user's change that removed the redundant Emperor wording). --Syrthiss 19:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Monobook admin?

While doing RC patrol, I stumbled upon this monobook: User:Zeb100/monobook.js. I don't see anything wrong with it, but I'm just curious: does that work? Can any user use his/her monobook and give him/herself admin rights? I doubt it, but thought I'd bring it up here anyways just to be safe. Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 00:14, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Should I try? ;) I doubt it works, since SQL queries to the database are disabled right now... Titoxd^(?!?) 00:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, those statements may work in a shell account, but are not valid javascript. There's no way that should work; if it does, MediaWiki has serious security problems. Mindmatrix 00:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I already asked about this...see the bottom of my talk page. --HappyCamper 00:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. The code has changed. I left a nice message on the user's talk page instead. --HappyCamper 00:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it would work, even if SQL queries were enabled. The user would require write acs to the DB, and a "query" is just that, it's read only. However, since this is the users only contribs, I feel they should be blocked, not for being ignorant, but for trying to disrupt Wikipedia and bypass security. It's not a game or a joke, if it would have worked, I doubt they would have not used it. IMHO. «»Who?¿?^meta 20:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Removal of Blocked Usernames

Is there a way to remove user acounts that have been blocked because of the unsername? see [13]. --Duk 19:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

You mean remove from Special:Listusers? Rd232 ^talk 20:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that would work. People seem to be using it as a soap box and to make obscene remarks about other users. --Duk 21:07, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it could just be disabled. Does it actually serve any useful purpose in a wiki the size of Wikipedia? Rd232 ^talk 21:35, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

A gazillion !'s will get you anywhere.  ;-). I don't see it providing any use with so many registered users. It seems to "invite" abuse. >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist • E@} 22:46, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The mere fact that vandals have a use for it doesn't mean that other people don't. Heck, vandals have a use for the ability to edit any page, too. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 22:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

True, but doesn't answer my question. Rd232 ^talk 23:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to assume there is a use for it, since it was created. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 00:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

There's a use for it on a significantly smaller wiki. I think it should be disabled on Wikipedia. Superm401 | Talk 01:15, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

It can be used to provide a list of users with various permissions.Geni 01:23, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I've frequently asked that this feature be created in the MediaWiki software. All one needs to do is Google "Linuxbeak" and presto, my name is there ALL over the Internet. Every bloody Wikipedia mirror has "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Linuxbeak whatever"... the fact that nothing has been done about it means that we are letting the users who are trying to troll me do so easily. I mean, let's not try to fool ourselves into thinking that those accounts were not created for the purpose of googlebombing... Linuxbeak | Talk 23:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hart Island (Washington)

All of the content in Hart Island (Washington) was clearly intented to have been in Hart Island (New York). Is there any reason I shouldn't delete Hart Island (Washington) myself, or do I need to bring it to AfD? --RoySmith 21:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Misstakes and hoaxes should in theory be AfD.Geni 01:24, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppet inquiry requested, re: Accountable 1135

Not knowing what else to do, I alerted several admins on their talk pages about problems I've had with this user chasing me around the wiki. Now I see that this page may have been a better location to post about that.

I think there is enough evidence in Accountable 1135 's user history to merit an inquiry about "sockpuppetry" and am politely asking that an inquiry about that be undertaken.

Rex071404 ^{216.153.214.94} 21:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)