Misplaced Pages

• Herostratus' page now violates WP:POLEMIC - interesting that he made it on his takpage directly where a) all his talkpage watchers could participate simply by seeing their watchlist changes, and b) it now cannot be properly MFD'd. the panda ₯’ 09:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Not WP:AGF again, Panda. Oh dear. Lugnuts 09:27, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• • While I oppose this recall attempt, I don't see how it violates WP:POLEMIC, as it is explicitly used in a (flawed) attempt at dispute resolution. As for the "talkpage watchers" comment; he openly announced this at WP:AN, so the influence of his talk page watchers doesn't seem to be a genuine concern. Fram (talk) 09:32, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Contrary to what is said above, it isn't necessary for an admin to abuse his tools before ArbCom can decide to desysop them. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds/Proposed decision is a relatively recent example: Ironholds was desysopped for his comments and incivility, not for any abuse of the tools (please correct me if I'm wrong here). Fram (talk) 10:27, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Ironholds was desysopped for "conduct unbecoming an adminstrator" fot having "a history of making highly inappropriate remarks both on-wiki and off-wiki on the various IRC channels, where he has often used violent and sexual language (evidence for this has been submitted and discussed in private). Moreover, on at least two occasions, he also logged out to engage in vandalism and to make personal attacks on other editors on other Wikimedia projects." You see some sort of parallel here with DP's behavior? 10:48, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

You're quire right, Fram. I don't know why I didn't think of that case – and I was one of the drafters... Salvio 11:11, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• No. DPanda can be abrasive, a bit of a bull in a china shop at times, but that is very different than what Ironholds did, by a mile. I don't see the self serving element at all. I don't question DPanda's faith in his actions, although I do have to admit wincing from time to time by his words or approach. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of RFC/U, but maybe that is the best venue as the problem appears to be one of communications and style more than anything else. Knowing when to accept community opinion even if you strongly disagree with it, that kind of stuff. He is not the only admin around here that fits that description, he is just the target of the day. Arb is the wrong venue, and won't get any results: RFC/U just might. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 11:10, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

No. As far as I have seen, DP has done nothing as outrageous as the things Ironholds was desysopped for. I didn't claim or imply this either. My post was a reply to the discussion above, where it was basically said that ArbCom would only desysop for tools abuse, which is not correct. If someone wants to make the case that DP has a history of "conduct unbecoming an admin" which is sufficient to warrant desysoping (or admonoishing or whatever), then it would be incorrect to claim that such a casse doesn't belong at ArbCom a priori. This has nothing to do with whether such a case would eventually result in any actions, or with whether there are in this case enough arguments to start such a case. Pointing out that the process allows this, and that there is precedent, doesn't mean that this case is truly comparable or would have any chance of success (with "success" defined as an action against the admin). Fram (talk) 11:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Assuming Arbcom agrees there is some sort of issue, there are other outcomes that a case could have, including admonishment and reminders - which would carry more weight if similar behaviour were to re-occur. That then leaves the question of "do we want to improve the situation or do we want blood". This is where RfC/U also comes in - if people genuinely have an issue and want to see change, RfC/U is a useful tool - if they just want a desysop, the question would be "why didn't you do something sooner". Worm(talk) 11:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Well of course I have an opinion. I'm just not expressing it since my role here is just to facilitate the process and so that wouldn't be helpful.

Here's what going on here: I'm making a stab at seeing if the community wants make a new thing, that being "recall of admins who are not in Category:Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall". This is a test case. If you think that initiating recall of admins who are not in Category:Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall is a bad idea generally, you probably don't want to sign the petition. If you think it's a good idea and you think that this case warrants one, you might want to consider signing. (Note that signing the petition is in no way a indication that you think the person shouldn't be an admin, just that you think that community ought to consider it.)

There's no question that this a stab at an organizational reform, I'm not being coy about that. Obviously if this were to go through, it would be a new thing. Since it' be a new thing, objections in the manner of "we haven't done this before" are not very germane. And objections in the manner of "this is not allowed" are not particularly satisfying. It's a wiki and community members are allowed to do whatever the community says they can, including make new things. We are not entirely bound to past procedures I hope, and that kind of thinking makes it hard for us to change and grow going forward.

My personal opinion is that recall of admins who are not in Category:Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall might very well be a good thing (of course I don't know this for sure), some of the reasons being:

• If there is going to be admin recall all, it seems silly to limit it to admins willing to place themselves in Category:Misplaced Pages administrators open to recall, since it's possible that the admins who don't are exactly the ones that we are most likely to want to recall.
• It's much simpler and easier than going to ArbCom, when all you want is to consider adminship rather than bans and topic bans and so forth.
• It'd devolve some decisions down to the community rather than an elected board. All thing equal devolvement of decision-making downward is often functional.
• It allows the format of the conversations and procedures for recalling an admin to parallel the the format of the conversations and procedures for appointing an admin, which makes sense to me. (If ArbCom is much better than RfA at concluding who should or should be an admin, then probably ArbCom should appoint as well remove admins.)
• Might make the whole RfA thing less of a fraught thing and such a big deal -- easier out, easier in. Maybe. Not sure if this is true or would be a good thing though.
• And so forth. I'll bet you can come up with other reasons. Herostratus (talk) 11:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

You don't create a new process by strongarming through a "test case" - especially one which has a direct effect on another editor. You propose it, perhaps by way of an RFC at the Village Pump, you allow discussion around the topic, and you abide by the community's decision on its validity or otherwise. You don't get to unilaterally decide that Misplaced Pages now has a brand-new admin recall system of your own devising and expect to try it out on the first admin unfortunate enough to get dragged to ANI. Yunshui _水 11:28, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

So, what's really up?

Let's back the truck up here. Now, before I posted the analysis that led to the block above, there were some backroom discussions not only about the block, but discussions where some of my colleague admins (I won't say who) called me "a fucking prick". Some people - admins included - seemed to believe I'd gone completely off-the-rails or something over some isolated 4-edit sequence that on a normal day would lead to warnings and no more.

Oddly enough, after I posted the long thought process that went into the blocks, not a single admin has said "I disagree". In fact, it's been strangely quiet. Not a single admin has said "yeah, but...". Not a single admin has said anything about that because surprise, surprise, Brad did think before clicking on a tool. Brad did end up doing what was in his judgement the protection of a dangerous corner of the project. Brad did try to balance the needs of 2 editors and the project. Indeed, Brad did ask himself a whackload of pertinent questions before clicking on that tool. Brad did do exactly what the project expects an admin to do before acting. Nobody since my post has said "Brad, that was a bad block based on your explanation". Yeah, I made a difficult judgement call based on months of watchlisting an hazardous, contentious article. People sure seemed to question the judgement without knowing the full details - someone even unblocked without knwoing them, but not a peep since - and that's because we've all been hanging on that balance at one point or another - hell, there's 1 or 2 ANI reports yesterday alone that showed less-complex thought processes that spiralled out of control.

So what's the real issue here? Me? The fact that I blocked someone who claims I know everything about them (I'm sorry, my memory doesn't work that way)?

I may be a lot of things, but the one thing that EVERYONE on this project knows about me is that I tell the truth, AND that when I say I'm sincere, I'm sincere.

Yesterday was a painful day not because of this AN, but because I did some very deep soul-searching, and then painfully bared my soul on another editor's page. What makes it worse is that due to my promise to them, I will not revisit their talkpage to see if they replied. It just so happens that the editor in question is one of the 2 editors I blocked yesterday.

Indeed, I tried to go back and find out just why Flyer22 is so damned pissed off at me, and yeah, apparently it DOES go back a long time when I personally failed to AGF - I made a statement based on all the available evidence presented to me at the time. It was the only statement supported by the available evidence at the time - although I did take it one step too far. Turns out that there was more unknown evidence that turned the tables not long after. If that evidence was available at the time, I sure would have made a different statement - but I sure should not have made the level of non-AGF statement I made anyway - that was a long time ago, and it took a lot of digging to find it. I cannot go back and right my personal great wrongs. I have apologized, more than once to Flyer22. I have sincerely stated my regret to them. And no, I didn't recognize that one of the people was blocking yesterday just happened to be the one person who I feel I had truly wronged years ago.

So what, are we complaining about the block now? Are we complaining about my thought process/judgement in yesterdays blocks? Are we complaining that I'm an emotional, rational human? Or are we just throwing random "let's play shotgun with some shit and see what sticks"? After all, I would LOVE to see where my REAL analysis failed - but in >12hrs, nobody has shown that at all - they've simply tossed shit. the panda ɛˢˡ” 11:46, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Trying to avoid making personal attacks here, so let me just say that the thing everyone on this project supposedly knows about you is something I don't agree with. Apart from that, the posting of the long thought process was your 20:33, 6 May 2014 post? The one that was followed by an unblock which basically boiled down to "DP was wrong here"? A later statement by admin User:King of Hearts seems to agree. You then, on 23:18, 6 May 2014, posted a further "but I was right" reply, and now this. You may not agree with their analysis, but claiming that "Not a single admin has said anything about that" is rather strange and doesn't seem to match the above discussion. Fram (talk) 12:19, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Ed had something to say too. And I offered you an option you could have taken after your analysis. --NeilN 12:41, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• Ed and KoH's comments were not related to my analysis - they were related to my question about unblocking the other party. Neil's opinion was noted, thanks. the panda ɛˢˡ” 13:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

My comments are not related to the block. I've not commented on it, nor do I have any desire to. I've never questioned your faith, honesty or sincerity. In fact, I've spoken out for them previously. Still, if people have a problem with your methods, the backwaters of RFC/U is the right venue, not Arb nor the drama pits of ANI/AN. If it isn't worth filing an RFC/U over, then dropping it would be the best solution. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:43, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, bad block, whatever. I don't care about rubbish like my reputation's been tarnished or "block log is permanent omg what will people think?". (Redacted) — lfdder 13:53, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

You need to consider striking your comment, which is clearly in breach of WP:NPA. There just isn't any need for that and it isn't serving any higher purpose here. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

You need to consider blocking me for it. — lfdder 14:00, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Acting childish with me isn't solving anything. Acting dickish isn't either. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:04, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm done here anyway. — lfdder 14:07, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

As the opener of this thread, I had two questions and none of them involved desysopping. Restated, they were if Flyer22's block was a good one and what admins should consider when the bright line of WP:3RR hasn't been breached. I think an RFC/U is premature but hope that DP keeps other alternatives to blocking in mind when faced with a similar situation in the future. Taking an extra step before blocking, however fruitless it may seem (or turn out to be), is not always a bad thing. That's all I want to say about the RFC/U matter. --NeilN 14:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Neil, that's exactly my point: you opened a thread with 2 key questions. Of course, it would have been ridiculous for anyone to comment on the first prior to seeing what analysis I went through to got to the 2 block blocks. So, last night, I posted the thought process that went behind them. Your second question is philosophical, and AN is really not the right place for that type of question. Through my thorough analysis, I provided very good reason why alternative methods were not possible at that time, at least in my judgement. However, nobody else seems to be responding to your questions - well, one person did unblock. That was your sole response. Torches and pitchforks were optional. Welcome to the world of AN/ANI :-) the panda ɛˢˡ” 14:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

So we're supposed to wait around while an editor is under what seems to be a bad block for you to chime in? No, sorry. Other editors can look at the exact same situation you did and give their independent opinions. --NeilN 14:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually the consensus from the beginning of the thread was exactly that wait 'til Panda re-reviews. The clear point here is that what appeared on the surface to be a "possibly bad block" actually wasn't necessarily a clearly bad block once the explanation was given. Funny how the heat:light ratio could have been avoided if the conversation had merely continued on my talkpage, eh? the panda ɛˢˡ” 14:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Funny, I read consensus as Flyer22 should not have been blocked. Something you still seem to disagree with. --NeilN 14:54, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Nope. Re-read the first few comments. Again, the consensus that you're talking about came before anyone knew the rationale behind the blocks. the panda ɛˢˡ” 15:11, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• Personally, I think this is probably not the best place to be seeking clarification of the feedback (and/or the issues or supposed issues which are apparently being raised) in relation to your adminship as it is not a single action or comment or incident which has motivated this; I'm sure you realise that. I expect a lot of useful feedback and perspective can emerge from another venue (such as a RfC if its structured properly and the requirements are complied with); it's always better to take that type of option than to wait for a time when there are a greater number of "pitchforks", but ultimately it's your call if you choose to self-initiate an RfC/U or not, or consent to an RfC/U or not. It will depend on whether or not you're ready and willing to hear others thoughts on both the good bits and the bits which you could consider handling differently or improve on. On another note, there are a number of admins who jump into contentious issues, but not all of them feel this sort of backlash. I can even point to some, if they would let me, whom after taking up an RfC or similar route, modified just a few features of their approach and encounter this sort of trouble/outrage/scrutiny on a much smaller scale despite continuing to address those problems for the Community on an ongoing basis. To me, it shows they work even more effectively now handling the worst kind of editing or problems than if they did not heed the advice given to them or if they weren't ready to even consider acting carefully with another approach. That's my suggestion, but I realise that each person is different and it might equally be be something that you're not ready to do too. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:11, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Ding ding ding, you win! This thread is supposed to discuss the block. It's supposed to discuss my analysis that led to the block. Somebody else turned it personal. ALl attempts to steer it back on track so that I can potentially learn what was wrong with my analysis that led to this specific pair of blocks has failed miserably. My sole conclusion from that is therefore: nothing was actually wrong, now that we understand it. Which oddly enough, makes the whole "desysop" thing rather moot now...doesn't it. the panda ɛˢˡ” 14:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion of your analysis is half the issue. Discussion of the actions you took after your analysis is the other half. --NeilN 14:47, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

What actions were those? Please feel free to point them out. the panda ɛˢˡ” 14:51, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

At the conclusion of your analysis the action you took was blocking. Your analysis told you there was edit-warring going on. There were a variety of actions you could have taken to stop it. --NeilN 15:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, admittedly there were other possible solutions. But I made a judgement call based on the intelligence I had gathered that was well-within the realm of admin responsibility, and provided the rationale when requested untik WP:ADMINACCT. There are always multiple ways to resolve something - I chose one valid path, and other people would have taken other paths. That's both a good thing and bad thing. the panda ɛˢˡ” 15:11, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

User:EatsShootsAndLeaves - Blocking the users was disruptive to the wikia (and not at all needed within wikia rules), as this chat and others such as on your chat page and the blocked users chat page clearly indicates and your actions continues to be disruptive due to your refusal to accept the obvious and walk away. Mosfetfaser (talk) 15:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

@Mosfetfaser: Wikia? --AmaryllisGardener 15:43, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

10.68.16.31

10.68.16.31 is apparently User:ClueBot III editing logged out again. I informed Jayron32 (the admin that blocked it last time in April), and they told me to come here. Here are some diffs: . --AmaryllisGardener 19:32, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It looks like the bot has logged back in. I unblocked the IP after realizing the block could cause misdirected XFF blocks. However, what seems concerning is how the bot is still editing after the emergency shutoff has been activated. I'm not the most experienced with bots and would welcome the input of others. Mike V • Talk 22:14, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

After a quick chat with Deskana, I've blocked the bot. Mike V • Talk 22:33, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused. Is the bot making bad edits? If not then it seems churlish to block it simply because the stop button doesn't work - especially as that stops it working logged in and not logged out - precisely the reverse of what we want. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 06:59, 7 May 2014 (UTC).

Agreed - Is the bot making bad edits ? Then it should be blocked, but if it's doing what it's supposed to do, then there's no problem (even if it's logged out ) KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 10:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

The issue is twofold. First, the bot was performing edits while logged out. It's my understanding from the bot policy that this should not occur and that the use of extensions such as AssertEdit should be implemented. Second, the bot was performing edits logged in while the shut off was in place, which makes it noncompliant with its own emergency protocol. There's even a message on the bot's page that encourages admins to block it if it is malfunctioning. I'm not trying to be churlish or pedantic. It's simply a case of the bot not functioning as it is intended. Mike V • Talk 15:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the latter (emergency shutoff not working) would justify blocking the bot; however, the first wouldn't - if the only malfunction in the bot is that it would edit when not logged in, then blocking it would do no good to stop the trouble. Even in the case of bots, blocks should only be used to prevent malfunctionm edits or unapproved tasks - and merely editing while logged out some of the time doesn't constitute either of these the rest of the time. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

In short, if we can't trust that it will stop editing when told to, we can't trust that it will follow other instructions properly as well. The operators are good and reliable, so of course we're not accusing them of bad faith, but they've apparently made some mistake that temporarily makes the bot undependable. Nobody's going to object to an unblock once the operators say that the coding problems are fixed. Nyttend (talk) 22:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I take the reverse view, if anything. Editing logged out is bad, because 1. it gives the impression that we allow bot edits from IPs, 2. the edits are not accountable which bot edits should be. OK in this case we know it's CB III so we could let it slide if we thought that the downside from having it not functioning outweighs point 1.

But bots are not like HAL or te computer in the Forbin Project, they do not become "untrustworthy", if the "emergency stop" (which in many bots redirects to the admin block function anyway) doesn't work, the bot is not going to start trying to take over the encyclopaedia - it left this thread after all. (Or is it trying to lull us into a false sense of security?) The admin block is still there for a real malfunction. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:40, 7 May 2014 (UTC).

Untrustworthy in the sense that we can't trust the code. Someone accidentally removed from the bot's code the instruction (or part of the instruction) to stop editing when the shutoff is activated. Since we know that they made that mistake, we can't trust that they made no other mistakes, and we can't trust that this mistake won't have other unexpected effects. With that in mind, we can't let the bot edit until someone's confirmed that the mistake is resolved. Nyttend (talk) 22:47, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

When an editor is as prolific as Cluebot, its activity is meaningful not only at the level of individual edits but also statistically. Letting it edit logged out results in a distorted picture of what's happening on the entire wiki. So it should be blocked until it logs back in. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 05:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

That's the problem: As I understand it (which is doubtless an oversimplification), 10.68.xx.xx is the internal network, and therefore blocking anything in 10.68 risks collateral damage, possibly including break-the-whole-site network damage. It's not some IP from halfway across the globe that you're blocking from Misplaced Pages's servers; you'd be blocking the system from itself. Blocking the account is useless, because it's not using the account.

What we need is for people to figure out how this is happening and fix it, not to block stuff without regard for either the possible consequences of the block or the effectiveness of the block. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Is there any legitimate reason to allow anonymous editing from private IP addresses? What would be the downside to soft-blocking all of them indefinitely? Same question applies to the external IPs of toolservers. Bovlb (talk) 23:52, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Request for forgiveness

More than a year has passed since I was blocked for stupidily threatening User:Jayron32. I'm from Argentina and after an edit-war, I said the following: "If I were an Israeli soldier and you a Palestinian..." or so I said. I well-deserved to be blocked because I was beyond immature and stupid. Then, I created another account to start anew as a respected user. Well, the sock-puppetry accusations began and I couldn't ever again work on Misplaced Pages. I deny sock-puppetry since I don't, I can't use blocked accounts and I'm not interested in having more than one account. So, I'm now asking to be forgiven and allowed to create another account and start anew. Thank you indeed. --190.178.156.205 (talk) 21:33, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Don't even remember it, but if you're here to do good work, go do that. --Jayron32 23:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

From what I can see, I would support the editor coming back. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Jayron for giving me a second and last opportunity!, I've been working in the shadows and doing well with User:Japanesehelper but I'm afraid of going public (i.e. nominating candidates for Misplaced Pages:In the news/Candidates) and getting blocked for the alleged "sock-puppetry" that never occurred since I never used two accounts at the same time. Who can guarantee me that "Japanesehelper", my only account, will not be blocked? Thank you.--190.178.183.38 (talk) 23:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

No one can guarantee anything, but the person you attacked has given his blessing for you to be back, one other person thinks that is the best unbureaucratic way to deal with the problem (me), and assuming you just edit and stay out of trouble and not war or get into fights, I don't see a problem. Assuming others don't argue against this solution, you could just point to this discussion. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:16, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Perfect. You can see my record with "Japanesehelper", it's cleaner than a brand new t-shirt. I was immature when that happened. Promise it won't happen ever again. --Japanesehelper (talk) 23:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Doesnt sockpuppetry include using new accounts to evade blocks? Howunusual (talk) 00:19, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes and no. We're not here to mete out perpetual punishment, we're here to build an encyclopedia. This isn't a game. If Japanesehelper wished to be helpful, I am not going to get in their way. --Jayron32 00:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It is a legitimate question, but again I agree with Jayron. When someone appears to be very sincere, apologetic and sets a clear future path for their behavior, and the person who was on the receiving end last time (Jayron) gives their blessing, I think we owe it to ourselves and them to take a chance. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:46, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• Let's not prevent good work from being done. Probably a bad use of clean start, but WP:IAR - a productive editor need not be a perfect editor, both in content or character. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Probably worth verifying whether this is an IP sock of Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/AndresHerutJaim/Archive, a racist ultranationalist extremist and sociopathic liar who in the spare time off wiki writes things like "fucking mohammedan apes and baby-killers", "Fuck you !! stupid Islamofascist terrorist ape dressed in rags. I hope you and all your family of monkeys shall receive what you deserve when Israel kick your coward ass. Asshole! ISRAEL WIN", "Don’t worry bitch, nobody wants your fucking Arab Keffiyeh. Nobody wants to look like an ugly terrorist monkey, except for Purim", "¡¡¡God bless Nakba!!! (Jewish victory over the war of extermination that the Arabs brought upon them 65 years ago). Never in history was a "catastrophe" so well deserved! God bless Israel. Keep strong, united, prepared and brave.", ""palestine" does not exist, never did and never will", "Yes, you are in this struggle and you will be defeated like all the enemies of my nation. I'm a Jew from Argentina who soon will make Aliya and join the IDF in order to kick, destroy and fight against bullshit scum like you. Fuck off you fucking marxist. Leave Israel with all your fucking Arab ape friends. We don't want people like you in Medinat Israel. AM ISRAEL CHAI VE KAIAM ISRAEL WIN". Sean.hoyland - talk 04:52, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I should add that Japanesehelper does not look like AndresHerutJaim, but AndresHerutJaim's persistent socking via both accounts and Argentina based IPs has been such a major problem over the past few years in the WP:ARBPIA topic area and its suburbs that experienced editors will assume that any Buenos Aires based IP active in the ARBPIA topic area that appears to be advocating for Israel or against Palestine or Iran is a sock. Is there a diff for the comment "If I were an Israeli soldier and you a Palestinian..." ? Sean.hoyland - talk 05:28, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree some idea of who this editor actually is would be helpful, at least if we are going to give any indication they may be allowed to stick around.

I don't know much about the editor Sean.hoyland mentions above, but Special:Contributions/Japanesehelper is looking a lot like Special:Contributions/Timothyhere who abused many sockpuppets Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Timothyhere + Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Timothyhere + many which were either blocked per WP:DENY or which unblocked but had their contributions deleted). While obviously it was never confirmed by a CU, they did sometimes edit under an Argentinian IP. Particularly in their later stages, they seemed to mostly troll the Reference Desk, Help Desk and Teahouse. But they did hang around ITN at various stages. Beyond simple trolling, they did seem to have a particular interest in Nazi Germany and serial killers like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer similar to Japanesehelper.

They also claimed to be Japanese at least once Special:Contributions/Kotjap with a corresponding interest in Japanese related topics although I think they showed the same interest even with other identities. Kotjaps claims to be Japanese weren't particularly believable. IIRC they claimed to be living in Japan with some elaborate back story like being a 55 year old former hikikomori who's father beat them yet never showed any actual evidence of understanding Japanese. (I can't recall if they ever explicitly said they spoke Japanese but I think they did repeatedly saying they were not a native English speaker, which may be true regardless, which combined with their claims about their identity lead to an obvious conclusion. And even IIRC when Japanese editors suggested they ask their question in Japanese they never said they didn't actually speak Japanese.) Or really any evidence of knowing that much about Japan you would expect from someone who lived there. (And of course, it's very likely they were editing from an Argentinian IP.)

As stated above, it seemed clear they were trolling. Over time, it became fairly obvious they already knew the answer to many of their 'questions' or otherwise didn't care. Furthermore, beyond the Japanese identity, they pretended to be from all over the world usually mentioning stuff in 'my country' or similar. In particular, in many of their later identities, they claimed to be from tiny island/s nations, or at least small poor places you wouldn't generally expect many wikipedians from.

I don't know if they ever said the stuff about "If I were an Israeli soldier and you a Palestinian" to Jayron32, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't the reason why the Timothyhere round of socks was blocked. It could be that the AndresHerutJaim and Timothyhere group are the same editor and no one noticed before. I would also note that if it's either editor, their indication their disruption stopped over a year ago isn't particularly believable. (I believe there were more recent Timothyhere socks than the late June ones but I'm lazy to look for them.)

I'm not suggesting an immediate block since I'm not seeing an obvious signs of disruption under the new account. And if it is Timothyhere they seem to have given up on pretending to be from places they clearly aren't. But if it's either or both editor/s, lying about their history and why they were blocked is not a good sign. And they should expect to be on a short leash not because of anything to do with forgiveness but because we have good reason to think they can't be trusted to continue to edit.

Edit: The most recent probably trolling from Timothyhere I can find is Special:Contributions/190.178.141.180. It's nothing particularly wrong but given the history it was hard to believe their claim they were "working for a psychology project on the case regarding Kato". Also looking a bit more, I think Timothyhere had an interest in terrorism and in particular Al Qaeda under their many identities, in particular in relation to Canada. But I don't recall much interest in the Israel-Palestinian issue or Iran.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:51, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

This is not the correct process for requesting an unblock. The editor says their account was blocked 1 year ago and they apparently set up a sock account to continue editing shortly afterwards. They have not even told us what the original account was, or how they were blocked. Furthermore, if they continue editing, they are not normally allowed to make a clean start but must keep the old account after it has been unblocked. My suggestion is to close this discussion thread, block the IP and Japanesehelper, and ask them to make the request on their talk page or, if that is blocked, through email. At that time, a CU can be conducted. TFD (talk) 07:24, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• • In a nutshell, it is easier to watch someone when they are in the open, and the liklihood of them becoming productive is higher as well. My opinion hasn't changed. I won't block and would oppose anyone else at this juncture. Wait and see, monitor, hope for the best. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 11:15, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Redlink category adder

I don't want to make a big deal about this, and I would take it somewhere else if I knew where that place was, but the user CmdrDan appears to believe that simply adding a category to an article creates the category, so he's added a number of redlinked categories to articles. Can someone who's more familiar with categories than I am have a talk with him? Thanks. BMK (talk) 05:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Left a note, HTH. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:12, 7 May 2014 (UTC).

Arbitration motion regarding Falun Gong 2 (User:Ohconfucius)

The Arbitration Committee has superseded the topic ban imposed on Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) in the Falun Gong 2 case by motion:

The Committee resolves that remedy 2 (Ohconfucius topic-banned) in the Falun Gong 2 arbitration case is suspended for the period of one year from the date of passage of this motion. During the period of suspension, any uninvolved administrator may, as an arbitration enforcement action, reinstate the topic ban on Ohconfucius should Ohconfucius fail to follow Misplaced Pages behavior and editing standards while editing in the topic area covered by the suspended restriction. In addition, the topic ban will be reinstated should Ohconfucius be validly blocked by any uninvolved administrator for misconduct in the topic area covered by the suspended restriction. Such a reinstatement may be appealed via the normal process for appealing arbitration enforcement actions. After one year from the date of passage of this motion, if the ban has not been reinstated or any reinstatements have been successfully appealed, the topic ban will be repealed.

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Discuss this

Psst, bit of a backlog at WP:UAA

Thanks.--ukexpat (talk) 19:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey admins, come on

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

...and help a brother/sister out nextdoor, at WP:ANI, section "Undue retaliation, provocation and/or vandalism on Mitsubishi Magna article by User:OSX". You need to help me figure out what to do with these two editors, one of whom was at 27R, while the other kept their count low by way of sockage. I already did the heavy lifting. Drmies (talk) 04:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Archive.is headache

Archive.is URLs were blacklisted. But the task was not properly done. As a result, it has become a big headache. Someone makes non-constructive edits/vandalism in an article, you try to revert it and find you can not do it, as the article contains archive.is URL.

I reported it here, where it was observed only "rollback" option is working here. But, we can not use rollback always.

This has become a big headache. I just had to manually remove 6-7 archive.is URLs just to make a reversion with an edit summary. Tito☸Dutta 18:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it's time to remove them from the blacklist? The concern was that archive.is might (horror) use adverts, and might spam archive links to WP. The admin of archive.is replied that we could, if we wished, make archive.org backups of archive.is and use those. They do not appear to be out to take advantage of Misplaced Pages, and indeed are providing a valuable service. If their site became unacceptable to link to in the future we could remove the links very rapidly. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC).

I have no idea why its on the blacklist and it seems to be shooting us in the foot. One bad person should not equate to wholesale blacklisting of a valid and important archival service. It seems like a knee-jerk decision was made and the damage done is creating quite a fuss and hurting our articles. I've seen plenty of issues with Archival services not picking up or losing access to Gamespot's new robots.txt (Archive.org in this case). I also note that a while back there was some discussion about funding and acquiring such a service - but I'm a bit out of the loop on that. We can very easily control our links at will from such sites, I don't see the need to have an entire beneficial service blacklisted. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:58, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, part of the blacklisting was the archive.is folks using an unapproved bot account which was blocked (for being an unapproved bot). Then evading that block with IP addresses. Ravensfire (talk) 20:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Archive sites are akin to redirectors, though. Is there any content that is on archive.is and not archive.org? If not, we probably don't need it. Guy (Help!) 20:28, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

That kind of statement reduces a valid option and Archive.org has missed many key sources to 404 that I wish I could selectively archive. Now, an unapproved bot and socking is one thing, but it seems knee-jerk reaction to a problem. Would you do the same if and blacklist all of Archive.org because someone used an authorized bot to mass add links? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Edit conflict Plenty, I'm afraid. We should discourage people from removing the links without replacement, as the archice.is URL is vital to being able to determine what the original was, and therefore finding a replacement. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

There are several differences between archive.is and archive.org. Archive.org is a crawler and gets everything when it visits a page but it does follow robots.txt. Archive.is claims they only archives pages they are told to archive but ignores robots.txt. Webcite is closer in functionality to archive.is, but they do follow robots.txt. Ravensfire (talk) 20:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Archive.is is currently the best and seemingly only option for GameSpot archives at this time. They regularly 404 and are altered and now have Robots.txt which makes Archive.org not serve the page even if they HAD the archive previous. See discussion. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

As I mentioned here, I haven't found any good alternatives to archive.is yet. For example, web.archive.org and webcitation.org failed to archive beyonce.com/credits properly – only archive.is renders the page's content correctly. Mayast (talk) 21:35, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• User:Hawkeye7, what do you suggest to do if you want to revert a non-constructive edit, and want to add an edit summary too. Please see this edit. The editor, being a film production house member, was removing "negative reviews, reception" from the article.
  Either remove them from blacklist, if that is not possible, okay, I have not problem, then appoint a bot to remove all archive.is URLs from Misplaced Pages. Currently it is a big trouble.Tito☸Dutta 23:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

• The reason archive.is was blacklisted was because the people running archive.is utterly destroyed any possible sense of good faith with their actions (spamming links, unapproved bot, block evasion, etc.) - the links were being added in a blatantly promotional fashion, instead of simply correcting broken links that were easily findable and fixable. It was indistinguishable from spam, and it was treated as such, and frankly after their display I, personally, cannot consider any archive.is link trustworthy - after the display of what they did here, who knows what they have on their site that might be lurking to infect my computer? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow:. Carefully parsing the above and rewriting for provable truth, we have: Someone acting on Archive.is's behalf employed block-evasion techniques to flood-add both Archive.is and Archive.org archive links preemptive to link failures (read: many, but not all, of the edits were needed yet). Optimistically, it was a technological partial proof-of-concept. Pessimistically, it was (weakly) promotional, and (strongly) unapproved behavior per our bot consensus guidelines. I found the edits to be 100% accurate, overall helpful though sometimes unnecessary, and in every case unharmful, though technically against bot policy and procedure. There's a tendency to throw the baby (bot-added edits which are helpful-but-against-procedure) right out with the bathwater, and I strongly object to this (insert religion-based decision process epithet here) bullshit. However, and be very clear about this: Archive.is was blacklisted because a narrow majority of easily-frightened RFC participants were led witless down a banhammer garden path by a couple of admins who scaremongered and nerdraged about a couple of hundred IP edits. Tempest, meet teapot. Seriously, this wasn't as bad as The Bushranger and Kww would have you all believe. That said, I support blocking addition of archive.is links by new editors, but I support allowing such links when added by editors with high edit counts and low deleted-edit counts in good standing (meaning: responsible, accountable additions). I have NO fear of archive.is or the site owners, anything The Bushranger says notwithstanding. --Lexein (talk) 21:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

...all I can say is "wow". (Well, I can also say I find your accusations of bad faith disturbing.) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, pshaw. That's not counterargument, that's just garbage, and not appropriate admin behavior. You exaggerated the seriousness of the situation in order to get the zero-sum "win", with the actual effect of yeah, you "won", but Misplaced Pages lost, and archive.is was totally unaffected. Great job hurting Misplaced Pages worse than any possible spam did. I think it's called "friendly fire." The only (quite narrowminded and blinkered, in my opinion) reason which remains for blacklisting is the purely petty bureaucratic-minded outcry of "It was unapproved! He didn't follow procedure! We cannot allow that to stand, even if the links are valid!" I've always disliked this bent logic, but have extremely noisily begrudged its applicability in cases of causing other editors extra work, which is not the case here. Each and every one of those archive.org and archive.is links would have been allowed to stand if added slowly by editors in good standing. --Lexein (talk) 14:31, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

This is all from memory of reading about it after the fact, so I could be mistaken: The only things I saw indicating that the WP account, User:Rotlink, was actually controlled by the owner of archive.is were statements made by that account on a couple of talk pages. I did not see anything that indicated there was outside confirmation of ownership, nor that there was a statement like: I'm going to make changes X to archive.is and then changes X happened. I only saw statements similar to: I have made changes (i.e. mentioning them after the fact). To me there is no indication that the accounts User:Rotlink and User:RotlinkBot were, in fact, owned by the person running archive.is. It was certain that the person controlling the account wanted it to be believed that User:Rotlink was controlled by the owner of archive.is.

On the other hand there was no statement by owner of either archive.is denying ownership of those accounts. In addition, there was no statement by the owner of archive.is nor those accounts as to explaining the issues brought up at the Archive.is RFC.

The RfC proceeded on the assumption that the owner of archive.is was the person controlling the bot and the actions of whatever was making the similar edits from multiple IPs.

The owner of the account, with respect to the bot, went out of their way to perform actions which were significant violations of policy when easy alternatives were available within policy to accomplish nearly the identical goals, but with something of a delay. Specifically, the whole issue developed out of the use use of an unapproved bot which was in the approvals process and likely to be approved and its edits welcomed, if the process had been followed.

After the bot was blocked there was then the issue of the apparent use of a large number of IPs from multiple countries to run the unapproved and account-blocked bot. It was considered by many to very likely that the use of the IPs was not authorized by the owners of the IPs and probably illegal. — Makyen (talk) 02:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow... this is a bit stunning. I see allegations thrown around left and right and a single user making very broad legal allegations without substantiating them or providing evidence. This is all heresay and the situation is completely without merit. The issue has long been "resolved". First of all, the edit filter is hidden, but why? Secondly and more important, the edit filter has long not worked on the ".today" links. Example If there was any valid attack or ongoing need for this filter it would have been apparent. By all means, it is time to get rid of this edit filter. We are damaging our own articles and I see absolutely no threat from the site. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see what's "stunning" here. There's no doubt that there was an attack, and no doubt that someone was using techniques that violated both Misplaced Pages policy and actual law to insert the links. Thank you for pointing out that people have been bypassing the blocklist with an alternate id: it no longer works.—Kww(talk) 05:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I do, however, agree that we do need to run a bot that removes the links. I keep trying to find the time to do so, but the task of remaining employed keeps interfering.—Kww(talk) 05:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

But the attack has long since halted and its causing a great amount of degradation to article verifiability and not to mention thousands of articles actually being used. There seems to be a growing consensus here that this matter needs to be revisited and I frankly feel that this blacklist endangers the verifiability of thousands of articles, including ones that are already Good or Featured content. This applies greatly to the WP:VG project and at least many other news sites. As it stands, we are actually losing verifiability and damaging Misplaced Pages just in the daily operation of this blacklist that should have been revisited months ago. I'm all for defending against malicious attacks, but it seems its outlived its usefulness and is purely punitive. You closed a hole on something that was already known, but unexploited. Since the "attack" has stopped, the blacklist's continued implementation provides no demonstrable benefit. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It stopped because it was blacklisted. its causing a great amount of degradation to article verifiability...I frankly feel that this blacklist endangers the verifiability of thousands of articles...As it stands, we are actually losing verifiability and damaging Misplaced Pages. How? In what way is it causing "degration to article verifiability"? How is it "damaging Misplaced Pages"? If archive.is didn't exist, would there be any problem with following WP:DEADLINK/WP:V: "Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer. WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online"? So why is there a problem now? Why is there a "growing consensus" that we should reward someone who attempted to use Misplaced Pages to promote their archive service, then used a bot attack to push it when caught, by promoting the use of said service? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:48, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The point you seem to be missing, Chris, is that having tens of thousands of links to a site operated by someone that uses botnets leaves us open to further trouble. Why link to someone that is known to be dishonest?—Kww(talk) 06:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that, to date, only the English Misplaced Pages gives a damn about archive.is shenanigans. No other Misplaced Pages project blacklists archive.is, or finds any fault with it. These archives are used throughout the Chinese and Russian Wikipedias, as an alternative to WebCite and Wayback. In fact, I literally just posted an archive.is link on zhwiki just to check whether it was blacklisted or not. If other projects don't find problems with archive.is, then why are we? --benlisquare_T•C•E 08:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Wow, so you're saying that Albanaian Wikimedia (with more than 10,000 articles) doesn't blacklist it, nor does Icelandic Wikpedia or Old Church Slavonic Misplaced Pages? Well, then certainly we should follow suit.

Despite this specious argument (we are English Misplaced Pages, and are sui generis), I do think that archive.is should probably be unblacklisted, despite their earlier misbehavior. We don't want to hurt the encyclopedia just because some outsiders have acted like assholes. BMK (talk) 10:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

You just made an informal fallacy there - nowhere did I mention any sub-10,000 Misplaced Pages projects, you made that implication on your own. I pointed out that multiple Misplaced Pages projects of significant size didn't have any qualms with archive.is, and even still to this day allow links to it - this probably suggests that here on enwiki, we think too much about morality instead of actually getting the job done. As has been mentioned above, "Why link to someone that is known to be dishonest?" - I assure you that nobody would even think about asking such a question on zhwiki; if the tool gets the job done, it doesn't matter if a murderer or a saint created the tool. At least, that's the sentiment that exists outside of enwiki.

Just because Hans Reiser murdered his wife, that doesn't make ReiserFS a bad file system (in fact, in theory it works much better than NTFS), but it's often the case that people make such arguments, and this archive.is case is quite similar. Look at archive.is as a tool to get things done, and not the creation of someone who did bad things in the past. --benlisquare_T•C•E 11:01, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Do not use a bot to remove links. Per Misplaced Pages:Archive.is RFC: the removal of Archive.is links be done with care and clear explanation. The only way we have of replacing links is to examine the ones that are there. The title of the page and the publisher allows us to use a search engine to find if the page has moved elsewhere. The text of the page can also be used in this way. Given the original URL, it may be possible to find the site on archive using the accessdate. It is very, very difficult to repair references without the original. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• I can not always manually clean-up archive.is links just to revert vandalism. If I see I can not revert edits because of archive.is URLs, I'll leave it, unless the article is very important to me. Tito☸Dutta 10:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Just a note. As closer, it wasn't my intent to prevent bots from removing the links. I did suggest that any removal should be explained--ideally including a link in the edit summary. But that can be done automatically. Also, I've certainly no objection to seeing if consensus has changed on this. Hobit (talk) 12:49, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Nor was it my intent to say that a bot could not be used. If you had one that replaced the links with ones from another archive, that would be okay. I only meant one that removed links without replacement, which I would treat as a rogue bot. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • I'll disagree here. The intent was to remove the links--there was no requirement that they be replaced (though I agree it would be ideal). Hobit (talk) 05:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• I have a question about the ignoring of robots.txt files. Is this in any way equivalent to a copyvio? Perhaps not if the archiving is always in response to a specific request, but an authoritative answer here to that effect would be helpful. Perhaps User:Moonriddengirl could comment? --Mirokado (talk) 13:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there is an authoritative answer. It's the lawyer/legal-opinion problem. There are other problems. Robots.txt has no defined purpose. Oh, it has a use, and an effect when applied, but the reason for using it is not required to be stated, so the reason is never stated. Helpful stated reasons might include: "Original author-publisher contract did not include archives", "Publication rights to article content expired", "Owner wishes to monetize archives", "New domain owner does not wish his new brand to be associated with the old domain's content", "New domain-squatting owner wishes to extort money from prior domain owners to lift robots.txt". Two of these are arguably copyright related with a corresponding best-practice Misplaced Pages answer, three are definitely not. --Lexein (talk) 21:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

That's right; there are many reasons why Robots.txt is used. The most common is on archive sites themselves, to prevent recursive archiving. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:22, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• I will say that all the protestations that "it must have been somebody else, you can't prove it was the site owner" are nothing but hopeful nonsense. The edits matched Rotlink's. They came from a swarm of international IPs at a speed and breadth that couldn't have been anything but a botnet of compromised computers. Lexein, an editor that was fighting desperately to keep the archive.is links, communicated with the site owner and received nothing but evasiveness: never a denial. Whatever the utility of the site may be, it's run by someone that has no qualms about invading computers that belong to other people. That's not a place to link to, because clicking the link provides a known bad actor access to the client machine. As for benlisquare's argument: no, murdering your wife doesn't make you a bad filesystem designer or compromise the quality of your filesystem. It does mean that only a foolish woman would marry you.—Kww(talk) 13:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that first of all, Misplaced Pages should have it's own archive like Archive.is. Archive.is is much much better than WebCite or Archive.org - first of all because it automatically archives all the articles the Misplaced Pages is quoting. Secondly - because it's versatile and has an easy interface. So, Archive.is should be set the standard for such an archiving website. From a previous conversation I understood that Archive.is storage capacity will be exceeded in maximum two years, and then - no more free archiving for Misplaced Pages. Verifiability of Misplaced Pages's articles is quite important for humanity, it might sound inflated to some, but I think it's a safety net against re-writing history, against becoming a dystopian world. How much it costs for Misplaced Pages to have it's own archive by the way? Maybe we can raise funds, or we should start a Kickstarter project for it. I am ready to offer some support, maybe there are others like me too. Or maybe Misplaced Pages can pay to Archive.is (or to some other company) for keeping the archive, maybe it will cost less than Misplaced Pages having it's own archiving servers to take care of - in other words, to outsource the job. To this is such an important matter that, if I would be the head of Misplaced Pages, I would try to convince masons (I understand they rule the world and they are shaping the world's future) to finance such an important task - money are not a problem for them :). I really hope Misplaced Pages will have it's own archive but until that happens, Misplaced Pages should take advantage of such a great and free offer like Archive.is. I am ready to be part of a future lobby group for solving the archiving issue on Misplaced Pages. There can't be copyright problems, since Misplaced Pages is not trying to make profit from this, but it's just trying to preserve history, I think any judge with minimum common sense would understand that. —  Ark25  (talk) 14:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Kww your argument and stance are not being dismissed, but it is unproven and condemning an entire resource because of some past circumstance. There is no threat and that past issue is resolved, but what would it take for you (personally) to allow Archive.is links again? Until Misplaced Pages has its own archival system, we should not be cutting off a key site (which is irreplaceable at this point) simply because of an unauthorized bot that "spammed" links on a bunch of open proxies. And I keep seeing that if the bot was approved, and it likely would have been, would have been a non-issue. The blacklist can be reinstated easily, but I see more users making compelling arguments to lift it and see what happens. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Kww's argument is, however, compelling. We have been here before. I am surprised this is not blacklisted at Meta, actually. Guy (Help!) 16:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

There is no evidence of a malicious botnet and there is no evidence any illegal act has been committed, these are extremely serious allegations and the issue should have been passed immediately to the foundation's team if there was evidence otherwise. By absolutely no measurement can I attribute the word "botnet" to this action, by volume or action, and I must dismiss it as just plain alarmist. And still, that portion of the debate is irrelevant to lifting the blacklist now that the "attack" has stopped. There is no threat, so why are discussing it like it is ongoing and that it was "malicious" in nature. The claims are unsubstantiated and are a gross exaggeration of the incident. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

There is no evidence of an illegal botnet? Are you serious? And no, discussion of the fact that botnets were used to push links into Misplaced Pages is not irrelevant and will never be irrelevant.—Kww(talk) 17:07, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Did you look at the massive list of IP's used to push these links in to Misplaced Pages after the unauthorized bot was blocked? They're from all over the place! Yeah, no evidence of a botnet. Sorry, there is absolutely no reason to trust the people behind archive.is. They don't care or respect others. There are copyright issues when they archive material blocked by a robots.txt file. Ravensfire (talk) 17:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Getting beyond the point, but the use of proxies and such are not "botnets". This alarmist stance has no concrete evidence to connect it to the owners of Archive.is, its conjecture and heresay. Secondly, you are making personal attacks on the site owners and pile on accusations of copyright infringement and such when Misplaced Pages has no control or interest in it. We gladly and willingly supply links to an illicit drug marketplace and link to 4chan which is just as notorious. The issue is months old and there has been no threat or continued attack - by all means, we should consider the issue resolved and lift the blacklist. Objectively - upon what grounds would you agree to lift the blacklist? Let's try to come to some common ground to resolve this issue. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Without taking any stance on this subject, no WP:AN discussion is going to affect current policy. Your arguments might have merit, Chris, but this is a larger discussion that has to occur elsewhere, say in an RfC or at the Village Pump, not here. Liz 18:04, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

We gladly and willingly supply links to an illicit drug marketplace and link to 4chan which is just as notorious - If you believe this WP:OTHERSTUFF should be blacklisted, then propose that they be added to the blacklist. accusations of copyright infringement and such when Misplaced Pages has no control or interest in it. - We do, for the same reason we don't use blatant copyvio websites for references: contributory copyright infringement. While assuming good faith on the part of the site's operators is all well and good, AGF is not a suicide pact, and the behavior of the people representing the site utterly destroyed any and all good faith the community had regarding archive.is; the reason "there is no threat or continued attack" is because the site was blacklisted. We cannot, based on their past behavior, assume that lifing the blacklist will not result in a resumption of the spamming. It's as simple as that, I'm afraid; after the display that led to the blacklisting, I cannot trust any link to archive.is. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The difference between using a botnet to spam links, and the use of proxies to evade blocks in order to spam links, is a difference without a distinction. The main argument for use of archive.is appears to be that it did not honour robots.txt so archived many pages that legitimate archives did not. Anyone else see the issue here? From my experience as a spam blacklist regular here and on meta in the past, much much less blatant spamming has resulted in global blacklisting before now. This is really very simple: someone came to Misplaced Pages to drive traffic to their ad-supported site, and continued to do this after it was made clear to them that it was inappropriate, including using an unapproved bot. Ideally we need a bot run to clean up their droppings, there are over 22,000 links at present. But if we have to clean them up by hand, then so be it. I just removed a couple of dozen from one article. Nuke 'em as you find 'em I reckon. Guy (Help!) 22:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that everyone should peaceably engage in discussion and civilly discuss it without all the rhetoric. The claims over "ads" and "malware" are utterly baseless and unsubstantiated. There is surprisingly bad faith expressed here and the owner has never stated it was his own doing, but was aware that it was blocked. Above, it was stated that no mass-purging should be done. Revisiting an issue half a year later is by all means warranted, and without labeling some unknown person an international criminal. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

We have been discussing this peacfully. You have provided no plausible non-criminal explanation that would explain a network that included residential IP addresses in third-world countries. Trying to conflate that with a legitimate proxy network is simply wishful thinking, and trying to describe people's well-founded suspicions as "baseless" is (dare I say it?) rhetoric, as is your apparent claim that people have to confess to misbehaviour before people can recognize it as misbehaviour.—Kww(talk) 03:38, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

How can you tell that an IP is a "residential IP address" as opposed to a commercial one? I can't tell you that for this country. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Kww, I said the claims over some ads and malware were baseless and unsubstantiated. There has not been any mass-hijacking, malware or any ad issue to speak of - in the past and now. Much of your argument hinged on the site possibly being used to openly attack users with an active bot net and such. That's a big if. A more mundane explanation than an "illicit botnet" exists in the form of archival requests served via a proxy or script. A few of your RFC "problem IPs" even in the first post did not even make an edit either. Why did you repeatedly name many of these non-editors as "evidence" and from how did they identify with this "bot net"? Examples: 117.223.161.182 - 188.251.236.114 - 85.66.241.59 - 89.228.46.37 - 60.50.51.210 - 122.178.159.163 - 109.175.88.133 You are sticking to the vast unknowns and possibilities some 6 months later. It seems more obvious that these archival requests were being fed (albeit improperly) via some script and accessed by "people" on demand. The whole "botnet" attack thing doesn't seem plausible given the jumps in time and topic as a breaching move. Despite the whole Archive.is blacklist not working for months and the multitude of ways around it, are you still going to say that its because of your blacklist that the problem is resolved? Given all the information we should be able to come to a de-escalation of the blacklist or a temporary lifting and see how this goes. I don't fault you for being cautious, but I do have big concerns about the thousands of articles which are being impacted by this blacklist. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Hawkeye7, by examining the DNS records and routing groups associated with the IP address. ChrisGualtieri, several of the IP addresses were prevented from making the edits by filters, so the contributions do not show in the contribution history. For example

• https://en.wikipedia.org/Special:AbuseLog/9321724 (India)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/Special:AbuseLog/9205305 (Hungary)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:AbuseLog&wpSearchUser=94.155.181.118 (Bulgaria)

IP addresses in multiple countries making exactly the same edit, hammering away on one article day after day. It was the repeated attempts to insert the link in Empire State of Mind that first drew my attention.—Kww(talk) 05:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• Like the others commenting above, I frequently come across changes I cannot revert because there exists links that I cannot resave, and I'm sure others may be frustrated if they came across it and could not understand why. I dealt with the one archive.is link I came across yesterday by commenting it out without the "http://" – not the best or a long-term solution, but I felt it would do the least damage. I felt that removing it outright would be to damage the project. We really ought not to get too overcome by continued paranoia and metaphysical angst. It was a very little but great man who said it matters not that the cat is black or white so long as it catches mice. Damage is being done to this encyclopaedia every day this blacklisting is in place, so we need to be a much stronger dose of pragmatism. -- Ohc  05:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• I find it interesting that the same people who claim the blacklisting was some sort of hysterical knee-jerk are the ones saying things like "damage is being done to Misplaced Pages every day the blacklist is in place". It's not. We have a procedure for dealing with dead URLs. And if you're concerned about a link with a robots.txt strangling the Internet Archive's archive, there's WebCite for that. I frankly find it downright disturbing that there are so many people who are urging we reward the bad behavior of the people who spammed and, when caught spamming, attacked Misplaced Pages to push their website. Yes, "the crisis has passed and the attacks are not continuing". The reason for this is because the site was blacklisted. IF someone is willing to make contact with the people who run archive.is, if they are willing to accept and apologise for their prior conduct, if they are willing to provide a good-faith assurance that they have changed so that such conduct will not occur again, and if we can be certain that their running an end-around sites' robots.txt files would not make Misplaced Pages a party to contributory copyright infringement, then we can open a RfC on removing archive.is from the blacklist (and, heck, in that case I'd support it). Otherwise, just as a blocked editor who is unrepentant stays blocked, a website that engaged in decidedly shady practices to push themselves on Misplaced Pages stays blacklisted. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:23, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

This can be summed up simply as: Webcite doesn't work with it - Archive.is is the only known one that properly captures pages and avoids robots.txt. And you are demanding that someone, who may not have anything to do with it, take the blame and apologize for it and act as some legal shield. We link to some of the worst sites in the internet, prominently, but the matter of Archive.is "copyright infringement" status would be for Foundation's legal team - not us. I understand that at the time there was a real and pressing need for it, given the circumstances, but that's past now and real editors are being affected. This is far from punishing one bad editor - its punishing everyone long after the problem stopped. Its easy to be a naysayer, but if everyone is so confident in their claims, surely WP:ROPE would be appropriate. And that's all I ask. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• @The Bushranger:You say all we need to do is follow procedure to replace duff links. It's fine if it's one or two links, but it isn't always possible if the link is already dead. I'd just ask you to please be a part of the solution instead of part of the continuing problem – the easiest would be removing archive.is from the blacklist and see if the problem re-emerges. If it doesn't, we need to look no further, and are able to get on with normal life. Alternatively, someone can set up a bot to systematically replace existing archive.is urls with valid webcitation or wayback captures. Would you be prepared to undertake either?? -- Ohc  15:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

So your solution would be to have hundreds of thousands of links to someone that abuses people's computers and then apologize afterwards if those connections are used illicitly? And no, WP:ROPE isn't appropriate: it's reasonable to take a risk when all we have to do is clean up this site, because that's well within our power. It's irresponsible to put others at risk.—Kww(talk) 17:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Show us proof that the Archive.is website is a malicious attack website. There is no concrete proof that the owner of the website conducted any attack against Misplaced Pages - its all conjecture. I support what was done at the time, but there has been no evidence raised to support the continuation of the blacklist. Serious allegations call for serious evidence and I am not convinced that Archive.is conducted a massive "illicit botnet" to attack Misplaced Pages with malware and trojans, especially since there has never been any malware associated with the site - or ads. I'm left to the conclusion that someone did something wrong, but that party is unknown, and the Archive.is website never has been a threat to Misplaced Pages or our users. If you can show proof that the owner was behind it few people would question the continuation of the blacklist. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Very few people question the evidence or the continuance of the blacklist today, nor is concrete proof required before taking defensive steps.—Kww(talk) 17:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Am I missing something? Should we not replace the (potential copyright violation) archive.is links by a link to the original (dead) web site and an archive date? Does that not preserve all the relevant information against the possibility that (1) archive.is might be unblacklisted or (2) a legitimate archive or personal copy can be found? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

There are over 20,000 links (in itself circumstantial evidence of systemic abuse), so I think we need to find a botmaster to strip them. Most are additive, not replacements. Guy (Help!) 20:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to say that 20,000 links to an archiving site is "evidence of systemic abuse". How many links are there to WebCite, or archive.org? — Makyen (talk) 21:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I remember this well because of the backdrop. With the perennial scary donation request at the top with donation totals that never changed, Webcite made it look like it was about to close down, and the options for similar features to it were few if you want pre-emptive archiving. Fearing its demise, I myself added probably in excess of a hundred archive links to archive.is instead of webcitation, and this was before the alleged spamming incident. The Icelandic site is well thought out, user-friendly, with a one-click tool to archive a page from the toolbar of the browser. Beats Webcite by more than a short head, because with the latter you are still wondering if it is still working 3 minutes and three archive screens later. This advanced functionality is what I believe contributed to the large number of links to that archive and not the spamming, as I believe most of those were blocked and reversed. -- Ohc  06:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ohconfucius: Just FYI: I created/modified a few bookmarklets to make archiving easier. Bookmarklets for one click archiving to WebCite and archive.org of a page you are viewing are listed at Misplaced Pages:Citing sources/Further considerations#Archiving bookmarklets.

Bookmarklets for one click searching for archives of a page which you have found to be dead are available at WP:LINKROT#Internet archives for archive.org, WebCite and Mementos.

All of the bookmarklets will open in new tabs instead of disturbing the tab you are wanting to archive or for which you want to find archives. — Makyen (talk) 10:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

As has been mentioned, this is not the appropriate forum to have a discussion about implementing the removal of archive.is from the blacklist. There was a consensus formed that archive.is should be blacklisted with the knowledge that it would cause the issues which are being experienced now. Administrators are implementing that consensus. It would be inappropriate for them to decide here to go against that consensus by removing archive.is from the blacklist. If it is desired that archive.is be removed from the blacklist then a new RfC needs to be held with at least as wide participation as the last one to demonstrate a consensus for removal. — Makyen (talk) 21:06, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The administrators are not bound to a flawed consensus, one resulting from an RFC that was neither promoted to the wider community nor neutrally opened. As a wide user of archive.is I didn't know about the discussion until I found I could no longer add links. DWB / Are you a bad enough dude to GA Review The Joker? 23:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Seconding the above. If I had known about the RfC, I would have participated in it. Only a close circle of participants were aware of it, and got involved in it, and these people happened to be those who already had prior knowledge about the issue, and thus already had an opinion over it. The RfC was conducted without the overall community being informed, despite being an important decision which covers many, many articles. --benlisquare_T•C•E 05:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

By "without the overall community being informed", do you mean "listed for more than a month on centralized discussions"? T. Canens (talk) 14:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Heh, looks like I missed that. My mistake, carry on. --benlisquare_T•C•E 21:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• 2 and a half possibilities and a question: Considering those bot/accounts were manage by Archive.is owners (yes, I have read, it has not been proven still), I thought there might be three possibilities of their arhive.is link flooding, 1) Web Archive clearly states that they will not use ad unless it is absolutely necessary (ref: latest Meta discussion), but I have not seen any such claim or commercial scope details for Archive.is. Who may say, they may start adding Adsense ads in their pages. 2) the second possibility— they were unaware that wikipedia uses "nowfollow" links for external links, most probably they were trying to get thousands of "dofollow" links or they were trying to improve their page ranks. This way or that so many links from Misplaced Pages SURELY makes BIG impact on both Alexa rank and Google PR, and if they start using ads, there will be $$$$. 3) the third reason, they were actually trying to help Misplaced Pages, but I don't think it is a valid reason, so, it is a "half" reason, "Two and a half possibilities" in total.
  Although in the main post of this thread, I mentioned only "reversion problem" we have been facing, if I see suggestion to unblacklist Archive.is, the first thing I would like to know, "Why?" "Why were they doing so?" — it is still not clear to me. Tito☸Dutta 07:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I also would have participated in the RfC, had I known about it. I only found out about it months later. After the fact, there appeared to be little or no information anywhere other than at the RfC itself that there was a problem with archive.is, or that archive.is was not permitted to be used on enwiki. There was nothing that I saw at any of the help pages dealing with citations and archiving until mid/late March. I know this because I added most of the brief mentions of the situation after I found out about it in this thread on VPPT.

There appears to be a significant disconnect between the level of concern that people are expressing here and how slowly action occurred after the RfC was closed. The RfC was closed at the end of October.

• No large scale effort has yet occurred to remove links from articles. Yes, individual editors have removed them, but nothing on the order that is needed to get 20,000 links.
• Until 10 February 2014 archive.is was listed as one of the services to use for preemptive archiving (although not highly recommended).
• Archive.is was not blacklisted until 4.5 months after the RfC was closed.

• As best I can tell blacklisting was sometime between 18 March 2014 and 20 March 2014. It was not blacklisted at the start of this thread on VPPT and I encountered the new blacklisting of archive.is with these two edits.
• There appears to be a bit of a problem with confused semantics here. It is not possible that it was the blacklisting of archive.is that stopped the editing by the IPs. The IPs stopped (early October) 5.5 months prior to archive.is being blacklisted (late March). It was the blocking of the IPs that stopped them from editing, not the blacklisting of archive.is.

I don't have a problem with there being a significant delay between the RfC closure and actions. I am not trying to take anyone to task for not moving forward. I'm just trying to say that the sky did not fall down during the 4.5 months between the close of the RfC and putting archive.is on the blacklist. It is probably not falling down now. We can remain calm and talk this out, even have another RfC, if that is warranted.

If I had been aware of the RfC, I honestly don't know how I would have voted at the time. I'm not certain how I would vote now, as I want more information prior to deciding. The actions that were performed were definitely ones which lead to grave concerns about continued dealings with the responsible party. The fact that it has been reported the owner of archive.is did not deny he controlled the bot nor that he was responsible for the anonymous IP edits is of great concern. However, I do believe there are questions which remain unanswered.

@Titodutta: As to why they continued to press on once the bot was initially blocked: I have no idea and I can't come up with a good reason that takes into account the response from WP (blocking/removal) which was obvious and expected in advance of the precipitating actions. With the assumption that the desire was to have more links on Misplaced Pages for a longer time, I see no good reason for acting the way the person controlling the bot did. What it appears they wanted to accomplish (having the bot add links) could have been accomplished, even then, by coming back, taking responsibility, taking some lumps and finishing the approvals process. The links would have been welcomed and in 10x larger quantities which would have stayed for years. Proceeding in the way they did was near certain to result in a much worse outcome with respect to the number and longevity of the links. The fact that this is the case, and that it was easily foreseeable, leads me to wonder about other possible motives rather than the obvious ones (adding links).

If adding links was the real goal, only someone very short-sighted, or self-oriented in perspective would have continued the way that it happened. Continuing at that point to add links via anonymous IPs, etc. has clear and obvious consequences that should have been able to be seen by the person doing it. Only someone who did not believe the consequences would happen to them, could not or did not see the high probability consequences, or wanted the consequences would have continued. — Makyen (talk) 10:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Its clear the edit filter was not working, nor had it been, for quite some time, but I cannot actually view the history because it is hidden. As a result, it seems that there is far more to this blacklist issue because Kww seems to have hinted to reinstated the blacklist in February in what seems to be an apparent admission of wheel warring.Diff Again... I can't see it, so someone needs to look into this. Kww may not have made a neutral RFC, but there is no question that Misplaced Pages had a clear problem with this bot - but it seems that this issue will need either a community RFC or Arbitration if this is to be resolved. I well understand and appreciate the work done by those who work in this technical area, but this thread continues to bring up more questions than answers... In short, the argument that the attack was/is halted by the blacklist seems to be unsupported. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/December_2013#archive.is shows that the blacklist was not in place by December - long after the supposed close and without further attack. Hobit, the non-admin closer stated, "Per the RFC, the blacklist shouldn't be implemented until most/all of those links are removed. Doing so would, as I understand it, make it nearly impossible to edit these articles. I've not been tracking bot issue, but I think User:Kww is on it." And issues with it were raised by @Wbm1058: and @Lukeno94:, but again the blacklist post removal was affirmed as that was not the place to fight it. However, I think its fairly clear that the blacklist was not done on schedule and that the closer's request was not followed. Surely, if the "attack" was halted by the blacklist and not the blocks, it would have been apparent. I think we need transparency - can someone please provide the history of that edit filter? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:16, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

What edit filter are you talking about? I haven't been following this discussion particularly closely, but the only edit filter I've seen anyone mention is 526, which is already public. You're not mistaking the spam blacklist for an edit filter, are you? They're two different things. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:48, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion Special:AbuseFilter/559 is referred to via Special:AbuseFilter/593 to prevent Archive.is links, but Archive.is was said still not to be on a blacklist in this discussion: MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#Now_what_to_do.3F. According to the RFC, a blacklist was supposed to be made following the removal of the links - this was never done and I can't view the edit filter or see the "blacklisting". Why is filter 559 private anyways? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:08, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, several weekends later, Kww, the initiator of that RfC, has finally filed a bot request for approval. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

There's a really disappointing comment in that bot request. "and its alias, archive.today, which was put in place to bypass the blacklist" really drives home that archive.is doesn't give a damn about anyone else and will not work with Misplaced Pages. Until that attitude changes, archive.is (and any other alias they come up with) should not be welcomed on Misplaced Pages. Ravensfire (talk) 18:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

How do you know that the alias was put in place to bypass the blacklist? Did you confirm with the webmaster? Let's not jump to conclusions here: as of present, all archive.is URLs redirect to archive.today, they might have just had a domain name problem or something. "archive.today" is not an alias, it is the actual domain where the site is hosted, since archive.is is no longer the main domain. --benlisquare_T•C•E 21:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The accusation that Archive.today is to bypass the edit filter - and coincidentally without any attack or mass additions - is disgraceful and naked fearmongering. Its been redirecting for weeks all without a single attack and the edit filter is still by-passable and ineffective in the face of a minimally competent spammer. If there was any threat, it would have been apparent in the last half year. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

According to the webmaster himself (see http://blog.archive.today/): "ISNIC (the .is domains registry) is being attacked by social hackers so I am about to lose the domain archive.is". --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:12, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

And there we have it, the owner gave a reason three weeks ago. The mundane explanation over the fanciful is usually the correct one. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:47, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Alternative

After seeing, and agreeing with Ark25's comment that there should be an archiving tool more closely tied to wikipedia. I created a small hack, http://archive.grok.se - anyone interested in giving it a try? Sample output: http://archive.grok.se/G-3dP4Gc-NQmeZ4JSnCzuVZkdB6pBUSKPS2Xh_lvP_M. One key point is that it should not be possible to alter the contents of an archived link without it being detectable. It's only about 24 hours old at this point, so there's bound to be a few rough edges. henrik•talk 10:28, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Brilliant work User:Henrik, Looks like it is taking snapshot of the webpage and dividing it into pages, even if the actual article do not have pages. The text is unclear as well, most probably for the snapshot image resolution.
  Good or bad, a work has been started at least to create an archiving system.
  I strongly recommend to take this initiative forward, "our Misplaced Pages, our archiving system" Do you mean it can't be used in WP articles now? --Tito☸Dutta 11:07, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Instead of just saving the source of web pages as archive.org does, this tool pretty much prints it - hence the pages. So the output is close to what you get if you hit the print button in your browser (some good sites will have print css that help this). This has some good and some bad aspects; the good is that dynamic content is stored without any dependencies and that it, akin to the low resolution images we store under fair use, is created in such a manner that is not likely to replace the market role of the original copyrighted material. It is also why links and text selection doesn't work - it's meant to be a viewer of a snapshot and not a replacement for the original site. The same things also make it not very useful as a proxy or to browse anonymously. Most pages can be somewhat reasonably printed, even though the formatting often leaves something to be desired the contents is nearly always readable. Which I personally think is good enough for a tool such as this.

A hint: I think the text will be more clear if you open the pdf file (the download link under archival date) in a separate pdf viewer. It will also allow you to select/copy text. PDF.js is still a bit rough, but hopefully it will improve over time. I can always add better navigation, zoom tools and look into the text rendering if people find http://archive.grok.se interesting and start using it :) henrik•talk 11:31, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Hi User:Henrik I did not try the PDF link, I just checked the webpage and that's what we'll need here. Devanagari script (Devanagari script is a kind of Indian script used for Hindi, Sanskrit etc) is not being displayed properly, if you see my link above, you'll find boxes.
  Has WMF given any indication that they'll start their own web page archiving service? I mean WMF's official webpage archiving service? If not, then, a user initiative will be superb.
  I am not sure, for a large project you may need finance, I am not much experienced, but you may keep meta:Grants:IEG in mind. Tito☸Dutta 11:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Ah, good of you to spot that! I didn't have very many fonts installed on the machine it runs on. I installed Devanagari fonts - tried with your example, and it appears to render correctly now: http://archive.grok.se/OhhlFC8pbJ_O-OZObkjGz5_4w_oJMBSm17H1yXPt9Vo. The latin glyphs should also be a little bit less ugly. My view is that if and when it turns out to be a large enough project that it needs funding, we'll cross that bridge then. Hopefully it can run on spare cycles and storage for a while. I've gotten help from the WMF to run my other Misplaced Pages related service, http://stats.grok.se, so it's not inconceivable they would be willing to help out with this as well. :) henrik•talk 12:17, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I think we should start a project for promoting the idea of Misplaced Pages having it's own archive. It will take some time until it will take off, but we should provide a location for people who want to support the idea. In time, we'll find out how much it costs and other important details, and in the end, one day we'll probably make it happen. —  Ark25  (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I repeated myself in the message above. We need a page like Project:Misplaced Pages's own news archive. Thanks Henrik for the good job! Such works should be part of the project. —  Ark25  (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Bulk removals without replacement

See these too: User_talk:Werieth#Joker, User_talk:Werieth#archive.is_in_Tintin_article Andy Dingley (talk) 22:38, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not just bulk removing, in most cases I'm replacing with either an archive.org or webcite replacement. --Werieth (talk) 23:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to ban JOttawa16 from political articles

User:JOttawa16 has proven not to be able to be neutral when editing political articles. He has created "Decade of Darkness" twice and "Harper Derangement Syndrome" both of which were basically attack articles against liberals. Since the deletion of decade of darkness he attempted to add it to several articles, despite being told not to. It seems to be clear that he cannot edit political articles without being bias. JDDJS (talk) 03:18, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. "Harper Derangement Syndrome" was an eye-opener for me because it was such a blatant, even laughably biased attack article, from an editor who has been around long enough to know better. He knows full well about WP:NPOV. But I'd say he's demonstrated most recently that he doesn't really care much about it. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• My only other comment is that we'd also need to watch out for more WP:COATRACK articles like "Decade of Darkness," which was ostensibly a military article, even as it was clearly another anti-Liberal Party of Canada attack page, at least when I saw it. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. I really can't understand how any user could possibly create such a biased attack article. You don't have to be a long-time user, overly familiar with Misplaced Pages guidelines and policies, or even particularly knowledgeable about Misplaced Pages decorum. Common sense would seem to indicate that this kind of disruptive trolling would be unwelcome anywhere. It shows an inability to edit political articles and a complete disdain for NPOV. To me, his behavior with respect to the "Decade of Darkness" is secondary, but it shows how determined he is to use Misplaced Pages as a soapbox. He seems to see nothing disruptive about his behavior and quotes "the truth" as his justification (see the discussion at the recent AfD). I don't think he's going to change. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban - Interacting with this user and the many pro-Conservative Party of Canada and anti-Liberal Party of Canada articles he has created and then which had to be deleted, it has become very clear that WP:NOTHERE applies. From his edit history this editor is clearly using Misplaced Pages as a WP:SOAPBOX to promote his own political agenda and in a very blatant and unsophisticated manner as well. His user talk page has a list of these articles. The Canadian news media has carried stories discussing how the Conservative Party of Canada pays its members to flood forums, news and discussion groups, news site comments and other user-created content websites with pro-party propaganda and the behaviour of this user is consistent with such practices. - Ahunt (talk) 12:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment I would like to see your evidence that I'm a paid person of any political party. Otherwise, I suggest you retract your ridiculous statement immediately. JOttawa16 (talk) 22:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Comment - If you actually read what I actually wrote I didn't say you were a paid political contributor. - Ahunt (talk) 14:06, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• Seems reasonable to me. That is quite a blatant attack. -DJSasso (talk) 13:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Comment While I think it is good to be concise, I also think some evidence should be submitted in the form of diffs/links to support the proposal being sought. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:18, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Both Decade of Darkness and Harper Deragment Syndrome have been deleted, so I could not provide links to them. JDDJS (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I looked at Harper Deragment Syndrome here, courtesy of google and it doesn't appear to be an attack page. He's writing about what has already been written, in fact, his sources show that it's a neologism covered by more than one source source 1 passing mention occurs here where another politician is described as having harper derangment syndrome and finally this one - this one might not be reliable

His first link is broken to be sure , but it's easily fixed or replaced with this one . The article itself says what the sources themselves said, no coatrack, no syn nor any or. Now, I wasn't able to find the second article, but the first article appears to be ok and not an attack. KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 16:25, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• • I disagree with you. Just because it is sourced, does not mean it's not an attack article. He wrote the article as if it was an actual mental illness. If saying that people who disagree with you are mentally ill is not an attack, then what is? JDDJS (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Are you shitting me? "Harper Derangement Syndrome (HDS) is "a mental illness that affects Canadian supporters of the left-wing New Democratic Party of Canada and Liberal Party of Canada'..." isn't an attack page? It goes on and on like this, in just that tone. As I said at the Afd, yes, "foo derangement syndrome" is a widely used term. Plug in Bush, or Obama or yes, even Trudeau, and you get Ghits. But this article was written as a pure attack page. It wasn't about the term, it was using Misplaced Pages as a WP:SOAP for the term, in it's most extreme POV way. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Shawn I assure you I'm not. However, just so you know, I'm not a Harper hater, nor a supporter, I hadn't heard of him until this report. Howervr, a description of Harper's Derangment appears here and he didn't quote it word for word. He paraphrased it. Could that description be worded better ? Sure! However, it's not an attack page. KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 19:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I won't badger on this point. IMO it could not be more clearly a textbook Misplaced Pages:Attack page. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:13, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't know what KV is talking about, clearly an attack page. BMK (talk) 00:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

When are we going to delete Campaign for "santorum" neologism and War on Women as an attack pages, then?--v/r - TP 00:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Never? The lead to the second one begins quite neutrally "War on Women is an expression in United States politics used to describe..." This is not at all what we have here. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 00:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

"...certain Republican Party policies..." All article start out neutral, at least until they get to the "..is.." or "...used to..." And the Santorum page? Misplaced Pages should not be writing articles about all the crap that gets created and spread on election years to smear others.--v/r - TP 00:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't neccessarily have done that. I'd just look at focusing "War on Women" to the feminist movement and remove the political coatracking. Then I'd delete Santorum altogether. Although I very much doubt it'll get deleted, my point is that all it takes is for a well known politician to bash their opponent and all of that politician's supporters to raise the banners and blog about it before the mainstream media reports on it and whatdalyahave - a fully sanctioned attack page. Our policies fully support this.--v/r - TP 02:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. It might be useful if an admin could copy these deleted pages to a temporary space so that people can see them. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban - this is an editor who, alas, seems unable or unwilling to drop the stick regarding the particular point of view that he's been pushing. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:38, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban - per Bushranger et al. BMK (talk) 00:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban HDS was a clear attack on the opposition parties and their supporters. TFD (talk) 01:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support block or topic ban Misplaced Pages is not a political toy for bashing others. It's bad enough when new editors think it is, but when established editors demonstrate clear abuse of this project while knowing better, they need to be removed from areas where they can not display proper judgement.--v/r - TP 01:31, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban Laurentian consensus seems to be the latest example. The user seems intent to make articles where they can put forward their bias. If you make an article on a term used only by people with your bias, you know that all the "sources" will agree with your bias, and you can pretend that you're just following the sources. This problem can't be dealt with by just AFD'ing each case. Because, the user still gets to put out their bias for as long as the article lasts, and then a new one is created after that. Editing an established article means an instant revert, but that's not possible with new articles, where all the content is bias, and there's no neutral version to revert to. At a minimum, there should be a limit imposed on creating new political articles. --Rob (talk) 17:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban. Seems obvious this editor is not cut out to edit in this area. --John (talk) 17:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose This is ridiculous. I have a Masters degree in political science and I love helping my community however possible. I have only ever written non-partisan articles that are well-researched and supported by ample evidence. At the same time as this individual nominated me for a topic ban, he also nominated several of my articles for deletion, clearly as a form of harassment and attempting to silence the truth. This is obviously a violation of WP:PA and WP:HA. JOttawa16 (talk) 22:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose, qualified. If the material is reliably sourced, then the wording may need to be changed to make clear that it is a section or article about ideas that are held by particular individuals. The narrower the segment holding them, the narrower the media and public interest, the less space should be given, but no one should be banned from a topic because they wish to report on unsavory perspectives. Specific sets of American attitudes in the South regarding slavery were abhorrent; no one would ever suggest we should not allow coverage of them. If, however, other interested editors provide necessary balance, and Mr Ottawa reverts or wars, then that would change matters. Bottom line, if reputable sources are talking about these subject, however ludicrous or offensive we might find them, it deserves mention here, with space allocated on the basis of the importance and magnitude of the discussion. (We need people to relay—not champion, but relay—reputable reports about Lars von Trier words at Cannes in 2011.) To not allow such perspectives to be voiced, or to slay the messengers (which, at times, will agree with the message, other time not) is a frightening course for Misplaced Pages. Rather than ever put this forward in the affirmative, I would elevate this. To topic ban for an editor's for choice of material alone is very troubling. There are things that each of us might wish silenced, for unsavoriness, at WP. Don't do it. Silencing dissent is a pernicious temptation. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • The main issue was neutrality in the articles, rather than whether they should have been written. One article for example began, "Harper Derangement Syndrome (HDS) is "a mental illness that affects Canadian supporters of the left-wing New Democratic Party of Canada and Liberal Party of Canada'..." In fact, the "disease" is not listed in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. We do not begin the article on Von Trier by saying he is the best director in the world, just because he said so. TFD (talk) 15:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • What you're proposing is that it's okay for politicians to use Misplaced Pages to gain coverage for whatever kind of foul sewage they spew as long as they can get the media to report on it. No need to worry about facts or truth, we're just going to be a gossip blog from henceforth - a reliably sourced gossip blog. The solution isn't to write "the crap stinks" in neutral words, the solution is to not allow the project to be used to bring attention to mudslinging in the first place. The BS that comes out of election years ins't at all notable. New BS will come out 2 - 4 years later that will get just as much "ooo" and "awe". WP:NOTPOLITICALTOOL.--v/r - TP 19:58, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • The problem here, Prof, is that the articles are not written as netural analyses of the subjects. They're written as attack-and-slander POV-pushing pieces, and the editor in question continues doing this, repeatedly, despite having been told in no uncertan terms that it's unacceptable. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:42, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support - this is obvious and the editor will get off lightly if this is all that we do. Anyone who can create articles saying the Harper thing is a mental illness is probably shouldn't be here at all, but perhaps this will turn him into an acceptable editor. Dougweller (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support topic ban or site ban. I wasn't familiar with any of this, so I read some of the deleted articles, and was appalled. Harper Derangement Syndrome was a no-holds-barred piece of political much-spreading. The sheer dishonesty of it was staggering, claiming that HDS "is a mental illness" without any attempt to offer any evidence of any medical support for the term, let alone evidence of a clinical consensus in support of it. Decade of Darkness did it at least start by acknowledging that it "was a term coined", rather than presenting it as a fact, but it used the term as a coatrack for a highly partisan analysis of Canada's defence budget. In some ways this was worse, because it had better chance of sneaking under the radar. Some of the material might have been have usable in a broad article on military spending in Canada, but this was a blatant POV fork.
  The reason that I support a site ban is that an editor who does sort of thing in one topic area is quite capable of doing it elsewhere, and I see no benefit to the community in simply displacing this activity to other topics. JOttawa16 claims above to have a Masters degree in political science, and if it's true that they are educated to that level, then they will know perfectly well that what they have been doing is unacceptable. This is an editor who is clearly WP:NOTHERE, and the project should take an unequivocal stand against editors who abuse Misplaced Pages's purpose in this way.
  However, if there isn't consensus for a full site ban, I will support the proposed topic ban as a lesser but important step. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• User's edit here shows that he cannot understand consensus. Six votes for deletion (two of them suggesting speedy), two weak keeps (one from an IP) and a keep from the creator. And yet, he can't see the clear consensus for deletion. JDDJS (talk) 06:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you TParis I wasn't going to mention the Santorum article, but yes, I agree, it's an attack article and needs to be delted as such. KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 10:54, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't going to mention the Santorum article, but yes, I agree, it's an attack article and needs to be delted as such.

Wrong. Completely wrong. Look at the list of references. The Washington Post, ABC News, Time magazine, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Routledge, Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, ricksantorum.com, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Chicago Tribune, Fox News, PC Magazine, MSBNC, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The New York Times, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, .... — goethean 15:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

my point is that all it takes is for a well known politician to bash their opponent and all of that politician's supporters to raise the banners and blog about it before the mainstream media reports on it and whatdalyahave - a fully sanctioned attack page. Yes, we know there are sources. Any politician who opens their mouth will get repeated in reliable sources. That's a weakness and loophole in our policy.--v/r - TP 17:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Are you replying to me? That may be an issue with the media, but Misplaced Pages can't fix the media. — goethean 18:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I was replying to you, and yes I know. Which is why I don't normally bother arguing the point. But a fix in policy specifically aimed at election years would go a long way toward these 'fully sanctioned attack articles' and the editors who battle in political topics to create and bias them.--v/r - TP 18:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

What's interesting is that even the media which wants and intends to be neutral (i.e. they aren't running with the story because it supports their intrinsic POV) will repeat the story because it's "out there", and failing to report it would leave them open to charges of bias from the ideological media. The end result is that there's no longer any real barrier that prevents those kinds of stories from running pretty much everywhere. That is a systemic flaw created by the contemporary re-introduction of ideological mass media outlets (something which had almost disappeared), the 24 hour news cycle (which creates the need to fill time) and instanteneous reporting from practically anywhere on earth (which puts a premium on delivering stories and doesn't allow time for them to be checked before airing) - and we suffer from the fallout. BMK (talk) 19:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure, there are huge problems with the contemporary mass media, and BMK rightly notes some of the big ones.
But Misplaced Pages is not just another mass media outlet struggling for market share, nor is it like journalism the first draft of history; it is an encyclopedia, striving to document topics of long-term significance from an NPOV perspective. That means, for example, that we approach a topic from an NPOV perspective, rather than doing what JOttawa16 did, which is to take a soundbite and use it as a coatrack for a POV-fork of an encyclopedic topic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:52, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

It reminds me of a programming principle: Garbage in, garbage out. If the media is producing the crap and that is what we use the develop articles, then are we really producing a high quality encyclopedia or a one-stop-shop archival service of crappy news? We have to have some kind of editorial filter, as we do for every other topic (notability guidelines), for election/politics related neologisms and political attack platforms. WP:Political Platforms (notability) would be a start.--v/r - TP 22:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:POVFORK covers a lot of this already. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:18, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban for User:LCcritic

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

LCcritic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This editor has made clear that they are solely here to promote a fringe theory regarding the theory of relativity, and in over half a year they have made no edits outside of this topic area. Jason Quinn, among several other editors, has asked them to stop using their talk page as a forum to promote their theories. In response, LCcritic has made clear that they have no intention of stopping voluntarily.

Beyond their user talk page, LCcritic has attempted to promote their views at VP/P, in three different help desk requests in which they argued against the mainstream answers provided, and in an extended discussion at Talk:Length contraction.

I suggest that this editor has drawn enough community resources, and propose a one year topic ban from discussion related to relativity, broadly construed, including their user space. VQuakr (talk) 03:50, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support User talk:LCcritic is an affirmation of WP:NOTHERE and stuff like this WP:VPP archive is just wasting community energy. Johnuniq (talk) 05:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• (ec) Wow! That contribution list is pure unadulterated monomania! The editor is clearly WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia, but to push one very particular and specific WP:Fringe theory. He or she is very clearly the type of editor the loss of which would not damage the project in the least, and would, in fact, improve things a tiny bit, so I would go farther than VQ and suggest that the correct response here is not a topic ban, but an indef block. BMK (talk) 05:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
  • So, my first choice is Support indef block, but if other members of the community are less bloodthirsty than I am (they usually are), then I also Support topic ban if that's want people want. I still feel it's a mistake to take half-measures, but something is better than nothing. BMK (talk) 05:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Allow me to play devil's advocate here. I did a little searching (forgive me if I've missed anything) and found that LCcritic has never been taken to ANI, AN, or Arb and has no previous blocks. I checked the talk page and saw someone mentioning discretionary sanctions regarding FRINGE, but no formal warning has been given. I haven't checked all the edits to articles, but I didn't even see a Twinkle warning template. I didn't check all his edits, although I noticed that a large share were on his talk page and Wiki related, where we normally give editors a lot of leeway. He has 8 article contribs and no edit warring, and he is responsive when asked questions. I'm open minded but not entirely convinced that all other options have been exhausted, as this is the first formal complaint ever filed. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 11:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I would say "devil's advocate" is a misnomer here, Dennis Brown. Everyone deserves due consideration when a ban has been proposed and I appreciate your open mindedness. To address your point, though - I do see a number of Twinkle warnings that are at least peripherally relevant to WP:FORUM here. VQuakr (talk) 19:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• LCcritic has provided abundant evidence that there is no hope of getting any positive contribution despite having been repeatedly told that her/his behavior is inappropriate, and not just by me. I'm all for editor retention when there is hope, but this is an utterly lost cause. Paradoctor (talk) 12:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

  someone mentioning discretionary sanctions regarding FRINGE, but no formal warning has been given.... I didn't even see a Twinkle warning template.
  Um, hooray? We shouldn't be "warning" people about the consequences of past problems, since those past problems aren't their fault; we should just be "telling" them. We have some evidence that canned warnings are less effective at creating good editors than personalized messages. The situation you describe is a cause for rejoicing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

BTW, we are not LCcritic's first choice of forum. Paradoctor (talk) 12:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

That isn't an administrative board. This is the first time someone has asked for sanctions against them formally, and the sanctions they are asking for is an indef block, for all intent and purposes (as topic bans for SPAs have the same result). Before blocking someone, I need to be sure that it really is the only option. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 12:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding. The diff is intended to show that LCcritic already had a history of spamming this "theory" outside of Misplaced Pages: "Wherever I raise the question" "I am either called a crank (and banned from science forums) or told that challenging mainstream length contraction is inappropriate" (my emphasis) Paradoctor (talk) 12:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

As an admin, I can't really use offwiki information as evidence, as I don't have a way to verify it, and because we hold people responsible only for what they do here, with exceptions only for when those actions affect Misplaced Pages. Just like SPhilbrick, I don't hold a lot of faith that this won't eventually end up badly, but I think this might be just a little premature. If he had a week or two of mentoring on POLICY (without debating the merits of his edits), then it would be an easier sell to just indef block him. IMHO, a topic ban is a bit passive aggressive when dealing with an SPA, and being an SPA isn't against policy. What I don't want to see is someone get indef blocked purely out of convenience, particularly when most of his edits are to his easy to avoid talk page. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

"offwiki information" Those are LCcritic's words, not mine or anybody else's.

"mentoring" I think I speak pretty much for everyone acquainted with LCcritic when I say that he had more than his fair share of being pointed out relevant policy. OTOH, if that is what it takes to convince you, I'm all for it.

"SPA" I have no problem with SPAs, I have a problem with disruptive editors.

"easy to avoid talk page" We're not a web host, there is tons of free webspace out there. Paradoctor (talk) 14:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, talk page stuff doesn't bother me as long as it is related to articles in some way. Many admin are that way. That said, I do see the problem, and I agree something needs to be done. I just think we need at least one solid effort to rehabilitate before we banish someone. I'm not sure what that one effort should be, but under no circumstance am I recommending doing nothing. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 14:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support (I am an involved editor, not an admin.) LCcritic keeps returning to arguments which have long since been addressed, instead of countering the points raised against them. It's like talking to a deaf brick. While I don't expect LCcritic to beat any live horses in the future, his style of debate is an argument for an indef block. If LCcritic ever feels like contributing constructively, the burden of proof should be on him/her. I don't want to see another saga like this on a psychological topic. Paradoctor (talk) 12:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support (involved editor) — User had 4 formal warnings for addition of unsourced content in articles: 1st for this on Tests of special relativity, 2nd for this on Philosophy of science, 3rd for this on Criticism of the theory of relativity, 4th for this on Length contraction.
  In addition they had 3 formal warnings for article talk page abuse: 1st for this and 2nd for this at Talk:Length contraction, 3rd for this at Talk:Relativity of simultaneity.
  A little overview of (not already mentioned) shopped forums and user talk pages where informal warnings about reliable sources, fringe, consensus, and failing to get the point, have been given:

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Request board#Non-mainstream views of relativity.
• Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Relativity#Criticism of relativity not allowed.
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics/Taskforces/Relativity#No_evidence_for_length_contraction
• Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 85#Criticisms of the theory of relativity. Entry was closed by as failed WP:SYN by user Mdann52.
• Misplaced Pages:Village_pump (policy)#Critics of relativity... "viewpoints are not accepted by the scientific community.", dismissed as wp:FRINGE by 11 contributors. Finally closed as wrong forum by Jayron32
• User talk:LCcritic (removed)
• User talk:WikiDan61 User talk:WikiDan61#DVdm's removal of my "talk" comments on length contraction
• User talk:WikiDan61#no access to message DVdm
• User talk:DVdm/Archive 2013#Removal of content at Talk:Length contraction
• User talk:DVdm/Archive 2013#I am very lame navigating
• User talk:DVdm/Archive 2013#Article leads allowed philosophical bias
• User talk:Modocc/Archive 1
• User talk:Modocc#Contractions
• User talk:Robert McClenon#Content issue; criticisms of relativity; dispute resolution: "...though Paradoctor and DVdm insisted on making it about me, as a full-on ad hominem attack full of insults about my supposed ignorance." and reply

- DVdm (talk) 12:51, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose (largely epr Dennis) I've read enough to predict that this editor will not be a productive contributor, but I see a clean block log. I see some warnings about sources, but I see active engagement on the user talk page. What I do not see is an RfC on the user. My guess is that the editor realizes that the views are not gaining traction, but where is the clear statement that editing style must change or the editor will be banned? I can easily imagine a magazine interview where LCcritic agrees there was some pushback on views, but believes the ban request came from nowhere. We can point to warnings that certain action could lead to a block, but if there is a warning that LCcritic could be banned, I do not see it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:25, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Provisional Oppose (uninvolved). I think this is a bit of a dilemma either way. On the one hand, I agree with Sphilbrick and Dennis Brown, but on the other, I think doing nothing can also be taken to implicitly encourage this for as long as possible, and in the absence of seeing how the user reacts to even a shorter block, an RfC/U has a chance of killing more contributor time than anything. I think the only real option is for an administrator to attempt to engage with the user, and if that fails to produce results, go to the short block stage first. If there is some joy from that route, then RfC/U is the way to go. If nothing changes, then progressive blocks. Need more evidence of dispute resolution to support a topic ban - if that is what is being sought. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC) I modified my opposition to provisional, pending what he does now having received the DS alert. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

  Having reviewed his responses so far ( ) to the alert and warning, and given that I also largely agree with Fut.Perf. below, I'm no longer formally opposing any measure which can possibly emerge from this discussion. For the same reason, I have also struck my comment about progressive/escalating blocks. That said, if he still doesn't get it when he comments next, I continue to prefer a short block of no less than 48 hours and no more than 1 week under the DS regime in the first instance, as it may lead to him disengaging or acting in a fashion which would be sufficient to shortcircuit the need for this. But if after the short block he returns without heeding what he has been told or reconsidering what he is doing here, I would be prepared to formally support a ban. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm also not an admin but I, too, believe in escalating blocks for editors seen as disruptive to see if a warning or short-duration block can affect their behavior and move them in a more constructive, collaborative direction. This view applies to disputes over content, if this was a conduct dispute (like socking, vandalism, outing, etc.), I can see moving swiftly but not in this case. But then, I believe that editors should only be disciplined for their behavior, not for their beliefs or ideas. As long as an editor abides by Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines (like WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV), I don't see disagreement over content as inherently destructive or damaging to the project. Liz 15:26, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

There is no content dispute. Everything proposed by LCcritic has been unanimously rejected by every single involved editor, and LCcritic has been repeatedly given the reasons and pointed to applicable policy and guidelines. There has not been a single voice in support of his edits and edit proposals, and all pertaining arguments have concluded months ago. This is about an editor who is simply WP:NOTGETTINGIT. Paradoctor (talk) 16:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. I don't see Dennis' argument as compelling – it doesn't matter if he has been at administrative boards before; he clearly has been told sufficiently often, by multiple parties, that what he's doing is disruptive; he's deliberately and systematically refused to take that on board. I also don't see the benefit of first handing out shorter blocks – his sanctions can be lifted any time if and when he changes his mind about why he thinks he's here, but there is nothing that would make me expect he'd do that specifically in, say, one week, or two weeks, or a month. Finally, as for Sphilbrick's point about bans versus warnings, I don't really see the difference. A warning would mean: "stop doing what you're doing, or else ". A topic ban would mean: "stop doing what you're doing, or else ". They boil down to the same thing, because there is only one single thing he has ever done on this project, and that is the very thing we want him to stop doing. Finally, I also don't see the benefit of a user RfC. User RfCs are for unclear or disputed situations, where community consensus about how to judge a pattern of behaviour needs to be gauged. There is no such need here. Where things are obvious, RfCs are a waste of time. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Meh. I completely agree that any attempt to steer this user towards productive engagement, is almost certainly futile. However, there were no formal warnings (until I added a DS alert forWP:FRINGE just now). I suggest a short leash: pointed comments on talk, and if he continues advocating this twaddle anywhere else then a block. I am undecided on the merit of topic-banning a WP:SPA, per some perceptive comments made hereabouts in recent weeks. Guy (Help!) 16:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - I have to admit being very underwhelmed by his attitude and understanding since posting my first reservations. Not sure if it is willful ignorance or what. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 20:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose, per original sense of Dennis Brown. Misplaced Pages is profoundly uncivil too quickly too often too pervasively to too many. --doncram 20:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like you want to discuss it at WP:VP/P. LCcritic has been given much more than due consideration. Paradoctor (talk) 20:46, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Support a topic ban, which, as noted, amounts to a ban, because the user is a single-purpose account. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Blocked editor's subpage

Can they edit it? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

If they're blocked, their own user talkpage is generally the only page they can edit. I've known of clever filtering processes that have been used in the past to allow blocked users to edit other pages, but generally their userpage and subpages are out-of-bounds. Yunshui _水 08:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I learned something new today. Thank you kindly, Yunshui. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Panel to close CFD on Category:Pseudoscientists

The discussion at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 May 1#Category:Pseudoscientists has now been open for more than the minimum 7 days, and is eligible for closure.

The debate has been lengthy and involved, with a lot of policies at play. (Disclosure: I have taken a strong stand one side).

It seems to me that this discussion would benefit from a 3-admin panel of closers, to help give confidence that the closure has been fully-weighed by non-partisans. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Seconded. There is no obvious single result, but a consensus may be teased out of the comments, and whatever the result there may well be rucktions. Guy (Help!) 16:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• • The main thing about a discussion such as this is that it shouldn't simply be closed as a count of heads. It does require an analysis of how well-founded the arguments are in policy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure, and there are decent policy argument for each of the three possible outcomes (delete, rename and keep), which are themselves independent of the merits of the template's use in any particular article. Also remember that BLP, one policy cited for delete, does not cover Immanuel Velikovsky, for example, who can be legitimately and unambiguously characterised as a pseudoscientist - but is this more or less useful than characterising him as an advocate of pseudoscience? And is that helpful at all in the first place? Guy (Help!) 19:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I also think it is going to be hard for an individual to sort through this alone. Mangoe (talk) 16:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Would it help if it were procedurally closed now? I'm imagining someone closing it with the rationale of "A group of administrators will be assessing consensus; in the mean time, please don't add anything". It's complex enough now, and it will be a lot more complex if the closers have to account for things added during the closing process. Nyttend (talk) 02:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, Nyttend. There are already plenty of comments to sort through. Liz 02:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Anyone object if I do it? I participated in it (at least twice, if I remember rightly), but it doesn't seem like a WP:INVOLVED violation, since I'm not attempting to assess consensus one bit, and everybody's equally affected (and nobody really loses) if we end discussion in order to simplify consensus-determination by people who haven't participated. Nyttend (talk) 02:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yup, fine with that. Guy (Help!) 15:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Go for it. Regards Gaba 22:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Done; sorry for the delay, but I was on the road all day. Nyttend (talk) 05:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Well done, Nyttend. Discussion had mostly stalled anyway. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:08, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Who chooses the panel? Cardamon (talk) 09:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I would like to suggest conscriptingvolunteering User:BD2412, an uninvolved admin whose work on the closure of the first Chelsea Manning RM discussion earned a lot of respect. Any more suggestions for admins who might be volunteered? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• Challenge accepted. I'll be glad to help. bd2412 T 14:10, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Having briefly reviewed the discussion, I believe that it will take several days to write the close in collaboration with other admins. I don't want to set about suggesting other panel members, to avoid any appearance of bias in the close, but it would be helpful if two more uninvolved admins would step forward fairly quickly. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:21, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't have wikitime to unravel this myself per WP:SOFIXIT (I'm not particularly category savvy), but when James Randi, Joe Nickell, and Benjamin Radford et. al. are listed in the Category:Pseudoscientists subcategory Category:Paranormal investigators -- which makes them allegedly "Pseudoscientists," right? -- we have a some significant WP:BLP issues going on. NE Ent 11:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That's more of a "WTF?" issue. There should probably be separate categories for paranormal investigators and paranormalists. Dean Radin and Joe Nickell might both call themselves paranormal investigators, but they embody two completely different fields of investigation, one seeks to describe and support claims of paranormal activity, the other seeks to test whether a more parsimonious explanation exists. Guy (Help!) 18:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• I will volunteer to help clos ethe discussion, if desired. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • @ThaddeusB: Thanks, please ping me when we have a third closer, and please do not hesitate to recruit any admin you trust to be impartial. I have begun to assemble my thoughts at User:BD2412/Pseudoscience category discussion notes. bd2412 T 16:01, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

    Given that your rough count of supporters and opposers doesn't indicate that there is a numerical consensus, perhaps following the model of WP:Requested moves this should be relisted. Your preliminary analysis might make for good "relister's comments" that could help steer the discussion towards more of a consensus. I just became aware of this and would like the opportunity to participate in the discussion. Please also consider Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of pseudoscientists, Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 28#Category:Pseudoscientists and Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 12#Category:Pseudoscientists. There was never a consensus for creation of this category, and it has remained in place over the years only because there was no consensus to delete it either. Seems that the ability to create a category without consensus has given the "creationists" the upper hand here. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the one point of agreement is that there were plenty of comments. I don't think relisting the CFD and soliciting more feedback would clarify matters. The closers are just going to have to weigh the merits of the arguments put forward. Liz 00:45, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure, there have been plenty of comments, but this was held open for just 10 days, and there were still new opinions coming in from editors who had not previously commented just hours before the discussion was shut down. I think that the defenders of this category are more likely to watch it and be prompt in defending it. Note the ID of the first to comment, "QuackGuru" – that ID screams of an editor with an agenda: to label certain people as "quacks". You even said: "It's like a mini-reunion of regulars at the Fringe noticeboard." Having put that on my watchlist, I see how much chatter goes on at Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, although I rarely bother to read it. Keeping this open might allow more time for more disinterested editors to bring some common sense to the matter. But perhaps that's not necessary. I think the preliminary closing analysis is good. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:52, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, the regulars at the Fringe noticeboard are united in their attitude regarding pseudoscience and there was a notice about this CfD posted there so I'm not surprised to see all of their names, coming over to CFD and supporting this category. They are openly hostile towards anything they believe is pseudoscience and they see themselves as protecting the integrity of Misplaced Pages. So, this category is useful and valid for them.

But I believe a panel of three uninvolved admins can weigh all of the arguments and come to a fair decision with the comments that have been posted. Whichever side of this discussion you are on, it's important to remember that consensus can change over time and every article, category and page can come up for review periodically. Category:Pseudoscientists has been up for deletion before and, if it is retained, it can be proposed for renaming or deletion in the future. There have been categories that have been created, later deleted and then recreated. Nothing on Misplaced Pages is permanent, that's why there will always be a need for these discussions. Liz 15:16, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Block review

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

I just blocked Adikhajuria (talk · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) for advertising. Looking closer, it looks like part of a Wikimania thing, but I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm fine with whatever the community decides, but I can't help but to think that the types of edits that this editor is doing is, well, spam. I had started reverted them but stopped after a few and decided that I needed to bring it here instead. Spam or not, this seems very inappropriate. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:07, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

This is part of an outreach effort for Wikimania. It's not spam - We're looking for people from Wikimedia Projects who are interested in trying to recruit new contributors. EdSaperia (talk) 15:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

To absolutely remove any doubt: we are not selling anything here. We're offering to create marketing materials FOR projects, for free, so that they can be more visible at Wikimania, which has an outreach component this year. EdSaperia (talk) 15:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

More information about creating flyers for WikiProjects for distribution at Wikimania can be found at here at WikiMedia. Liz 15:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It is notifications for something for the WMF is doing so I wouldn't call it spam at all. Notifying WikiProjects of something that may be beneficial to them isn't wrong when it is something that is part of a WMF initiative. -DJSasso (talk) 15:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Probably the message should have some kind of method of opting out of future messages. –xeno 15:39, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I've unblocked. This is basically someone notifying Wikiprojects of a potentially useful free resource they can use at Wikimania, which is completely different from spam. I'm not completely sure it is the best way to approach WikiProjects but banning without warning seems a bit heavy-handed!

I would definitely recommend that Adikhajuria fill in their userpage and mention their connection to Wikimania in the talk page notices though, to avoid confusion. The Land (talk) 15:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

(And for clarity, I'm also somewhat involved in Wikimania!) The Land (talk) 15:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

They weren't banned, they were blocked as a preventative to what looked like spam. The name gave no indication, they were an SPA, redlink user page, the actual post looked spammy with no opt out and didn't indicate it was "official" in any way. They didn't even know to post at the bottom of the page, and were posting at the top before being told otherwise. No price for the service was given. Link was off enwp etc etc. The combination of all this looked very fishy and similar to some other spammers we have had. Anyway, glad that is cleared up, sorry about the confusion but that is why I brought it here, as I would any block where I have any doubts. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:51, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

No worries - I'll get him to fill out his profile a bit more and be more verbose in the offer. EdSaperia (talk) 15:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I can understand why he looked fishy! And thanks for thinking and posting here. :) The Land (talk) 16:04, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Block, please watch

I blocked McTimoney (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for one of at least half a dozen possible reasons. This user is trying to whitewash McTimoney College of Chiropractic (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), a questionable institution that trains "straight" chiropractors in the UK. I suspect that this will not go away. Guy (Help!) 21:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Category pages will be movable soon

Effective May 22nd, category pages will become movable. Although members of the category will still have to be fixed manually, the revision history of the description page can be preserved when renaming categories. Jackmcbarn (talk) 03:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Is there more info on this? Lugnuts 09:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

There's bugzilla:5451, bugzilla:28569, and gerrit:111096. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It would be better if the new right move-categorypages was restricted to admins; the linked page says it will be available to all users. Currently, categories are moved only through WP:CFD, and the page which instructs the bots to do this (WP:Categories for discussion/Working) has been full-protected since 2007. Allowing any editor to move the category pages (without a corresponding ability to fix the category entries) risks causing havoc :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Agree - should be restricted to admins. DexDor (talk) 15:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Keep in mind that all editors can already cut-and-pasmove category pages. All this would do is let them bring the category page's history with it. It wouldn't let them perform mass recategorizations. Because of this, I don't see a need to restrict the right, but if there's consensus to, I will prepare a configuration change request. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure, they can cut-and-paste, but not many do, because experienced editors know that cut-and-paste is deprecated. Removing that barrier will increase the number of c+p moves of categories. I do think it should be admin-only. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe a separate group for this; it wouldn't be suitable for inexperienced editors, or for all administrators, but could be useful for editors involved in categorisation but not interested in adminship, or who would fail RFA for reasons such as lack of article writing or AFD experience (similarly, "suppressredirect" could be useful for experienced editors involved in reviewing articles for creation or new page patrol). Peter James (talk) 21:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe. We'd need broad consensus for that though. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It's "assigned to user and sysop by default" - will that be the default here or will it not be assigned to any group here without consensus? Peter James (talk) 21:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It will be assigned to user and sysop here unless we get consensus to change it. (The move right is still needed as well, so you'll need to be autoconfirmed to move categories even though the "user" group has the move-categorypages right.) Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:58, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

gerrit:111096 mentions a category-move-redirect-override option. Will it be implemented here? - Eureka Lott 20:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes. It's already set up at MediaWiki:category-move-redirect-override. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Would it make sense to add {{R from move}} there? - Eureka Lott 20:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so. We don't do that for category redirects now, and it's not a "real" redirect. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

No reason not to - maybe display or categorise them differently with a new template "Category redirect from move" or added parameters based on namespace detection. Peter James (talk) 21:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we could add a move=1 parameter to Template:Category redirect. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

That's probably better, if it will only be used on pages containing that template. Peter James (talk) 21:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with BHG: this needs to either be an 'Admins Only' right, or something along the lines of the 'Template Editor' special right - and if it's the latter it needs to be the former until the "broad consensus for that" is achieved. As it is, this is going to allow the sockvandtrolls to willy-nilly move categories about; we shouldn't wait until we see Category:Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society renamed to Category:Crap to acknowledge that is is otherwise going to happen. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:34, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
  • How is this any different than what the (autoconfirmed) sockvandtrolls can do to articles, templates, user pages, and anything except categories and files today? Also, the damage would be no worse than if they copied and pasted the description to the "new" name and replaced the old description with a redirect, which they can do anyway. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:05, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
    • @Jackmcbarn different from what they can do today, because editors know that copy-paste moves are not accepted, so most are reluctant to do it. Adding a move button makes it appear legit.
      Different from articles in several ways: a) categories pages are rarely edited, so they are on very few watchlists; b) moving an article affects that article, but moving a category page can wreck the navigation system for many articles.
      Different from templates, because high-visibility templates are routinely protected, whereas categories are not.
      Please, Jack, there are probably only a dozen or two editors who routinely monitor large swathes of the category system. Bushranger and I are both amongst that number, and we are both alarmed about this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I've submitted bugzilla:65221 and gerrit:132947. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:41, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Jackmcbarn. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:42, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: Note that it's been decided that with the new discussion here, we don't have a clear enough consensus to make the change. See the bug for more details. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:05, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone wants to play with this to see exactly how it works, it's live now at http://en.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/ (note that accounts aren't shared between here and there). Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:13, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not sure the new right should be admin only - instead it would probably make sense to be admins & trusted users. That is, admins should have it by default, and admins should then be able to turn it on for trusted users who ask for it, and take it away upon misuse or complaint. That scheme seems to work OK for other rights. If moving cats is a particularly sensitive area, then the bar for who gets it should be set fairly high. BMK (talk) 04:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

• Going to agree with BMK because this opens to more issues and some really difficult headaches if anyone wanted to be malicious. A minimal dose of caution until the ramifications, exploitation and countermeasures are better understood is not a bad thing. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:58, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Going to disagree here. Moving categories is essentially bypassing WP:CFD where renaming categories is discussed. Moving categories should only occur after a CFD discussion has been closed. The reason why this step is essential is, unlike articles, categories do not stand alone, they exist in a hierarchy, with parent categories and child categories. Changing a category name might seem like a good idea but if there is already a category system where the categories are named "X of Y", it doesn't make sense to change one category's name to "Y's X". In a CFD discussion, the context of the proposed renames, mergers and deletions is looked at as no categories exist in isolation (or if they do, they shouldn't be!).

What I'm unclear of is how "moving" is different from "renaming", both of which change the title of a category and retain the edit history. And with a rename, it is not necessary to go and change the category names on all of the category contents. Liz 12:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

When CfD renames a category, they move the description page (today by cut-and-paste), and then use bots to recategorize all members of the old category into the new one. The only difference is that the move (of the description page) will be normal. The bots will still have to do the recategorization to finish the rename. Jackmcbarn (talk) 14:41, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Are the bots programmed to handle this configuration? –xeno 14:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Right - but if someone renames a category and neglects to kick off the bots, then hundreds or maybe thousands of articles could have redlinks and/or soft-redirects (which require an extra click) at the bottom of the page.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:54, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

@Xeno: It looks like the bots will need to be updated. I've posted a link to here on their operators' talk pages. @Obiwankenobi: The redlinks are a legitimate concern, but the soft-redirect issue could happen anyway, so I'm not as worried about it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Jack, can you give an example of what would happen if I were to move Category:Living people to Category:Dying people? What would we see on all of the 600,000 biographies in this category immediately after it was moved? Would there be a redlink, or a bluelink towards a soft-redirected category? Also, what happens if you attempt to rename it to a category name that already exists? I love the idea of saving history of a category instead of copy/paste renames, but I'm just not sure it's a tool random editors should have - making it a permission one could apply for would make more sense.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

@Obiwankenobi: On the articles, nothing would change at all. It would be a bluelink towards a soft-redirected category (which looks exactly the same from articles). The soft-redirected category would still retain all of its members, so readers would just see a confusing message in place of the description, and everything else would be normal (and a vandal could cause that even without this functionality). If you tried to move a category over an already-existing one, it would fail just like trying to move an article over an already-existing one would. Jackmcbarn (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jack. I think that's problematic - as BHG points out, there are categories that are applied to hundreds or thousands of articles, whereas the category itself may only be watched by a few editors. This provides too much opportunity for large-scale troublesome moves - or even incorrect/undiscussed moves of categories. I believe that bots regularly clean up soft-redirected categories and move articles automatically, correct - that means someone could do an incorrect category move and then a bot would actually move the articles, which editors may ignore since they usually trust bot edits more.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:24, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

In light of the way the bots (and category move system in general) are currently setup, I think it would be best if a staged approach were used to roll out this new functionality. –xeno 15:46, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

There is one effect of leaving soft redirects that hasn't been mentioned yet - normal users won't be able to revert category moves. If we left a normal redirect then it could be reverted by any autoconfirmed user - providing no-one else edits the page in the meantime - but moves leaving behind a soft redirect will only be revertable by admins. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour 16:06, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

(Of course, this won't matter if/when Jackmcbarn's patch goes through, as then only admins will be able move categories anyway.) — Mr. Stradivarius on tour 16:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

• I'll also agree with BHG that this should be restricted to admins. Once the tool is in place and understood, then there may be a need to review the CFD guidelines to see what if anything needs to be changed. It would also be nice to create a permission list so the bots can do the moves. This should at some point be expanded to additional users. But that would require an approval process. Not even sure where to start on that. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

  It would probably be fine to include the permission with 'administrator', 'bot', 'bureaucrat'. at the outset. And then expand to other userrights as necessary. –xeno 17:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm still concerned about this, even if this tool is restricted to admins or permissions granted to a few experienced editors. Right now, we have two processes, a) speedy renames and b) CFD. If ANYONE objects to a speedy rename, the editor proposing the rename is directed to file a CFD proposal. Let's say, it's a category call "U.S. Interstate Highways in Virginia". If it goes to a CFD discussion, the creator of the category is notified, the relevant WikiProject is notified, there are notices sorted to other, interested WikiProjects so they can all participate in the discussion over whether the rename is a good idea. This might be a cumbersome process, but it allows ordinary editors who are experienced in editing in the category area to weigh in with their opinions. Some of these discussions get heated (like the one concerning Category:Pseudoscientists) and the result is "no consensus".
The idea that any admin could bypass this discussion process and move any category they choose, is very disruptive to the system that exists. As BHG states, there are a small number of editors who focus on categories and the chances that these moves would be seen by others is very small so there would be, in effect, no oversight. This isn't meant to be a judgment of administrators, just that the structure of categories on Misplaced Pages is quite different from other areas (like main space, talk pages, user pages, Wikipages, FAs, etc.). Editors have received blocks because of their lack of competency in creating or editing categories because bad edits to a category have a potentially greater impact than an edit to an article.
The only way I can see this tool being effectively used is after the outcome of a CFD, if the decision is to rename, a move can be done instead. Otherwise, editors can simply ask an admin or editor with the permission to make the move and skip over the discussion part. The admin may be uninvolved but it is very likely that the editor requesting the move is involved and there could be even more editors who would contest the move.
I really understand that this tool was created to make editors/admins lives easier, not more complicated, but I see an uptick in activity at Misplaced Pages:Move review unless this tool is thoughtfully and carefully rolled out. Liz 19:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

• Alternate userright proposal I propose renaming "templateeditor" into "trusted maintainer" and merge this userright into that bundle. Could also merge reviewer and account creator into it as well, just throwing the options out there. A trusted maintainer would be a perfect userright for gnoming work.--v/r - TP 20:28, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I think if it was this simple for "trusted maintainer" to move a category, they will just do so without checking to see how their move impacts related categories. I think when an editor has a right, they might be cautious using it at first, but soon are likely to trust their instinct or judgment instead of actually checking to see if the move makes sense from the category hierarchical structure that exists for that subject. It's crucial not to consider a category in isolation from other categories, they are part of a system. But I've had my say and will let others weigh in. Liz 20:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of bundling, personally, especially with the userrights that don't have much process attached for requesting them. We lose any ability to differentiate between them, as far as requirements go; someone who just wants to be able to review pending changes to articles isn't going to necessarily have the skills to be a template editor, but because we've (hypothetically) bundled them, we can't just give one without the other, and so we have to deny them for no real reason.

As far as the actual catmover right itself goes, I don't really see any reason to restrict it; while it's certainly true that maliciously moving a cat description page can affect many articles, it will only affect them by proxy (i.e. the cleanup is still limited to just that one cat description page; you don't need to go through and fix it for each of those thousands of articles), and it only affects them in an extremely minor way; most likely, no readers would even notice. On the whole, I don't think the potential for damage is particularly higher than pagemover, which might only affect one article, but will do it in a much more visible way (and there are articles that are just as unwatched as categories, of course). Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:54, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I think there's also the question of norms. Pages can be moved by anyone in most cases, but it would be rather daft to move Ireland to Ireland (island) unless you have a death wish - a norm, and indeed a set of community agreed sanctions, has made individual editors moving such pages verboten. We could do the same with category moves - unless the category was created by yourself, or the move is to correct a typographical error, no matter what your role you should not move it, but rather seek consensus for the move at CFD or speedy CFD. A log of category moves could be reviewed to ensure that people weren't abusing this. Thus, in spite of what userrights we attach, we may also create a community norm that says, in general, categories should only rarely be moved without discussion - which would be a more restrictive rule than that which covers articles currently.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

• I think that moving category pages will be useful for multiple reasons – keeping the category history visible, and being able to trace the new name more easily given the old one – but IMHO it should be restricted to admins. I can't think of any gain from making it available to others. (Writing as an editor who became an admin mainly to help with closing CFDs.) – Fayenatic London 21:37, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

  So yet another user "right" that administrators want to keep to themselves? Soon it will only be admins who are allowed to edit anything. Eric Corbett 21:42, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

  @Eric Corbett: No, Eric, it's a new tools which is not initially being rolled out to non-admins. No editor is losing any ability to do anything they can do now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:45, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) Not yet, no. But my fundamental objection is to the accretion of user rights to admins without any assessment of whether they have any idea of how to edit templates, for instance. I'm not interested in getting into a discussion about this self-evident truth here however, in the camp of the enemy. Eric Corbett 02:00, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

  Kind of misses the point. While WMF is trying "make it as easy as possible to contribute knowledge" -- as evidenced by the fact by default the right goes to users -- the admin community is trying to decide a priori, without any evidence, that it should be restricted. Meanwhile, in the thread above I pointed out about 36 hours ago that our existing categorization of Pseudoscientists / Paranormal investigators -> James Randi is a WP:BLP, but admins here seem more interesting in haggling about this, and the Cfd and the blah blah blah whatever, than actually fixing the encyclopedia. (I've attempted to do so at Category:Paranormal investigators‎). NE Ent 01:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

• Incidentally, this is why non-admins need to be on WP:AN -- there's zero justification for admins deciding something like without getting input from the rest of the community. NE Ent 01:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
• Support a wider group for this right. The best venue for this would have been the Village Pump, but seeing as the discussion is already underway there is no point moving it now. I can see two camps forming, one side would like to restrict this to a small number of trusted users, the other to keep it open to a wider group. Personally I think it is a significant new right and it will see many simmering disputes spill over, particularly real world issues like the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, the current Russia-Ukraine problems etc. If we open this new right to a wide group of editors, it will cause chaos because people will engage in POVish edit wars just like they do with article names and content. However, it isn't beneficial to Misplaced Pages if the right is resticted to just admins, because then it will be no different to the existing mechanism at WP:CFD/WP:CFDS i.e. you propose a rename and if approved it gets done by an admin/bot. The above idea of merging it into template editors and renaming that group has some merit but it begs the question of "why limit it to just that group?". I think the most beneficial route will be to add it to the widest possible group of trusted users i.e. admins, autopatrolled, file mover, reviewer, rollback and template editor groups. That would help build more confidence in each others abilities compared to the snarl-match taking place here. Cheers. Green Giant (talk) 16:17, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

While it could be a useful tool for users other than admins to have, I am opposed to adding the right to groups like Autopatrolled, file mover etc. as Green Giant suggested. Rollbackers (such as myself) often will have no clue about category maintenance, and it should neither be assigned to thousands of users who could misuse it (in good or bad faith) nor should category knowledge be a requirement to attain rollback. I would support a user group such as category mover, to be assigned like file mover to users experienced in category maintenance who can demonstrate their need for the tool by having demonstrated understanding and activity at WP:CFD. BethNaught (talk) 16:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems like my words of caution aren't having an impact on the discussion. So, my final comment is a straight-forward request:If you make this tool available, whether just to admins or to a wider group, please maintain a log of category moves so that there can be some record. Right now, we have CFD that acts as an archive one can refer to but if any admin can move a category, without providing any reason at all, there should at least be a log of these moves so that the community is aware of these changes. As BHG has stated, few editors have category pages on their Watchlist, there are tens of thousands of categories that exist and it is likely that category moves will go unnoticed if there isn't a log recording them. It should also record the name of the editor making the move so that any questions can be directed to them. Liz 17:00, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

They will be logged. See . Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:05, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Teahouse

Hello,

There is some sort of problem at The Teahouse that is hiding recent threads. Can someone with better programming skills than mine (in other words, almost anyone) try to fix it? Thanks. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

It is fixed. Thanks! Cullen Let's discuss it 06:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

AfD needs closing

Due to an inappropriate re-listing, and then a mistake in the un-re-listing, the Afd for "Kenneth Brander" is still open. Could someone take a look and close? BMK (talk) 06:35, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Done, by TParis. BMK (talk) 10:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Sock-plagued Afd needing close

Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Akinwunmi_Ambode has been open for eght days now, with only delete !votes left after a whole farm full of confirmed socks have been struck. So could we please have an uninvolved admin close the AfD and delete and salt (see !votes and comment on the AfD) the article? He has been using WP as free advertising/promotion space long enough. Thanks. Thomas.W 12:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. One of the sockpuppets in the debacle explicitly said that they were using Misplaced Pages as free advertising or some sort of means to legitimize the subject to the people of Lagos in what appears to be an upcoming gubernatorial election.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 12:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it seems like promoting Ambode on WP is part of the build-up for his election campaign, which is one of the reasons I want the purely promotional article off the air. Thomas.W 13:03, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

 Done by the panda. Thanks. Thomas.W 13:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Help would be useful

• Please, is there any chance of help with about 65 bird species name decapitalization move requests which have been dumped in Misplaced Pages:Requested moves/Technical requests#Uncontroversial technical requests? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• Some of these requests have been obeyed by someone else but not deleted by him from the list. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• Now all  Done and deleted by someone. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Problems with a user.

I am having some problems with User:Beyond My Ken and would like some help calming the issue down. I was editing on The Rules of the Game and found this users edits and reverts of my edits to be unreasonable and rude. Eventually this user became abusive in their language and refuses to apologize: . Normally I would just ignore this type of thing but I am planning to do a lot of editing on this particular page in the near future and, in my opinion, this editor is attempting to claim ownership of this page. So, I simply want to calm this situation down and know that I can edit on this page without bruising this users ego and causing a headache for myself.--Deoliveirafan (talk) 20:17, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Editor was working on The Rules of the Game with no {{inuse}} or {{underconstruction}} tag on it. I jumped in to fix the mistakes, and was told (in an edit summary) "Calm down, patience is a virtue dear". I don't take that kind of condescending bullshit from anyone, but I continued editing the article until I got another condescending note on my talk page: "Does somebody need a wikihug". Posted the editor's talk page, told the editor to learn how to use the proper tags, called them a "condecending asshole" and banned them from my talk page. Minutes later the editor posted to my talk page, demanding an apology. There will be no apology. Next thing I know is this (which should be on AN/I and not here, BTW).

I don't "own" The Rules of the Game, I don't even have much invested in it. I fixed the mistakes the editor made, added an English translation to the French quotation, cleaned up the refs and some of the formatting, and that's it. The claim that I want to "own" it is bullshit, as is the condescension I don't need and don't deserve.

This is my comment on this matter, and there will be no other. Don't post on my talk page about it unless you're an admin giving me a formal warning or block, because I'm not interested in your opinion. BMK (talk) 20:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC

When did it become a policy requirement that we don't edit articles without first tagging them as "in use"?

We don't do this, or need to. because there is generally some recognition that overlaps happen, occasionally the forethought to see that sizable edits might not stop in moments after the last one that's visible, and (most importantly) the recognition that if you do overlap with another editor in action, then an appropriate action is to back off and let them get on with it. This isn't about ownership, it's about basic politeness on a shared project. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Nevertheless, it's also not a requirement to wait until someone is done to start editing, especially if one is not actually reverting them. BMK's edits were not commented, which isn't awesome, but it's not against any rules, and Deoliveirafan's weren't, either. To respond to someone else editing the same article with an edit summary of "Calm down, patience is a virtue dear" here, which really is condescending, and follow it up with this post--the first two actual communications of any type between the two--is just not cool, and while BMK overreacted, he overreacted to actual provocation. So yeah, I'm not sure either editor is better than the other in this situation; both could've handled things much, much better. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

To be fair I was also provoked into being condescending (reverting perfectly acceptable edits within minutes does not seem reasonable to me), nevertheless will acknowledge that I was indeed being condescending (in response to rudeness) and will be the bigger user and apologize to Beyond my Ken here and now. However to be condescending is to be humorous, and so I will not apologize for the act of combating hostility with humor. It would be a sad day for the world if that became outlawed. I admit that I do not know the official rules (if there are any), but I would request that in the future if I or any user are clearly working on a specific page and have several edits within minutes of each other, it would be courteous to not immediately revert them, especially since the only justification seems to be "I don't like". I assure you that I have already taken pages and pages of handwritten notes for this page (that's just how I edit) and would like to see it improved. Correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe that that is what actually matters.--Deoliveirafan (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Um, ok now that I've actually read some other posts by both Beyond my Ken AND Writ Keeper, it seems I'm being dragged into some completely different issues that have nothing at all to do with me and that I am not at all the problem here. Beyond My Ken, your language was unacceptable, please apologize right now. Writ Keeper, if you clearly have a conflict of interest please do not comment.--Deoliveirafan (talk) 23:38, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider myself to have a conflict of interest whith respect to BMK. I've interacted with BMK a lot, but always in an administrative role (which isn't usually thought to create a COI, as far as WP:INVOLVED is concerned), and not always in the way BMK would've liked. There are some other issues that got dragged into the conversation on my talk page, and I'm sorry for that, but I don't think it has affected anything I've said here. Certainly I need to avoid even the appearance of being involved, and so I certainly wouldn't act as an admin in this situation, but I don't think there's anything that would prevent me from simply commenting. Nevertheless, to avoid all doubt, I won't comment further about this issue. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Category:Mechanical reproductions of original works in need of additional detail

Some effort to reduce the backlog and hopefully get most of these to an 'acceptable' standard for Commons would be appreciated.Sfan00 IMG (talk) 23:57, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what is wanted for the images in this category. Some of them already have high resolution and reasonable or good quality. Presumably you can use help from non-admins in technical work or finding better source images. Is there some project page or similar that provides additional information? --Amble (talk) 18:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Like Amble, I'm confused what you would like others to do. How are we to get them to an "acceptable" standard for Commons, for example? Nyttend (talk) 03:09, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

User:24.185.206.250

This IP has been going around to various New Jersey road articles and making poor formatting changes and reducing the accuracy of mileposts. The NJDOT SLDs give the mileposts out to 2 decimal places but the IP changes them to one decimal place. For example . The IP has been warned but continues to make the edits. Dough4872 01:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

For the record User:69.125.102.140 has similar edits. Dough4872 01:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Category:Candidates for speedy deletion

Hi. There is currently a backlog at the Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. Thanks. Lugnuts 08:51, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I've actionned a whackload of them one way or another. What's left is primarily AFC G13's, with a mere handful of others the panda ₯’ 12:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

G13's what? Lugnuts 18:03, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I believe the usage was in the sense of "a contested form of the English plural ending, written after single letters and in some other instances". Once again, just the Panda being controversial and trying to push the envelope. I suggest insist upon desysopping. Rgrds. --72.251.77.231 (talk) 23:56, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Lugnuts: When I finished going through what was then all of the entries in the CSD category, I had pretty much taken care of all of them except the ones that had been nominated under WP:CSD#G13 - those that were abandoned Articles for Creation. There were about 25 of them, and were easy-peasy for any admin to handle as they were uncontroversial. In other words, I handled most of the tough ones, leaving the easy ones for someone else the panda ₯’ 00:01, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Farah Pahlavi

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

Hi, User:Diako1971 say Azerbaijani is somebody, who was born and raised in Azerbaijan means (Iranian Azerbaijan or Republic of Azerbaijan) and his/her first language is turkish. because Farah Pahlavi was born in Tehran, He says so she isnot Azerbaijani people. In the event that his father is Azerbaijani ethnicity and Tehran have 25% to 1/3 Azerbaijani people– So Azerbaijanis in Tehran due to being born in Tehran, arenot Azeris? Plz see Revision history Iranian Azerbaijanis and List of Iranian Azerbaijanis--Serzhik (talk) 13:01, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

1. ^ Shakibi, Zhand. Revolutions and the Collapse of Monarchy: Human Agency and the Making of Revolution in France, Russia, and Iran. I.B.Tauris, 2007. ISBN 1-84511-292-X; p. 90
2. Taheri, Amir. The Unknown Life of the Shah. Hutchinson, 1991. ISBN 0-09-174860-7; p. 160
3. "Iran Peoples". Looklex Encyclopaedia. Retrieved 2013-07-27.
4. "Chapter 2 - The Society and Its Environment: People and Languages: Turkic-speaking Groups: Azarbaijanis" in A Country Study: Iran Library of Congress Country Studies, Table of Contents, last accessed 19 November 2008
5. "Country Study Giude-Azerbaijanis". STRATEGIC INFORMATION AND DEVELOPMENTS-USA. Retrieved 13 August 2013.

This is not the correct place to raise the dispute. First, try discussing the matter on the article talk page. If that doesn't work, try another venue like WP:DRN. This board does not solve your disputes for you. --Jayron32 00:49, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Copyright problems

Is this edit legal per Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism? It looks like a direct translation of a copyrighted text.

PS I hope this is the right noticeboard for this kind of issues. Avpop (talk) 07:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

You might get a good response here, but you can also try posting the issue at Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems, which is specifically tailored to deal with copyright things. --Jayron32 14:05, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Avpop. I agree with Jayron, but since I saw this, and would answer the same thing Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems... It's not plagiarism, because the source is credited and the quotes are clearly marked. But it is still a copyright infringement. The amount of copyright text quoted far exceeds what is acceptable per Misplaced Pages:Non-free content policy. The quoted segments need to be shortened to at most one or two sentences, and the rest of the content should be appropriately summarised. See also this section of Misplaced Pages:Quotations. Voceditenore (talk) 14:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Voceditenore I see. Maybe you could send a message to User:Maghasito to instruct him what to do. Avpop (talk) 14:25, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Avpop, I've left message about this issue at Talk:Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867#Excessive quotation/copyright infringement and directed the editor to that talk page. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:16, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

OTRS issue

Moving to the OTRS noticeboard. Nyttend (talk) 11:39, 13 May 2014 (UTC)