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• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive13#Willy on Wheels legal action? → Misplaced Pages talk:Vandalism in progress/Willy on Wheels#Willy on Wheels legal action? — Ambush Commander 00:17, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

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• Special:Log/newusers - See also Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)#Newuserlog. Originally posted by cesarb 22:34, 7 September 2005 (UTC) moved by — Ambush Commander 23:23, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

• I, AllyUnion, in my official capacity as programmer-in-particular, hereby bestow upon the Misplaced Pages, the mighty and presigious Reset Button for all Sandboxes, including the templates "Please leave alone" templates. For any questions regarding this particular reset button, please let me know. --AllyUnion (talk) 11:34, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Tasks

The following backlogs require the attention of one or more editors.
Transwiki to Wikibooks and Wiktionary

NowCommons, Requested moves, Vandalism in progress, AfD cleanup, Copyright Problems and Requests for page protection

General

Davenbelle blocked

states that Fadix, Karl Meier, and Davenbelle are reminded to lay off of Cool Cat or else face penalties. Fadix has backed off completely, Karl Meier has to some extent, but Davenbelle has continued, well, (wiki)stalking Cool Cat. He has only been blocked for 24 hours, and I recommend longer blocks if he doesn't lay off. It's a big wiki, and the two should be able to keep their distance. He (as well as Karl Meier) even showed up to oppose CC's RFA. So, in short, 24 hours this time, longer next time. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 09:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

See also the following from my talk page: (posted here by Davenbelle 03:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC))

== Blocked as per the arbcom decision ==

It is of my opinion that you have been further hounding Cool Cat. You've come to AfD's he's been on and voted opposite him (after placing that he did that to you in your evidence against him), you've basically been wikistalking him, and you haven't stepped back (whereas Fadix, and to some extent Karl Meier have). You've been blocked for 24 hours. I'd like to remind you that wiki has millions of pages, Cool Cat isn't on all of them. Redwolf24 09:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

While I don't disagree, note that the Arbitration case itself gives no instructions for the`bringing of penalties; therefore, it's probably a IAR block. Ral315 (talk) 18:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I would support using this short block, but absent a parole, I would think a new arbcom case on Davenbelle's conduct would be necessary to make any long term enforcement provisions. Phil Sandifer 19:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I know the case specifies nothing in particular. One can be creative though. I can't just ban him from Cool Cat, as that's pretty much what it was before, so blocking comes next. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 19:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

No, it doesn't - the arbcom case specifically says that "future proceedings" would be where penalties would be assessed. Phil Sandifer 19:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah. Well, this is a short block, and it should do, as filing another case is not necessary. Redwolf24; (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 19:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

The AC decision basically tells them to get a frickin' clue and STOP BEING DICKS. Being too dumb not to heed that in the pursuit of their Cool Cat obsession makes a 24 hour block for disruptive obnoxiousness and being a notable dick pretty defensible IMO (as an admin, I wasn't arbitrating on that case) - David Gerard 08:24, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

No personal attacks Also: I don't know why you were not active on the AC case; did you recuse for some reason? — Davenbelle 03:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not, however, a sustainable solution... though maybe Davenbelle will finally learn his lesson here? Phil Sandifer 20:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

This was an unjustified block. First off, as others have already pointed out, this block is not "per arbcom". Secondly, I have not been "Misplaced Pages:Wikistalking"→Misplaced Pages:Harassment User:Cool Cat.

You seem to think that I followed User:Cool Cat to Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Kurdistani; it is true that he expressed his opinion there prior to my post. And he also made this snide comment: "Why am I not suprised to see Davenbelle... Gee... --Cool Cat" in order to reinforce the "harassment" interpretation of events (this was posted 13 minutes before you blocked me). However, I had edited the The Kurdistani article prior to its being listed on AFD; User:Cool Cat has never edited the article (and edited no other AFD that day). A more reasonable, and accurate, interpretation of events is that I edited the AFD because The Kurdistani article appeared high on my watchlist and that User:Cool Cat was monitoring my edits and that he actively agitated for this block. Also, I don't believe that I ever claimed that User:Cool Cat followed me to an AFD/VFD/vote page; that's one of his old claims.

Perhaps you looked at the editing on the Ilısu Dam article. Prior to my edit on November 18th, User:Cool Cat had not edited the article in nearly 2 months, yet he edited it many times in response to my editing. His edits are POV (he has a history of POV editing), he removed reasonable edits of mine, ignored my attempts to discuss this on talk:Ilısu Dam and asserted that he'll "start revertiong without reading edits". As he has made quite clear on his mentorship talk page, he wants to use the ArbCom counsel about "hounding" him to effectively ban me (and Karl Meier) from the very articles that he has continued his POV editing on.

After your block, User:Cool Cat went after Karl Meier on Kurdistan. Tony Sidaway, his mentor, has since stated that User:Cool Cat should not aggressive revert Karl Meier, Davenbelle or Fadix, in any context, on any article. User:Cool Cat went so far as to revert Karl over a blank line.

And why on earth should I refrain from posting an opinion on RFAs re User: Cool Cat? What's next? Misplaced Pages:Wikidisenfranchisment?

This is not about harassment, it is about User:Cool Cat seeking to demonize his opponents and establish ownership of articles that he wishes to express a certain POV.

— Davenbelle 03:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, here's an idea: Forget about Cool Cat. Pretend he doesn't exist. You two are not going to get along, so just ignore each other.--Sean|Black 03:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Sean's right. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 03:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

And I should just leave any article he reverts me on? Yeah, right. You should read his mentorship talk page. And thanks for ignoring most of what I wrote. — Davenbelle 04:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

There's bad behavior on both Cool Cat's part and on yours here. I've also recently blocked Cool Cat and Karl Meier because of bickering and edit warring.

How difficult is it for your to ignore him? Evidently far, far too difficult. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It's rather hard to ignore him when he simply reverts me on articles you allow him to "police". Remember, the ArbCom did vote 6-1 (Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek/Proposed decision#Alternative proposal) to prohibit him "from editing any articles related or referring to Turks, Kurds, or Armenians for a period of 3 months" — this was only omitted from the final decision because they decided to entrust him to your mentorship. He has obviously continued his POV editing of these articles while under your "protection". — Davenbelle 07:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

There is nothing in the ArbCom's decision that indicated that I or Davenbelle should not edit specific articles. The block against Davenbelle for voting against a deletion of a page that he was editing anyway, doesn't make any sense. It is Cool Cat that is following me and Davenbelle around now, and reverting articles that he haven't touched for months, only hours after that Davenbelle made a reasonable edit to it. Apparently it's too difficult for Cool Cat to leave us alone, and end this conflict. -- Karl Meier 09:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

More nihilartikels

See the deleted entries at User:David.Monniaux/hoax/The blue cow experiment for details. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-30 11:52

• No such page. Is there somewhere else I should be looking? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Genghis Khan

I am relatively a newbie and am hesitant to take this one on myself, so I'd appreciate it if someone with more experience would & I'll just follow along this time and learn:

Looks like we have a deliberate & determined vandal at Genghis Khan -- IP 216.124.166.2 -- you'll see several examples of his work in the history following "Revision as of 21:48, 29 November 2005", all of them reverted by various folks, but also somewhere along the way the entire core of this very good & culturally-significant (Mongolia...) article got dumped and yes we do suspect the dumping was him too.

I'll revert to that revision and re-do my own edits, and try to fold in those of the others too if I can. But I'm not anxious to undertake that if our vandal just is going to cruise back in and mess it up. So how to handle it? Doesn't look like a "first give him a warning" necessity, to me.

--Kessler 21:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks like it was just that one day in a relatively short period of time and that's the only edits the IP has made, so lets assume good faith for now. I've left a message on their talk page. .:.Jareth.:. 21:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

OK thanks but would you pls look at my own copyedit of "23:18, 29 November 2005"? We're missing the entire middle of the article, since then, and it may have been something I did in my big edit altho I can't spot it myself. Appreciate your doing so for my own future reference... I'll revert the article to the prior edit, "21:48, 29 November 2005", and then leave it alone for a while, maybe try to replace the later edits done by others tho.

--Kessler 21:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Mystery solved

Hi, Kessler, sorry it took me so long to take a look at this. I've learned the hard way to look for unclosed HTML tags when text mysteriously disappears, and sure enough that was it. :-) The "entire core" was there the whole time, visible in edit mode, just not visible on the page. The unclosed tag was immediately below the "Uniting the Mongol tribes" heading, like this:

<!-- OK, only removing redundancies here to reduce size, i.e. not necessary to say "at this point", "united together", etc., it's just better English syntax... looks weird & sounds ponderous otherwise...>.

See the final tag? It needs to be "-->", not just ">". When you went on, on December 1, to revert to an earlier version, according to your post above, you removed the whole comment, tags and all, and the text became visible again. Ahhh, that felt good, after all the unclosed tags of mine that other people have found! Sherlock Homes 10:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC).

Handling of the Adolf Hitler situation

I would like an experienced admin or two to look at the Adolf Hitler situation and see if you think I am handling this appropriately, because I am growing a little less confident about it. If I am, I still would appreciate suggestions. --Nlu 06:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, nobody responded to this when I posted it yesterday. I still would like suggestions/opinions on this. PLEASE! --Nlu 04:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can see, you're doing a fine job. If you feel that you need assistance, however, I'm always willing to help. Granted, I'm newly mopped myself, but hey.--Sean|Black 05:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

What I am feeling stuck about now is:

1. I will have to unprotect the page sometime. The page simply can't be protected forever.
2. "ROHA" has shown no willingness to comply with Misplaced Pages regulations.
3. He roves from IP to IP, and therefore 3RR blocks will be ineffective.
4. If I order him to stop reverting, he won't listen (and likely won't even respond).
5. His statement, again, comes down to "unprotect the page so I can replace the image."

Any thoughts on what to do next about this mess would be appreciated. This isn't the Bogdanov Affair, but it's getting there, it seems, since here, as was the case there, you have a rogue user who demands that others comply with his ways and refuses to abide by, inter alia, 3RR. --Nlu 05:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Usually if you keep it protected for a day, and then unprotect, the problem stops; if the problem returns, protect it again for a day. Usually vandals and POV-pushers get tired. Usually... LOL. Antandrus (talk) 06:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Already did that once; when it was unprotected, the person came back with a vengeance, forcing me to reprotect it. Since he appears to come on during the German daytime, I am considering unprotecting in the morning my own time (German night time). But I can just imagine the situation repeating itself. :-( --Nlu 06:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Well when someone makes it obvious that they are the same returning user that was blocked, you can just apply the same block to the new IP, and extend it each time they repeat the vandalism as long as they are not shared IPs. That is useless if someone has enough IP's available, but can slow the vandal down. Blocking 10 or 15 in a row that they try to use can be effective sometimes. - Taxman 15:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

This looks like a job for SEMIPROTECT MAN!(r) Am I correct? -Mysekurity 06:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Semi-protection would be perfect for this page. --Nlu 06:45, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Hai, semi-protect would fit well. I really should spend more time on ANB. --Cool Cat 20:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

As a very new admin (three days younger than Nlu), I might not have felt confident enough to do what he did, and also I haven't yet fully read all the instructions for blocking range IPs. But I do completely endorse his handling of the situation. I have no special interest in Hitler, but it's on my watchlist as a frequent target of vandalism, and so I was familiar with what was going on. ROHA had been making a nuisance of himself for some time, breaking 3RR, taunting other users, making personal attacks, and removing the photo of Hitler and replacing it with a link to another website – so obviously the alternative photo wasn't readable from the Hitler page. One thing on which I disagree with Nlu is that ROHA seems to be active in the daytime by German time. I'm in Ireland, one hour behind Germany, and I think he seems to work all through the night until late morning or early afternoon. Anyway, although I didn't carry out the block myself, I fully support it, and hope that the disruption will die down now. AnnH 13:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Abusive edit summaries

Keep an eye out for a numbskull who comes on and posts abusive edit summaries on the George W. Bush page accusing Jimbo and Bush of sex acts, of child abuse, etc. The page is now locked so he might try somewhere else. I've indefinitely blocked two of his sockpuppets. Jimbo and the Arbcom had ruled that he is to be indefinitely blocked. If he comes on anywhere, block him indefinitely instantly. No need for warnings. He has had them already on a range of IPs last night. FearÉIREANN\ 02:26, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I've protected the article, since the same thing has happened (a user posting Jimbo's information in edit summaries). Since I don't have access to IRC right now, can someone ask a developer to remove the offending diffs from the database? Titoxd 02:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Technical question about blocking

If a user is already blocked, and gets blocked again with a different time period, does the new one overwrite the old, or are there now two blocks that run concurrently? Thanks, SCZenz 18:56, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The shorter period applies. -- Arwel (talk) 19:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The could cause a problem in some cases. A user yesterday posted defamatory information in edit summaries. He had been doing so for days using anonymous IPs. Yesterday he created user accounts to continue posting claims (he accused Jimbo and George Bush, for example, of child sex abuse, as well as addresses and telephone numbers — ours as it happened, but that wasn't immediately apparent, so it could have been much worse —). I blocked him indefinitely, something jimbo and the armcom apparently later ruled should be the standard ban for him. What happens if a user doesn't know this and just bans the user for 24 hours, or worse 15 minutes? What happens if someone is banned by the arbcom for a specific timespan but someone either innocently or deliberately posts a shorter ban? It could cause all sorts of problems. The system should instead inform someone if a ban clashes with an already imposed ban, so that they can contact the original ban imposer and find out why the longer ban was imposed. FearÉIREANN\ 20:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd love to see a feature like that: just a notice that a user that I'm attempting to block has already been blocked. Sort of like the "edit conflict" message. Joyous | Talk 20:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I've had this problem several times when blocking users. We need this feature. -- ChrisO 23:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Deterring repeated vandalism?

I'm currently trying to rein in the edit warring on Republic of Macedonia and related articles. The subject is, unfortunately, a very controversial one among nationalist Greeks, many of whom are fundamentally opposed to that country using the name "Macedonia" in any way. Consequently the article gets a lot of hit-and-run vandalism from anonymous and new users (see the history).

One of the main targets of the vandalism is the infobox, which lists the country's name for itself and the English translation (i.e. Република Македонија and Republic of Macedonia). Hit-and-run vandals repeatedly change this to things like "Republic of Vardar" and "Republic of Skopje", which I hardly need to say aren't recognised names). So I propose to try to deter vandals by adding a warning above the infobox: "NOTE TO EDITORS: DO NOT MODIFY THE NAMES USED IN THIS BOX WITHOUT FIRST DISCUSSING YOUR CHANGES ON THE DISCUSSION PAGE. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN YOUR EDITING PRIVILEGES BEING BLOCKED WITHOUT FURTHER WARNINGS."

I know putting up warnings in big capital letters probably seems a bit dramatic, but we really need to cut down on the edit warring and lower the temperature in general. If it means insta-banning hit-and-run vandals, I'm game. What do the rest of you think? -- ChrisO 23:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

If they are "hit-and-run" vandals, then the threat of banning doesn't have much effect, since they will have "run" anyway. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Worth a try, I suppose. I assume it'll be in html comments, not actually visible, of course. Might work better than the futile one at the top of George W. Bush if most of the vandalism is to the infobox as you say, since they'll actually see it (as opposed to missing because they do section edits). —Cryptic (talk) 23:18, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

If you mean commented out it's been tried. It doesn't work.Geni 23:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't quite like adding that message. Perhaps something to the effect of "The name of the country has been agreed by <source> and has been the subject of much discussion. Please do not change it without discussion at the talk page first. Thanks!" will accomplish the same thing (though HTML messages, as Geni points out, have had limited success in the past) without scaring off other editors. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, if I recal correctly, section editing is disabled on George W. Bush, thus forcing everybody to see the big "DO NOT VANDALISE THIS ARTICLE!!" message at the top.--Sean|Black 01:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for all the advice - I'll try it and see how it goes. -- ChrisO 09:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Erkabo

How do we feel about four people using the same User account name? Isn't this an abuse of the User page policy? User:Zoe| 01:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I feel like we must have better things to worry about. Phil Sandifer 01:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

"Well stated, son." James Jones Previous unsigned statement by MARMOT (talk · contribs), 16:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the useful input. Don't you have better things to worry about than harrassing me? User:Zoe| 02:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Like perusing the Administrators' noticeboard and weighing in on issues. Phil Sandifer 02:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I left a note on the talk page advising them that it'd be better for each individual to have their own account. I don't see it as a big deal, but I don't particularly like shared accounts, either. Friday (talk) 01:17, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Shared accounts aren't allowed by policy. And saying there are better things to worry about is inherently pointless. Redwolf24 (talk) Attention Washingtonians! 03:04, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

No, that's public accounts, which isn't what this is. Phil Sandifer 04:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

This is pretty obviously not allowed since it makes attributing authorship to those owning the copyright impossible to do reliably. Block it indefinitely. Snowspinner, there's really no need to comment on a question only to say you wish you didn't have to comment. -Splash 04:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

That's absurd. It makes it no more difficult than assigning copyright to a contribution made from someone in an AOL IP range. Phil Sandifer 04:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

So you did have something to say. -Splash 04:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Either way, don't block it without giving them time to read the warning and respond. We don't want to loose more contributors. Broken S 04:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

We certainly want more "loose editors" we just don't want to lose them. :) - Mgm| 12:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:BP#"Public" accounts. -Splash 04:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

This account is clearly not a "general" public account. Phil Sandifer 04:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

it is quite clearly "for...use by multiple people" and "pretending to a reputation as an individual within the Misplaced Pages project, while masking anonymity". -Splash 04:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, when you take the words out of the quote you can change its meaning. Very good. It is not for general public use by multiple people - its use is neither general nor public. And it is hardly masking anonymity, since it clearly admits to its four users and gives their names. Phil Sandifer 04:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, well, I think there is sufficient basis in WP:BP to end editing by that account, and you think there is sufficient basis to allow it to continue. We're going to have to disagree. -Splash 06:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Are there even any problematic edits for this account, or are we now making up blocking policy to block accounts that aren't even doing anything wrong? Phil Sandifer 04:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

"Once again, an excellent point by Phil. Totally in agreement." J. Jones Previous unsigned statement by MARMOT (talk · contribs), 16:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Suppose one of them vandalises and gets themselves blocked. Pretending to be one of the other users, they ask for it to be unblocked at which point they resume vandalising. Repeat once or twice until admins decline to unblock. Or suppose they are are a troll or two, how much of a mess will arbitration be with "it wasn't me, it was him, no it wasn't it was him" stories? Still worse when we go to 3RR; how does that apply to multi-user accounts? How would the account ever make it through RfA? How do we know tht they didn't publicise their password much more widely (Checkuser, presumably)? And why can't they just go get proper accounts anyway? There's no good reason not to, and many good reasons to do so. It is not in our interest to permit multiple-user accounts. -Splash 06:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that's right, it'll open up all sorts of unintended consequences down the road. In any case, Broken S is right, give them a chance to respond to the note Friday left before doing something rash, they're editing in good faith. Rx StrangeLove 06:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

3RR would clearly apply per account, as would all the other rules - this is clearly four people asking to be treated as one. Phil Sandifer 06:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The 'no public accounts' policy exists to deal with accounts which are shared by a large number of unrelated individuals (usually strangers) and used for the purpose of trolling or vandalism. The last time it came up in a serious way was with the nonsense involving User:Iasson and User:Faethon (and all the other socks) back around the beginning of the year. Iasson was creating accounts and making the passwords public so that anyone could edit under those names.

In this case, it would seem that the users are willing to accept joint accountability and responsiblity for the actions of any of the users–has someone asked them about this?–and so there's nothing wrong with treating it as a regular account. As was asked earlier, has this account shown a propensity for vandalism? If the editors in question are willing to be treated as a single user for the purposes of policy enforcement, 3RR, etc., then why do we need to worry about it? We block editors when their continued free action seems likely to damage or disrupt Misplaced Pages—I don't see evidence to support that happening in this case. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

User:86.135.53.17

This user has generally disrupted the maintenance of good editing at Martin Heidegger and the accompanying talk page. Editing other peoples comments on the talk page. Using the article itself as a forum for interpretations and ethnic slurs and making ethnic comments on the talk page. Requesting "non-Anglo" viewpoints after being advised that NPOV does not involve "Anglo or non-Anglo" considerations. Amerindianarts 01:34, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

• Can we get some diffs. I can't fidn him editing other people's comments. - Mgm| 12:25, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

* The Martin Heidegger talk page.  It was reverted by user FranksValli with a warning.  User User:86.135.53.17 accused others of using his ID and that he was being "set up" .Amerindianarts 03:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Kates Tool

What is up with Kate's Tool all of the sudden, all I get are Disk Failure messages and this has been going on for the past 4 days or so. I know this is probably already been discussed before but could someone fill me in? SWD316 04:32, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably not, since Kate is who runs it and presumably put the message up. Careful, or you'll get them all started about the End of the World if we look at edit count. Again. -Splash 04:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Good riddance, Kate's tool has good uses but only one in a thousand people who use it use it for good uses. Jtkiefer ---- 05:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia:Kate - David Gerard 19:37, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The disk which Kate's tool runs on has failed. It will be a little while (which I interpret as a few days) before a new disk is configured to replace it. (I'm just repeating what I recall of what someone else said.)-gadfium 08:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

That's odd. Aren't all the tools now on spanking new Sun servers? Failure so soon? Enochlau 09:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

• I've created a crude and rudimentary backup to Kate's Tool. Please see User:Flcelloguy/Tool. Comments appreciated. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Page move

Could someone please perform the move voted for on Talk:Maalot-Tarshikha#Requested move. Thank you. Izehar 12:59, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

done Broken S

Temporary ban from editing on FuelWagon

The Arbitration Committee has enacted a temporary editing restriction on FuelWagon. Until the conclusion of the Arbitration case, FuelWagon v. Ed Poor, he may not edit any page except those directly related to the Arbitration case, and his User and User Talk pages. If FuelWagon violates this, any sysop is authorised to block him for a short time, up to three days, and all such edits may be reverted by any editor without regard to the limitations of the three revert rule.

James F. (talk) 17:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Outrage

"I was recently browsing through the Charmed article (thank you, Dsmouse) when I came across some highly inappropriate images uploaded a couple of days ago. As it happened, my fat wife had just walked in and mistook the page for a porno site. Needless to say, I've had nothing but shit all weekend. Anyway, the main offenders appear to be Alyssa Milano and similar filth from Embrace of the vampire. Someone should go and delete this before we get a lawsuit or something. I mean, children look at these pages." MARMOT

This got removed a few times as trolling. It's not, but he did a bad job of bringing the subject up. There were some pictures of boobies on that article, which I have deleted as being unsourced (and the guy was using the license lottery as well. sigh.). Anyway, I suggest marmot give diff links when he complains about things like this! :) --Phroziac _. o º 18:27, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Heinrich Himmler page protection

Good admins of Misplaced Pages, we seriously need a page protection on the Heinrich Himmler article. An anon IP address user has been continously inserted some revisionist statements that Himmler was murdered by the British (instead of committing suicide) and this is now "accepted" due to a highly controversial book written by a little known freelance author. We have invited the person making these changes tod ebate the validity on Talk:Heinrich Himmler but they simply persit in uploading these POV statements that the book is "compelling" and contains "highly accurate" information. An attempt was also made to get the user to respond via talk page but the user ignored these attempts at resolution as well. Page protection is needed at this point. Thank you! -Husnock 19:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I reviewed the situation; I don't think it requires protection yet, but can someone else more "senior" review the situation as well? --Nlu 19:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I can udnerstand it might not seem too serious at this point. Perhaps a better way to go would be for several admins to watch and revert the anon edits as they happen and possibly block the offender for 3 revert. For the record, here are all the revionist type edits that have been entered (and reverted) in the article about Himmller's death: , , , , , . As you can see, this is someone who wont talk no for an answer and has failed to respond to any messages on user pages or an attempt to debate the situation on the article's talk page. I dont see an end to this any time soon as the uder will most likely continue to report the disputed information, hoping that the registered user will "get tired" of all the reverts and at last let this "new theory" stay in the article. -Husnock 21:42, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Husnock that this page needs protection now, so that the editor who keeps inserting his POV about this controversial minority theory gets bored and gives up. I shall do so unless anyone objects. -- Necrothesp 22:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Instantnood 2 Arbitration case closed

The Arbitration case Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 2 has closed. The Committee's decision is as follows:

Instantnood, Huaiwei, and SchmuckyTheCat are all placed on Probation for topics relating to China for a year. This means that any sysop, in the exercise of their judgement for reasonable cause, documented in a section of this decision, may ban them from any article which relates to China which they disrupt by inappropriate editing. In doing so, the sysop must notify the banned user on their talk page, and a note must also placed on WP:AN/I. They may post suggestions on the talk page of any article from which they are banned from editing. This remedy is crafted to permit them to continue to edit articles in these areas which are not sources of controversy. In addition to this, Instantnood is restricted to proposing only one page move, poll of editors, or policy change relating to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Chinese) per week, and reminded to make useful edit summaries.

Any efforts in enforcing this judgement are greatly appreciated by the Committee.

James F. (talk) 19:20, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

RfC Closing

As we're now over two months since the opening of the RfC against me, I was wondering if someone could be bothered to delist the thing now, especially since I haven't deleted any AfD debates since, well, the RfC was started? Comments taken, behavior changed. I find it distressing that the RfC has been left for two months and become, increasingly, a magnet for trolls and people with clear agendas beyond changing my mind on how to handle deletion issues. Phil Sandifer 01:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Delisted (but not deleted). -Splash 01:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. And yes, deleting would have been bad. :) Phil Sandifer 01:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Review Mechanism

In the New York Times, Jimbo Wales says he is "starting a review mechanism by which readers and experts could rate the value of various articles. The reviews, which he said he expected to start in January, would show the site's strengths and weaknesses and perhaps reveal patterns to help them address the problems." Anyone know where I can read more about this on Misplaced Pages or maybe get involved? I searched around but couldn't find anything.--Alabamaboy 01:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Your best strategy would be to ask him. - Nunh-huh 02:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

See m:Article validation feature and m:Article validation possible problems for the currently publicised information. This doesn't appear to include any mention of January. Nice to feel so informed, again. -Splash 02:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages Signpost has reported in the last few weeks about article validation being enabled soon. Ral315 (talk) 03:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It's currently due to be switched on "any time now", i.e. when Brion feels it's ready. Brion is the one determining when it goes on - David Gerard 12:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. --Alabamaboy 14:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Oklahoma Christian University

I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this, but an administrator Alkivar has blocked CapnCrack and an IP address 68...something even though they were not vandalizing. He then reverted a bunch of edits (even though they were not vandalism) and protected the page. Some of the stuff he reverted even had sources and he still reverted it. The revert notice says that the page will be protected until the dispute is resolved on the oklahoma Christian University talk page. However, he has blocked several of the key people involved on one side of the argument.

When others tried to discuss the problem with him, he just removed their comments from his talk page. He has stifled the entire debate about this matter even though the side he has crushed has sources, encyclopedic-style writing, and has done no wrong. What can be done about this? I think the 68... address should be re-instated immediately, the page should be unprotected, or at the least, it should be reverted to include the documented material and then protected.

I don't think Alkivar should be punished or anything like that, but I think he should be asked to reconsider this undue abuse of his power. He has sided a guy danlovejoy who frequently edits the page in a biased manner (he is the online marketing director for OC, doesn't get much more biased than that).

Sorry for perhaps being long-winded, and I hope this does not fall on deaf ears.

Thanks. 68.97.3.125 07:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

You might like to see this user (user:CapnCrack's use of edit summaries --pgk 07:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• It's interesting to note that despite CapnCrack's "vandalesque" edit summaries (I especially like "motherfucker, you're the one (squeak, squeak)" and "more wikis, you little anal assassins"), his edits all seem to be on the up-and-up. Given the vandal whack-a-mole that anybody on RC duty is confronted with, it's easy to see why Alkivar would interpret these edits as vandalism. – ClockworkSoul 07:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Not all edits. See line 29 in this diff. Jkelly
    • And this one: . This guy needs an attitude adjustment. Kelly Martin (talk) 12:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure that two very minor acts of vandalism meant that a vandal should be permenantly blocked without warning. Maybe someone should have just told him/her that isn't what edit summaries are for. I'm also not sure an administrator should revert a page and then protect it since protection is not supposed to be endoresment of a certain version of a page. An administrator certainly shouldn't remove comments from his talk page when those comments are not abusive. Alkivar needs time to cool down. Beisnj 22:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
        • It may be worth noting that I deleted the edits in question (edit summaries still visible on Special:Undelete, edits themselves only to admins). Ral315 (talk) 18:19, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Please see the talk page in question, specifically this, my edit history, and the talk page of my primary accuser (be sure to read the page history as well). I would love to get comments from experienced Wikipedians as to my role in this disagreement and how I should behave in the future. Dan Lovejoy 19:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Repeated blocking of 169.139.224.10

The IP 169.139.224.10 is the Manatee County school district's HTTP proxy server. When it gets blocked for vandalism, I'm getting caught by this block. This has happened two or three times, the IP's been blocked for a month and I'm stuck behind the block. The only thing I could do was complain on IRC, which works, but I can't do it at school without getting in trouble for using IRC during class. Is there anything that can be done? Admins seem to be ignoring the "THIS IS AN EFFING PROXY" notice on the talk page and continue to block for a month.

Contacting network the administrator was suggested. I know who that is, but the only thing that would accomplish is getting Misplaced Pages blocked from OUR proxy server, since they're stupid enough to see this as a way to chat, and therefore cheat on things. They block a lot of sites for that same reason. I can't provide much help on this end of the IP. My RFA is most likely going to succeed and is 3 days away. Would there be a problem with unblocking myself if I get caught with the block again if/when it succeeds? Is there anything else that can be done to stop this IP from getting blocked? I have no idea who's doing the vandalism, or even if they're at my school. Luigi30 (Ταλκ) 17:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Collateral damage is a problem and a serious concern. It should be very easy for your school's system administrator to match time stamps of vandalism to outbound proxy traffic. Have you brought this up with the proper authorities at your school? Hall Monitor 18:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The only thing the proper authorities do is yell at people. They don't listen to students at all. I have pull with one of the adminstrators, but not nearly enough to get him to look at the proxy logs. Luigi30 (Ταλκ) 18:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

If that is the case, my advice to you is to reserve your editing until you get home and focus on your studies while at school. The vandalism originating from that proxy is outrageous. Hall Monitor 18:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

You also said "My RFA is most likely going to succeed and is 3 days away." When was the last time you reviewed Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Luigi30 3? Hall Monitor 18:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

A few minutes ago, and it was 31/9/0 ;) Luigi30 (Ταλκ) 18:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I interpret Luigi's comments to mean that it will be brought again in three days and it will succeed.

But as for the issue with collateral damage -- I think we're caught in a bind here; if we block, we catch legitimate users in the block, but if we don't block, these IPs trash Misplaced Pages. I tend to believe this: Luigi, you don't need to do your editing at school. Do it elsewhere where you wouldn't run into this problem. --Nlu 18:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

But still, the IP shouldn't be blocked for a month; it's a proxy! Luigi30 (Ταλκ) 18:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

No, it was just a mislinking by Hall Monitor. --Syrthiss 18:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah yes, thank you for correcting my link, I did not realise there was a third RFA in progress. Hall Monitor 18:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppet?

A new user: Holbern (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been been acting very suspiciously, and I think this diff says it all. He may be a sockpuppet of Mr.Treason on the Run (talk · contribs) who is indefintely blocked. Izehar (talk) 18:51, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not a sockpuppet - just an anti-vandal Misplaced Pages editor. --Holbern 19:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, why are you messing with the "blocked" notices? Izehar (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

and putting {{tl:protected}} on pages that you don't have the ability to actually protect? --Syrthiss 19:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Has just been blocked for vandalism pages --pgk 19:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Civil Air Patrol

I'd again like advice on what to do with Civil Air Patrol. Since I posted warnings, the edit war on the article page has died -- replaced by an edit war on Talk:Civil Air Patrol. I blocked one of the participants for 3RR violation, but I'd like someone more experienced to look at the matter and determine what else, if anything, should be done. Thanks. --Nlu 23:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Extended block for User:70.189.120.44

I gave User:70.189.120.44 a one-month block. His last few edits have been egregious vandlism, and the last straw was his unconscionable addition to User_talk:SlimVirgin. If anyone thinks I'm overreacting, feel free to bring it up and/or undo the block. But frankly, if we lose an editor who feels comfortable saying such things to other editors, I'm not going to cry crocodile tears. Nandesuka 04:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I fully support this. That literally made me sick. We don't need editors who think that's even remotely acceptable.--Sean|Black 04:05, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I had to clean out his mess at John Seigenthaler Jr.. We need to be really careful with those articles now, so I took out the vandalism from the history. You can see the stuff I took out if you're admins and go to Special:Undelete/John Seigenthaler Jr.. Titoxd 04:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

You missed some of the history, according to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (news)#!. Should someone take care of that? -- SCZenz 06:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, can someone give me directions about that? Is the only way to do it to delete the page entirely and then selective restore? Or is there another way to do it? --Nlu 06:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that some of them have remained deleted, but I'm not sure if they should be restored. I made a similar question for Jimmy Wales, but no one told me if those edits should be undeleted. In any case, there are two anons who contributed the "defamation" attacks to the page, so be extremely careful if undeleting. We don't want to delete/selectively restore again... it's a pain. Titoxd 06:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried to get rid of the edits noted at the Village Pump, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Can someone who's better at this check and see that I didn't screw this up?--Sean|Black 06:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

John Byrne Returns

As a heads up, despite the fact that, as Jimbo requested last time this happened, John Byrne is now thoroughly sourced, Byrne and/or his fans are back to removing all negative aspects from the article. People should watch this, and look to return the "Feuds" section with its full set of sources. Phil Sandifer 05:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

More Seigenthaler: no more anon ip edits, say InformationWeek

Was this supposed major development discussed anywhere yet? -- Curps 06:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Yup: here Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(news)#Anon._page_creation_disabled for example. Anons can still edit, but not create pages. Needless to say it is a bit controversial. Antandrus (talk) 06:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, I see, no more anons in Special:Newpages as of 19:00 UTC December 5. -- Curps 06:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Disciplinary action might be good once in a while and when appropriate, when there seems to be a lot of garbage pages and vandals but not the general norm/standard. Block the new pages from anonymous ips once in a while when garbage and vandalism is frequent but not all the time.--Jondel 07:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• My understanding is that it is a temporary trial. I think it is a good idea worth giving a try in order to improve reliability. Taking a minute to register I don't think is asking too much. If I am wrong, we will soon find out. Capitalistroadster 10:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It is a temporary trial. Once in a while it would be good to have 'fire drills ' or temporary restrictions. I agree about registering. Registering is not asking too much. Registering allows accountability. I don't like to propose another 'rule'. Ideally , for me, there are less rules but more members/citizens who take the rules to heart or follow the rule in spirit. --Jondel 10:52, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Misplaced Pages:Village pump (news)#Anonymity_does_not_imply_bad_faith. Uncle G 14:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Registering has certainly cut out a lot of the real-rubbish type new articles - cruising new articles has almost been a pleasure! :) Brookie: A collector of little round things 16:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Yeh I was wondering why Category:Candidates for speedy deletion is so quiet today. Enochlau 22:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Hmm, CSD is starting to fill with rubbish again. A cursory glance at the history reveals that many are created by users who've just signed up. So perhaps it's not really working then, just adding to the burden on Misplaced Pages with all these extra accounts with 1 edit... Enochlau 21:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Input needed

Need input on Talk:CNN, and this article should be under more scrutiny for now. - RoyBoy 17:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Quick selective undeleting and watchlist cleaning

For selective undeleting, this is the quickest method. Create a bookmark, and put this content in the location field:

javascript:for (i=0; i<document.forms.length; i++) { for (j=0; j<document.forms.elements.length; j++) { f= document.forms.elements; if (f.type == 'checkbox') f.checked= true;  }  } void 0

Then on the undelete page, click the bookmark to check all the boxes. Then uncheck the ones that you want to remain undeleted. It also works on watchlists. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-6 17:59

Awesome. You get an extra cookie tonight.--Sean|Black 20:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

If you're a Firefox user, you can get the delightful Web Developer Extension. Under Tools → Web Developer → Forms, select Populate Form Fields, and all checkboxes will be checked! —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-07 04:19:43Z

Brian0918, I worship the ground you edit. Ral315 (talk) 18:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

An extra cookie and a one-person cult? Brian's really getting into the big leagues :).--Sean|Black 02:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

User:MostWanted05

I blocked MostWanted05 for five days for faking page protection on Aftermath Entertainment, but I am wondering if I should have blocked shorter or longer. Thoughts? --Nlu 01:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably not longer; I would have gone shorter, though I think 5 days is fine. Ral315 (talk) 23:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Removal of libel from history

In reponse to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (news)#Question about libel in history, I suggested that users who find libelous edits that may need to be deleted post that information on this page. If that's not right, someone should correct my response. -- SCZenz 04:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

More on removal of libel from history

I'm the person User:SCZenz was responding to (see above item). The particular edit I was thinking of that may need to be deleted from an edit history is . The same accusation was apparently not noticed by other editors and was retained in succeeding edits , , , , , , . Note that only the first cited edit made the offensive claim; the other edits left that claim in, but did not amplify or change it. --Metropolitan90 05:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Have I been blocked?

NB- I am not an admin, but I need admin/developer attention. When I try to edit on anon, I see this: Misplaced Pages has restricted the ability for unregistered users to create new pages. You may list the content you wish to have created. You may also log in or create an account, enabling you to create new pages. Please read our introduction for more information about Misplaced Pages. --195.188.51.100 12:37, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

No you have not been blocked. But a few days back an "experiment" was started where only logged in users would be able to create articles. The idea was to avoid the creation of nonsense articles which need administrators in order to remove it. I know that not everyone is entirely enthused about this change (I know I'm not). If you want to create a page you can visit Misplaced Pages:Articles for creation, but I would recommend just creating an account. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Church of Reality

Church of Reality was recently deleted after an ugly fight culminating in the author of that article, Mark Perkel, being blocked for a week and deleted page being protected. Perkel then userfied the CofR page. Now, there's a Marc Perkel article, which contains a wikilink to that userfied version. It's unclear how to deal with this. On the one hand, I guess a user has the right to put whatever they want on their user pages. On the other hand, this looks like it's really just a clever way to get around the deletion process. Perhaps some more experienced admins could take a look at this and figure out what (if anything) should be done? --RoySmith 17:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be in hand. That article is now up for deletion, and it doesn't (and shouldn't) currently link to the userified page. - Taxman 22:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Oklahoma Christian University

There is a long string of profane edit summaries in the Oklahoma Christian University history. This vandalism has been reverted. Could someone hide these edits? If this request is improper, please advise. Dan Lovejoy 21:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. They're still visible on the history page when clicking "30 deleted edits", but at least for now, the vandalism itself is gone. Ral315 (talk) 18:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Antidote and List of Jewish Fellows of the Royal Society

This list has survived two attempts to delete it in a short space of time. Today Antidote twice tried to get rid of it by renaming it as List of Fellows of the Royal Society and adding other names. Now he has marked it as "totally disputed", giving no other reason on the talk page than that he doesn't think it should exist. Can someone remove the "totally disputed" tag? - Newport 23:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I see no administrator action or input needed here. Please carry out the issue on the talk page. Some of those actions appear less than helpful, but the user did give a valid reason for the tag in the edit summary. Discuss on the talk page just like any other content/article dispute. - Taxman 00:25, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hacker standard time

I deleted this on the premise of db-repost, but I was informed that the previous deletion was speedy, and hence db-repost should not apply. I tried to undelete it using the Restore button, but that seems to have failed, and I can't see the deleted edits any more. Did I do something horribly wrong? See also Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Hacker standard time. Enochlau 01:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry. Problem resolved. Enochlau 01:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Help with possible Imposter/Bot

Can an admin take a look at the behaviour here. There is a newly created user here called jgrutz (I'm user jgritz). I believe most of the anonymous edits are from the same user. It seems like he's up to something, and has been adding spam links here and there. If this is the wrong place, can you let me know where to put this to get a second opinion. Thanks! - Jgritz 03:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

He/she has been blocked indefinitely per Misplaced Pages:Username. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Uncooperative user; not sure what to do

Hi, all. Let me first say I've looked for a better place to post this, but this seemed the most appropriate; if there's somewhere else, just point me there. I'm having trouble with User:Deathrocker and the My Chemical Romance article. DR has decided that one way, and I have decided that it's better another way. DR continues to revert without comment, has failed to engage me in any meaningful way on the talk page, and has blanked my attempts to open a dialog on his own talk page.

What's to be done? We're both avoiding violations of the 3RR, I think, but just barely. Would it be appropriate to protect the page until the issue is resolved? I feel I shouldn't do it myself, as I am involved in it as a content dispute. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-08 06:55:55Z

Protected. However, this is an area that's entirely out of my ... expertise. Can someone else step in and monitor the page? --Nlu (talk) 07:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this particular band (and genre, for that matter) is outside of my expertise, too. What I can do, though, is provide credible, verifiable sources for my version. If anybody else here knows much about My Chemical Romance, goth, punk, emo music, anything like that, please chime in! Thanks for your assistance, Nlu. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-08 07:23:52Z

Linkspamming

Hi all, User:164.100.150.122 has been prolific in adding a link to this site Higher Education Opportunities in India to all Indian education articles. As you can imagine, my rv trigger-finger was prompted into action; however, I'd like some feedback as to whether this was the correct decision and should all his/her other edits adding that link be reverted?. SoLando (Talk) 07:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Most definitely; the site is misleadingly named and is clearly spammy. In fact, I'd block the user (after sufficient warnings, of course). --Nlu (talk) 07:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

My trigger-finger feels relieved ;-) SoLando (Talk) 07:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo's challenge to admins

Jimbo has posted a challenge for admins. See Talk:Alan Dershowitz. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-8 07:29

So can we now remove the rather silly little statement at the top of RfA about adminship being no big deal? Plainly, if admins are to be allowed to edit protected pages specifically for the purpose of the determining what is true, it is a pretty big deal. Until last night, admins had no content review role on Misplaced Pages. We appear to have been handed one all of a sudden. -Splash 19:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Troll much? Phil Sandifer 01:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

And? It's an interesting task, which nobody is being forced to do. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-8 21:53

Sounds interesting to me. Also sounds like it might be a good way to deal with RV and POV edit wars.--Alabamaboy 22:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

So, when did I miss the announcement that Misplaced Pages was done & finished, we can scrap all participation by anyone not in the cabal or an admin? I want to know why we are running scared of the media, making "concessions" like blocking anon page creation, and this pilot for freezing pages and letting only trusted users edit them. What are they going to do? Gnaw us to death? Regardless of the whims of the media, we can go on happily editing and improving articles. Why are we jeopardizing our system, which works well! for transient approval we aren't even getting? You realize that these restrictions are blood in the water? I think I've seen more articles battening onto our process changes as evidence that everything our critics say is true than I've actually seen articles on the original criticism! The process works, people! We have hundreds of thousands of articles, with many, many great articles, and only a very few are rotten apples. Don't make the cure worse than the disease here. --Maru (talk) Contribs 22:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Both are experiments. If they are truly as terrible as you say they are that will become evident and the experiment will end. It's good to try something new now and again. Broken S 23:11, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

No, they are not experiments. That's part of the problem. There is no control Misplaced Pages running with no restrictions on anons creating pages with which to compare. We cannot know how many people were scared off or for whom this barrier was a sufficient disincentive to not edit, or how many crap articles were not created (proving a negative, anyone?), so we cannot compare it to the more easily gathered data on how much editing time was freed up by fewer articles needing review. --Maru (talk) Contribs 23:24, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Making a control for this "experiment" (maybe trial or test is a better word) is nearly impossible. Everyone seems to forget how many people there are in the world. We can't be worried about alienating small hypothetical sets of people, when basically any change we make alienates someone. The loss of one person submitting one article isn't so great. Eventual someone else will come along and do the same thing. Still I'm not convinced that the test should be made permanent. Broken S 01:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

My God, you're right! The sky is falling! Phil Sandifer 01:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Slippery slope much? --Maru (talk) Contribs 05:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody ever said radical freedom was the main goal. Building an encyclopedia is. Linux is still free as in libre and always will be due to the license, but you can't edit it's source code. Only a few people can directly. I believe we are well past the point were viscious vandalism is a greater detriment to the project than radical freedom is an attractant. More talented, qualified people (read experts) refuse to participate because of the garbage we put up with here than appear to be attracted to it. - Taxman 23:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Taxman. Misplaced Pages is now instituting new rules so that anonymous users can't create new pages. Personally, I wouldn't mind expanding that to anonymous users not being able to edit article. As long as users are easily able to sign up and take part, then Misplaced Pages will retain its best aspects. That said, I think it is great to do experiments like Jimbo is doing. That's how we learn. Nothing wrong with that.--Alabamaboy 23:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Seconded, mostly. While I don't think that either of these things is a particularly good idea, there just experiments. The vandals become more and more creative, so we have to to. if they're not good ideas, then they won't last.--Sean|Black 23:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I also agree. The goal is to create an encyclopedia, not to be open at any price. The restriction disallowing anonymous editors from creating new pages is a good example of a reasonable restriction. Thue | talk 17:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Highlighting one article and giving it special attention (viz. announcements here and on the mailing list) hardly reflects the reality that would result from making it an ongoing practice. (See Hawthorne effect.) The half-baked nature of evaluating these experiments is one reason I don't fully trust that a detrimental change would be immediately recognized and undone. On the other hand, the notion that administrators have no greater authority or editorial responsibility has been largely pretense—at least we may talk about such matters more honestly now. --Tabor 23:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, it wouldn't work if used more generaly. Broken S 01:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Civility parole

I realise that blocking a user for breach of civility is controversial. Could an administrator put a user, who is generally agreed to have regularly crossed the line of civility, on an informal parole (three strikes and you get a 24h block)? It would be a useful tool to keep the chat happier, and admins can block for breach of civility anyway. What do others think? --Gareth Hughes 15:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

We can't block for incivility unless it reaches the point of dissrupting wikipedia.Geni 23:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

User ID "∙"

There is a relatively new user with the userid "∙" (User_talk:∙) who has been active in aircraft articles (Contribs). The account creation page states that the username must contain a capital first letter. This sure doesn't seem to fit that criterion. Is the software supposed to enforce that? It's barely visible on my screen and is quite annoying when scanning watchlists, etc. Can/should we force this user to adopt a more conventional handle? -- Kbh3rd 19:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The notice about the capital first letter is because the software forces the first letter to be in uppercase, not because usernames without a uppercase first letter are disallowed. --cesarb 20:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I think really short usernames are grounds for a block. They also aren't good for the user in question. We can reattribute the edits if necessary, but it's better to do this now rather than later. — Dunc|☺ 20:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Before you slap him with a {{usernameblock}}, though, give him a chance to change username. Titoxd 20:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Titoxd meant Misplaced Pages:Changing username, not WP:CU. :) --best, kevin 21:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

User has been given a chance which he has refused to do so I'm going to username block Jtkiefer ---- 22:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Alert ! Got a really annoying bug ! Alert!

I've got a bug going on that, when I log on/in, using my online designation, it keeps acting like I have NOT logged on/in. This glitch will cause someone out there to falsely accuse me of being a sockpuppeteer or worse. Told it was a technical glitch in Internet Explorer. This may have also happened to other Users, leading them to be falsely accused of being sockpuppets and the like.Martial Law 22:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, it looks like you're not logged in even when you have? Firstly ensure that cookies are enabled. It may also be due to the browser incorrectly displaying cached content; you may wish to clear the browser cache. Enochlau 22:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Or use Firefox... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I log in as "Martial Law", then browse through Misplaced Pages, such as the UFO article,etc., then add data(all true),state source of data, conduct other editing business, then use the 4 ~s, only that something like 71.40.123.100 appears instead of Martial Law. Cookies are enabled. Martial Law 23:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The only other thing I can think of off the top of my head is that you've got some app running in the background killing cookies - doing you a "service" by protecting your privacy or something. Yeh, I'd agree with Jeffrey O. Gustafson and see if using Firefox will solve the problem. If it does, then it's IE stuffing up. Enochlau 23:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Known bug. It has been reported with firefox. Soory I don't know what is causeing it but it might be worth makeing sure you clear your browser cache. Switch over to a different skin (I recomend classic) so you know when you are logged out.Geni 23:41, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Just did'nt want someone calling me a sockpuppet or getting blocked under false pretenses because of some bug.Martial Law 00:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I've got the same problem (man, it's a pain, isn't it?), and I use FireFox. What solves it for me is generally clearing out my cookies, and if that doesn't work, closing FireFox and opening it up again. One of those has always solved the problem. Blackcap (talk) 01:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I had this problem in the past, and if you're on a secure computer, try checking "Keep me logged in" - that usually eliminates the problem. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Software bugs / inappropriate sysop rights

Hello. I should not have sysop rights, since I'm not an admin. However, whenever I visit user pages, I've begun to notice additional sysop-only links such as "Block Saravask" and "Unblock Saravask". I am seeing these links whenever I visit any userpage, as well as other pages. I don't want to end up blocking anyone else (or worse, myself!) accidentally. Could someone fix this? Thanks. Saravask 23:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

No, you're not an admin. What happens is that you have copied a user script file that has those abilities (probably from WikiProject User scripts). However, if you click on any of those links, you will get an "access denied" message, so don't worry about it. You're fine. Titoxd 23:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I removed the script. Saravask 23:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

User:APUS

APUS claims to be a teacher who has given his/her students access to his/her account. Every edit from the account is nonsense vandalism. Everything APUS is warn APUS claims it is the students again. I blocked the account for 24 hours and refused to unblock. Is running a public account (creating an account and then giving out the password) grounds for indef block? -- Psy guy 00:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:BP#"Public" accounts. Judge for yourself, but I think very much so yes. The account gets no excuses at vandalism more than any other account. If it has vandalised widely, it sits it out for at least 24 hours. Life's tough, and registering's easy. -Splash 01:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy clearly gives "Public accounts" as a cause for indefinite blocks; feel free to do so. Ral315 (talk) 01:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Chooserr (talk · contribs)

Sorry, not buying it anymore, way too farmiliar with wiki, way too hostile, way too good at gaming the system, has already admited to making sockpuppets after being blocked, who wants to bet chooserr not only has sockpuppets, but is in fact a sock of some other user? Someone want to do an ip check against a few previous problem users?--Aolanonawanabe 01:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Is also essentially spamming the talk pages of random new users with inviations to his BC/BCE revert war--Aolanonawanabe 01:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
• Look up ^^^^^^^ (although that went kinda off topic), there is also #Chooserr Sortan 01:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• I should point out that this is an on going problem, and that he has literally been at it, since the exact moment that his last block expired--Aolanonawanabe 01:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• I fail to see how he is recruiting users to join his side of a dispute and for your reference checking the newusers log and welcoming users is not spam. Jtkiefer ---- 01:45, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Linkspam?

The whole thing has essentially boiled down to chooserr creating two or three line articles, with no content other than links to anti-abortion websites--Aolanonawanabe 02:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm as pro-abortion as they come, and let me say this: Cool it with the edit warring, now, Aolanonwanabe. His stub pages appear to be relatively NPOV (there's hardly enough content in them for there to be room for POV) and stubs aren't against any policy. If the organizations are notable enough to merit a page, they can have a page. If not, take them to AfD. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Alright, but he just keeps churning these things out every few edits, most look like they were prewritten and copy/pasted in as needed, after the response I've gotten so far, there's no way I'm going to continue to watch over his new pages--Aolanonawanabe 04:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Aidan Work

I think this user is certain to eventually create legal problems for Misplaced Pages if he isn't dealt with now. Have a look at his contribs (including his assertion that a (now) NZ Member of Parliament "should have been shot for trying to cause a bloodbath". Some of his comments are clearly libelous. I've had enough of trying to get through to him, so is there anyone else who could like to approach him. Moriori 02:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Moriori, it is actually not libellous to condemn some of the worst racists on the planet. Tariana Turia & Gerry Adams are among these, given the fact that their notoriety is very well-known. - (Aidan Work 05:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC))

Well, I've done my duty by warning Wiki, and we will see what transpires in the future. Something you need to learn very quickly is that you cannot accuse people of something that they didn't do -- specifically, "trying to cause a bloodbath". Coincidentally, this very week Misplaced Pages found that out the hard way. If Tariana Turia contacted Wiki re your statement about her, your comments would be wiped quick smart, and you would be on your bike outta here. And it wpuld be good riddance IMMHO because you are a liability. Moriori 09:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If any pages are troublesome, just mark them with {{db-attack}} and an admin will come around and assess whether it should be deleted. Enochlau 14:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

External links in signatures

We fight off link spammers all the time. What about users who link to their site in their signatures? See: Stirling Newberry (talk · contribs). — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 04:26

oh dear that is really not good.Geni 12:08, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not good. He's been asked to stop; if he doesn't, what then? android79 12:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Any grounds to block him? Enochlau 13:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll wait for a response first. He's asleep or has otherwise taken a break from editing, so blocking now would be rather premature. android79 13:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

See his hostile comment on User talk:Zocky after Zocky explained what the problem was and asked him to remove the link

"On the day that there is policy against it, I will change it. You can read up on my talk page about the kind of people who have complained about it in the past, and why I have zero respect for the suggestion, however offered."

It is generally understood that even though something may not be written in policy, it doesn't mean that it is acceptable. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 14:08

Agreed, and it's covered by the spam policy anyway. If he refuses to change them a block is warranted. - Taxman 14:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I actually don't mind that. It's not as disruptive as some other sigs. Coffee 16:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether or not the link is annoying to look at. What matters is Misplaced Pages is being used (intentionally or not) to inflate a website's Google pagerank. Despite the several complaints on his talk page, he is still doing it. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 17:50

Yes, it's certainly not the sig's appearance that I'm complaining about, it's the purpose of the link. People use "external" links in their sigs all the time to point to Misplaced Pages pages and functions that aren't accessible by an internal link. Linking your blog in your sig is just bad form. We block people who linkspam articles; same ought to go for those that linkspam talk pages. android79 17:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Camillus McElhinney

He needs an eye to be kept on, as he has started to accuse people of promoting racism & sectarianism, especially condemning the Roman Catholic Church's critics, who are only expressing their opinions on their talk pages. - (Aidan Work 07:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC))

Neutral admin requested

Could I get an uninvolved admin to take a look at this unprotection request and make the decision ASAP? (Because I have a feeling only a small pool of admins watch the page.) It's my protection decision being disputed. Thanks. Dmcdevit·t 09:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I've unprotedted, but will reprotect immediately if revert wars erupt. Filiocht | The kettle's on 09:44, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Edit war at MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning

Two users are trying to change the spelling of the verb form of "license" to "licence", and claiming that anyone who reverts them is unnecessarily provoking conflict, stating that the c form is the preferred spelling in Britain. And yet, the British-based Oxford, the primary source for all things English, makes it pretty clear:

"Do not confuse licence with license. Licence is a noun which means 'a permit to do something' (a driving licence), whereas license is a verb meaning 'give a permit to someone: allow something' (the loggers are licensed to cut mahogany trees). In American English, both the noun and the verb are spelled license."

I am now being accused of "bad faith edits" and "provoking conflict" for putting in the correct, universally-accepted, spelling of the verb form. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 13:40

Yeh I'm pretty sure the verb form of the word in both American and British spellings uses 's' instead of 'c'. Enochlau 13:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Please post there. These people just aren't getting it... — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 14:05

Hmm, edit waring on MediaWiki: pages is bad and the funny thing is that since it's already a protected page for legal reasons it is impossible to either officially or practically protect the page to give the people a time to cool off on this edit war. Jtkiefer ---- 03:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

A developer could technically do it, could they not? There is obviously no convient way to get this done though. -Greg Asche (talk) 05:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Ban them all and let Jimbo sort them out! Yeah! hey, it's practically the only time that that'd be a valid suggestion :-P

Actually, lets's not. I'd better just drop by and see what's up. Kim Bruning 05:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This seems to have been settled, Brian0918's arguments winning out. Thue | talk 15:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Michael Jackson page

The Michael Jackson page was moved to Michael Jackson (entertainer) without discussion. I deleted Michael Jackson without a problem. I then attempted to move Michael Jackson (entertainer) to the now empty Michael Jackson, however I was told that the database was locked. I waited a few minutes and attempted it again and this time was successful. The move meant the page was now a redirect to itself. So I then tried revert to the previous edit without success. I then must of accidentally deleted the page and now I can not restore it. PLEASE HELP!! -- Ianblair23 (talk) 02:03, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've done it. I got the "Database locked" message earlier today to, it's very irritating.--Sean|Black 02:10, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

So did I. FearÉIREANN\ 07:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I did too... I think. Did it work? android79 02:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Works for me.--Sean|Black 02:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah all good now, Cheers guys -- Ianblair23 (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

anon ip can't see catagories

If you try and view the items of a category without being logged in, all you see is the anons can't make articles message, blocking the entire page., if this is to become policy, there are a number of glitches that need to be worked out--Ano0000ddnsidn 05:27, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't happen for me, when I log out. What category were you trying to look at? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It only seems to happen with categories with no content, since those tend to redirect to the edit box, for instance, were there a Category:Flubernonsense, if you were to click on it as an anon, you wouldn't be able to see this page listed thereCategory:Flubernonsense--Ano0000ddnsidn 05:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

PS. Once you test this for yourself, feel free to remove this board from Category:Flubernonsense--Ano0000ddnsidn 05:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

You can see what's in them by stripping the &action=edit from the url, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Category:Flubernonsense. —Cryptic (talk) 08:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Troublesome edit w/ personal info

Well, this is an odd one. Someone seems to have tracked down some of my personal information and posted it on this page. Can we get that wiped from the history? ESkog | 07:06, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. --Nlu (talk) 07:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Username change

I wonder if a request should be made to change the name of this user? User talk:DengXiaoPing - this is the same name as Deng Xiao Ping. --HappyCamper 02:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Changing username.--Sean|Black 03:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I guess I should clarify a bit. Since we generally block names that are say, similar to George W. Bush, should this name have been indefinitely blocked? What I meant was the following - the username is a well known political leader in China, but it was probably not blocked immediately while it came up in the user creation log because it was not recognized as such. Since this user has already made a few edits, I decided to leave a message on their userpage requesting that they reattribute their edits. Is this preferable to blocking immediately and then requesting the user to make a name change? --HappyCamper 03:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe we block all "well-known political leaders"—just living ones. Otherwise, Bonaparte would have been blocked, for instance. —Kirill Lokshin 05:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-Protection Poll

The major poll is currently located here. Thank you.Voice of All 03:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Mcfly85 sockpuppets

On November 28, I posted here on the noticeboard about Mcfly85 (talk · contribs) creating sockpuppet accounts, namely IP addresses, for making personal attacks on users, mostly me. Now, just a few minutes ago a new user called Sven66 (talk · contribs) wrote on my talk page and insulted me. Sven66 only made one edit and this case of vandalism is his one edit. See My talk page. The message was unsigned and it looked like the style of editing done by Mcfly85. I, at least, suggest we run a CheckUser on McFly85 this time around. SWD316 06:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I would also like to note every time Mcfly85 attempts to insult me, he subsequently "retires" from editing as his user page says. Like he did before, when he "retired" then made insulting comments towards me, came back and now retired again. Doesn't anyone think there is something a little suspicious going on? SWD316 06:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I honestly have not a clue as to what this is about. Please leave me alone, yes, I am trying to stop editing here, but I use the encyclopedia a lot, and if I see a typo, I just have to fix it. I did not do a single bit of vandalizing, and I do not deserve to have these false accusations against me. There are more important matters to worry about here, and elsewhere in life. Mcfly85 09:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

RFC on my deletions for User:R.Koot

Hi, all. I was asked by R.Koot (talk · contribs) to delete his user and talk pages, after I noticed his talk page at CAT:CSD. I deleted both after verifying that his talk page was properly archived and making sure that he understood how deletion works. At the time, I expressed some concern that I wasn't necessarily supposed to do that sort of thing. User:Oleg Alexandrov, someone I have a great deal of respect for, has also voiced some concern that I was not correct to execute R.Koot's request. Any thoughts? If there are specific policies or guidlines on this, I was not able to find them. —HorsePunchKid→龜 2005-12-11 06:28:39Z

Just to clarify. My main point was (at least I meant it that way) that it is not a good idea for a user taking a wikivacation to ask his user page to be speedied. But most likely all this is not worth the trouble, and all I succeeded in was making HorsePunchKid worried. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

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