Revision as of 05:02, 17 January 2006

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General

Block of User:SuperButchBitch - "inappropriate username"

I was browsing the block list and I saw this block, by NSLE (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) for "inappropriate username": Is this really necessary? And has her IP been blocked too so she can't even create a new account? I don't know her but this seems well, a bit over the top. No attempt to even talk to the user or explain that she may be blocked first either, from what I can see.

I added Template:UsernameBlocked to the user page as there was no message, notice or warning left by NLSE..

I would like to point out that the username is not insulting anyone and "butch" is likely in context of butch and femme than anything else --Mistress Selina Kyle 12:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Being gay myself I don't see this as inappropriate however I can see how others would do, the term "bitch" often being used in a derogatory manner based on gender. Have you contacted NSLE on their talk page regarding the block? -- Francs2000 12:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Will do now. --Mistress Selina Kyle

The IP was probably the autoblocker. I blocked for "bitch" more than anything, so if there's a general consensus that the name is not inappropriate I'll be glad to undo the block. NSLE _(T+C) 12:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok. For other people reading this and deciding for themsleves, might want to see Bitch#Women reclaiming "bitch" - This block is almost like blocking someone for calling themselves gay or queer.. --Mistress Selina Kyle 12:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I've unblocked the IP address. NSLE _(T+C) 12:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

From Template:UsernameBlocked: "Due to Misplaced Pages's mechanism for enforcing name changes, your IP address may be temporarily blocked. Unless you have also been engaging in vandalism, we will remove that block as soon as possible—if this doesn't happen within an hour or so, please email an administrator and explain the situation": Is this policy, does anyone know (to unblock IPs of non-obvious vandals so they can change their username)? Maybe it should be, I wouldn't be surprised if there's been a few good intentioned newbies banned and never coming back as a result of being perhaps a bit too daring in their choice of username.. --Mistress Selina Kyle 13:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I just tried emailing to tell her about it but there's none set. bleh. Misplaced Pages really could've done with another (probably) lesbian editor to provide perspectives on topics, there aren't many..

I hope in future for usernames that aren't obviously a personal attack on someone you'd at least try to talk to the user first before blocking in future, WP:BITE and all.. --Mistress Selina Kyle 12:55, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The few admins I've asked all think it's sort of an inappropriate name, but I won't take any action until there's a clear consensus on what to do, it's admittedly, when you look at it from your POV, a borderline case. NSLE _(T+C) 13:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

This is borderline, but I think based on the evidence this case deserves an unblock tbh. -- Francs2000 13:04, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

This user shouldn't have been blocked outright, but should have been notified that their username violated the acceptable username policy and telling them to choose a new username (I understand bureaucrats or stewards can move user accounts to new names). The offensive part of the nickname is 'bitch', not 'butch'. It is irrelevant that this offensive term is self-directed. - Mark 13:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to ascertain without being able to do a wildcard search through the block logs, but I'm pretty sure we have a clear history of blocking usernames with the word "bitch" in it, regardless of whether it's self-directed or not. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 13:27, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

This is clearly an inappropriate username. The only reason NSLE is taking flak for this is because it somehow slipped past Curps' bot. I would have blocked it too. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 13:41, Jan. 7, 2006

I agree with Mark. We should notify users of action we take against them unless there's good reason not to. (It's not like it was a personal attack on someone else, in which case we wouldn't necessarily want to encourage them to stay.) Rd232 14:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Bitch#Women reclaiming "bitch" - Its not always offensive. It's more offensive to censor such well-meaning self expression. WP:AGF, WP:BITE.. --Mistress Selina Kyle 13:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Allowing one opens the door for incessant hand-wringing to allow others. "But you let User:SuperButchBitch in, so why can't I use User:StupidBitch? I'm just trying to reclaim the term!" And then we get to spend our time having to justify the few we allow to the majority we disallow, and explaining to the majority we disallow why they don't rate. Which would generate reams of angst and drama, and for what benefit? So that a few users get to be among a selected elite allowed to use a username most other people aren't allowed to?

Sounds like a lot of trouble, effort, and acrimony to me for an extraordinarily trivial and marginal benefit.

I say "Let 'em crash."

Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 13:56, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

There's no way to call someone "stupid" in a nice meaning of the word. Bitch however, is used as an affectionate term or as self-empowerment in some circumstances: The case is entirely different to the other example.. --Mistress Selina Kyle 14:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Anything can be theoreticaly used affectionately by somebody. Many find lack of intellect or bitchiness charming, and others are masochists who might well derive great pleasure in being refered to as a "stupid bitch". We don't care about how this person ment it tho, because the policy is against usernames which are disuptive or offensive to us, not to the user themself. I agree that it would have been best to discuss the user name w the user, but its definitely not a big deal, or worth the blocking admin getting any more concerned than they already are. I am sympathetic w Selina's POV (well, not really, but at least she explained it well), but we shouldn't have queer or gay as a username either, much less fag or nigger, which are words also being "reclaimed". Sam Spade 14:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The doctrine of "offensiveness" is a tricky one to invoke. Let me just say that I am not bothered by this name, that it is important to apply sense of humor to such things even if it is not possible to induce it in others, and that the suppression of user names in itself raises serious issues, certainly much more so than the content, at least in this case. But I would even argue that totally confused and aggressive names (say, "Jewhater") should be left to reap their own rewards. Haiduc 15:56, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Obvious unblock. The culture here is moving strongly towards blocking for anything - I feel like one of the few non-authoritarian admins. *sigh* Secretlondon 20:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I fully support this as an inappropriate username. While I usually don't block at first for not blatantly offensive usernames (such as ones insulting Misplaced Pages or Jimbo), this definitely falls under offensive. The word "bitch" is widely considered and regarded as both offensive and derogatory; if you're not offended, fine. But because it is considered as offensive and derogatory, then it's an inappropriate username. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo isn't god. Blocking (and especially blocking without communication) is considerably more offensive. Secretlondon 20:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree.. --Phroziac _. o º 18:17, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes well said Flcelloguy. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 19:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there's no clear consensus on the username, and I'd prefer to keep it blocked, per Extreme Unction's brilliant reasoning about having a select few. NSLE _(T+C) 00:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if there is no clear consensus I do not see why this accountname should remain blocked. I agree with the others here that it can (and is being) used as a term of self-empowerment, especially in this context. There does not appear to be any malign intent on the part of the user either, so an attempt by the administrator to talk about it first would have been appropriate at the very least, in my opinion. That said, I am only a sysop on NSwiki so perhaps not an expert on 'big wiki jurisprudence', however I was unaware that banning things in case they are contentious or controversial is standard wiki policy. --Knootoss 01:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Without trying to make light of the issue, I'd draw comparisons to Revenge of the Nerds, where at first the jocks use 'nerd' as a derogatory phrase, and by the end of the film, the nerds have reclaimed the word, with Lewis stating that he's proud to be a nerd, and summons all other nerds to step forward.

And the parallels between this issue and the reclamation of 'queer' and and (here in Australia) 'wog' (for immigrants of South European descent) are obvious. 'Bitch' is considered an offensive phrase used towards women, but I'm all for those attempting to reclaim the word. Cnwb 01:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Being only 19, I'm often told I'm too cynical for my age. I'm afriad people are right, but here goes:

We're bitching about a username which was most likely created for shock value. "SuperButchBitch" is offensive. Misplaced Pages is not the place to "reclaim" the term bitch back to women. Sorry. Can we worry about something more.. important? I'm really sorry for acting like this, but come on! Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 02:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear. — Dan | talk 10:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes yes, I agree. "Bitch" is still considered offensive by a very large majority of people and is not appropriate for Misplaced Pages. Invite the user to make a new username, keep this one blocked, and let's be done with it. Cookiecaper 10:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. There may be an ogoing reclamation effort, but Misplaced Pages is here to report on knowledge as it is, not to promote social change. Fact is many people find the word offensive, which is against the username policy. That said, I agree with Mark and Selina that the user simply should have been notified first and asked to change usernames instead of instablocked. - Taxman 19:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the name's offensive, as many people will find it that way, and it's possibly damaging to the community. The person needs to create a different account, if they're legitimate. WikiFanatic 23:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Instantnood and Huaiwei

• Instantnood (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Huaiwei (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These two users are engaging in a nuclear war, and I've blocked both of them for 24 hours. They seem to have an ForestFire burning, running around reverting every edit the other one makes. I have no clue who started it, but this has to stop. Check out the histories of the pages they've done this on, for example, Barbecued pork, List of countries by area, Queensway. --Phroziac _. o º 16:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

And uhh, apparently this has been going on for quite a while, see Template:Cuisine of China. --Phroziac _. o º 16:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Instantnood has been involved in at least two ArbCom cases; the most recent placed him on probation for edit warring over China-related topics: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 2, see also original Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood, et al.. Instantnood 2 also imposed a probation remedy on Huaiwei. Both can be banned from any article that they disrupt through inappropriate editing.

Though not part of the ArbCom remedy, I believe that escalating blocks for disruptive behaviour that spreads the forest fire elsewhere would probably be appropriate. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree. --Phroziac _. o º 17:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

They are not two cases. It was mistakenly closed, and was requested to be reopened based on technical grounds. The decisions made in the second part of the case do not only apply to me, but user:Huaiwei and user:SchmuckyTheCat as well. — Instantnood 18:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, the way they're battling, it looks like they'll just start nuking another page if they get banned from one. --Phroziac _. o º 17:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I have agreed not to modify existing entries.. leave them for the rest of the community to decide, until a true resolution is reached. But user:Huaiwei and user:SchmuckyTheCat (and sometimes user:Alanmak is also involved) are hunting around to make the undiscussed edits and retitlings (the most recent one is perhaps the list of museums (talk · history · watch)), and I was made to keep reverting them, or restoring bits of their edits. I did make good use of the request for comment mechanism, which they never do, but the feedback is far from satisfactory. — Instantnood 18:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC) (modified 18:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

I intervened on this little brawl at Guangshen Railway by protecting the article and pointing them to RfC (see the comments on the talk page). 'nood indicated that it would be pointless though. Should the page be unprotected? Izehar 17:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to ghet Arbcom to extend the injunction so we can ban either of them from reverting the other? --Doc 20:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

That's genius, Doc. Why aren't you running for ArbCom?--Sean|Black 20:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

My God... As a previous (failed) mediator of this dispute, I am certain they can carry on this war in any article. I would say use article banning liberally, especially for the nuclei of the dispute, but if they can't control themselves, block. Keep in mind that protection is a last resort of sorts for dispute resolution to work itself out. I'd say it should never be needed here, if they ever escalate to the point where you're considering it, they should simply be banned from the article per probation (this includes SchmuckytheCat). Dmcdevit·t 21:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Huaiwei and user:SchmuckyTheCat never agrees to concede from their advantaged position by restoring to what those articles were intended for, and that made the mediation never progressed. Their insistence is killing all the efforts user:Dmcdevit has paid. — Instantnood 18:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Mistress Selena Kyle blocked

I have blocked Mistress_Selina_Kyle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefinetly.--Sean|Black 07:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

This is being discussed at WP:AN/I too. Titoxd 07:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah well. I liked her user page. I would have preferred the Arbcom to say something about this, to give due process, but that's just my two cents on the issue. Elle _{vécu heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 07:20, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned on AN/I I've seen mostly disruption from the user and thought about doing the dirty work several times myself. WhiteNight 07:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've seen good things come from the user but I actually only heard of the disputes second-hand so I don't have a bad perception of her except that she's controversial. That's only my take, of course. Elle _{vécu heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 07:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure - that's why I mention it is kind of sad. I mean, she was involved in some community building etc. - but even then it was like an edit war on every page over silly things like the color of a template (Template:User aspie). I think she would have just took advice from other people seriously she would have been ok... *sigh*. Of course, I could say that about a lot of users, I suppose. Reccommended reading for cases like this is Dealing with difficult people (I hope I never cross that line myself...). WhiteNight 07:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a good site: it describes the behavior of not a few people I've run across on here. This snippet in particularly is apt:

To counteract such behavior, it helps to understand the mentality of those who engage in it. People generally do not do it consciously. No one wakes up in the morning and says to himself: "Today I'm going to cynically manipulate procedural forms in order to be an irritating obstructionist." Instead, such actions are often preceded by a semi-paranoid feeling of being shut out of group interactions and decisions. The person feels he is not being taken seriously, or (in the more severe cases) that there is almost a conspiracy against him—that the other project members have decided to form an exclusive club, of which he is not a member. This then justifies, in his mind, taking rules literally and engaging in a formal manipulation of the project's procedures, in order to make everyone else take him seriously. In extreme cases, the person can even believe that he is fighting a lonely battle to save the project from itself.

– ClockworkSoul 13:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• She'll be back.--God of War 20:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Uh, what does that mean?--Sean|Black 21:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I would like to see a rather more detailed justification of an indefinate block, persoanlly. DES 21:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Certainly. This user has been blocked 11 times is two weeks, all by fellow adminstrators whom I trust and respect, and always (in my opinion) wth good cause. This user has latched onto edit wars all across Misplaced Pages, frequently on issues that have long been areas of dispute. This user caused a huge ammount of disruption, frequently making disputes much, much, worse than they have to be. All this shows, to me, that this user is not here to build an encyclopedia, in fact seems to want to do quite the opposite.--Sean|Black 21:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

With good cause, and well justified perhaps. But for some reason, I can see good faith in this user. Don't ask me why. I suggest a few proposals to indefinitely blocking:

• Block for six months, or a year. See how it turns out after that.
• Remain blocked from all pages, except she has the ability to appeal to an arbitration case. If she violates this she will be reblocked immediately. If she does not violate (what we treat as a temporary injunction), then when the case concludes we accept the decision of the arbitrators.
• Put under mentorship and parole, with limits on editing.

These I feel could easily work out with minimal risk, and she must understand we are giving her mercy, not a right, and that if she violates any terms of this she is reblocked ASAP. Oh, don't you think this could just be a symptom of having Asperger's? (As well as attention-seeking et al.) Just a thought. Elle _{vécu heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 22:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

These are 'remedies' in the spirit of Arbitration and any imposition of them, beyond simple block is a matter for the Committee. A simple block, of whatever length, is a matter for admins, unless there is disagreement amongst admins when it must then proceed through the usual channels. -Splash 22:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

On a "lark" I ran a CheckUser on the dear departed Mistress Selina Kyle. It turns out that she shares an IP address with a veritable nest of program vandals. Two of the IPs she has used, including the one she shares with the squad of vandals, belong to a company not engaged in the business of providing web connectivity (they are actually a hosting provider). I suspect that "she" is in some way involved in the program vandalism we've been seeing for months. Given this, I see absolutely no reason why she should not be banned permanently, and the earth salted in her footsteps. Kelly Martin (talk) 22:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, I think it quite likely that whoever is behind the Mistress did in fact "wake up in the morning and says to himself: 'Today I'm going to cynically manipulate procedural forms in order to be an irritating obstructionist.'" Kelly Martin (talk) 22:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

By "program" do you mean 'bots or somehow organised vandalism? -Splash 22:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Organised. Such as Willy on Wheels, Obesity, etc. The IP she has been using for many of her edits corresponds to one being used for organised vandalism of the aforementioned sort. I suspect that much of that vandalism is automated at this point, as well. Kelly Martin (talk) 23:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Call me dense, but if organised/program vandalism was coming from a static IP, why wasn't it blocked before? If it was blocked, how did MSK log in from there? Rd232 09:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm shocked, simply shocked to see that this took so long. Phil Sandifer 23:10, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I am shocked indeed. Perhaps it is my disbelief; when I came across her on Christmas I thought she was such a promising user. I literally cannot believe it. If there was an emoticon for Misplaced Pages for shock, I would certainly be using it now. For some reason, I always seem to get involved in petty disputes and never seem to be involved in intense disputes on Misplaced Pages-wide issues. Perhaps that's the good thing. Elle _{vécu heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 23:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• If anyone wants to request arbitration against MSK, or myself because they feel it's necessarry, they are of course welcome to do so. I would respect whatever rulings were to come in such a case, obviously. I do not feel it is necessary, however, and I hope that this block stands.--Sean|Black 00:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• • I think MSK being able to file an appeal to the Arbcom is a good idea but then I don't want to antagonise the community with the need for unnecessary bureaucracy. Elle _{vécu heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 00:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Anyone who wishes to do so may file an appeal to the ArbCom about her block, and myself, is free to do so. That's their perogative.--Sean|Black 00:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I will notify her on her talkpage if she is interested. Elle _{vécu heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 00:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course she'll be back. Under another name, if she doesn't have one already. It was pretty obvious from the very beginning that she was the reincarnation of some other blocked troll. I wonder what Wik is doing right now? User:Zoe| 00:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Absolute nonsense. I see no reason to believe anything other than that she was an overzealous contributor. --Blu Aardvark | 03:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

New template for deleted pages

I created a new template, {{deletedmiscpage}}, which should work better than {{deletedpage}} for non-article pages (and should avoid the creation of "talk talk" pages). --cesarb 15:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Request permission to clean up typos in the Alito article

I'm a frequent visitor to Misplaced Pages and have made little editorial corrections in many (probably most) articles I've visited. (I used to work in editing for a publisher and still do some freelance proofreading, and have lent a hand on a couple of pages of the Distributed Proofreading effort at the Online Books Page too, since I love them as much as I love Misplaced Pages.) My husband only recently nudged me that I should leave a titled summary when I make changes, but I'll admit that most of my contributions have been anonymous.

Anyway, I would love to correct the typos and other little inelegancies in the article on Samuel Alito. I'll admit my own POV - he scares me badly, seems a very smart ultraconservative, I do NOT want him confirmed despite his intellect and judicial experience because I believe in women's right to abortion (as well as the importance of an independent judiciary in checking unlimited power of the executive branch) - but really, I'm not out to do anything except make the article more readable. I have been following the confirmation hearings loosely on NPR, though, so if I see anything factually suspect regarding substance of the hearings I'll try to mention it somewhere.

Thanks for your consideration.

Rousse 20:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Misplaced Pages is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Misplaced Pages community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.--Sean|Black 21:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It's semi-protected. Presumably Rousse's account is too new to edit the article. Jkelly 21:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops! I really should check these things. Er, anyway, this obviously a good-faith contributor—Is it at all possible to let her edit it?--Sean|Black 21:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Unprotect completely and supervise editing for a time. Then re-protect. android79 21:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have somewhat hurriedly corrected obvious errors in several sections (the main bio and the Hearing section, 1/10, one other small one too?). I think that's all I have time to do today. (No time for fixing many "inelegancies" - sigh.) Hope my little bit helps. Feel free to "semi-protect" the article again if you fear vandalizing! And thanks for letting me help clean it up. Feedback cheerfully accepted about my edits. Rousse 03:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I see that something has gone wrong with many of my edits to the Hearing section, made a couple of hours ago - they seem to have been wiped out. Am trying to put them back in again. Rousse 07:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalbot

At the moment, Misplaced Pages is under attack from a number of IP addresses (apparently by a vandalbot). The anonymous users remove text from Misplaced Pages articles and replace it with kilobytes of nonsense. See my block log, for example. (By the way, for how long should I block them? One day or longer?) - Mike Rosoft 21:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally I take a very dim view of vandalbots...so the week you've been applying is the min I would do. Anyone remember what is our precedent the last time we were vandalbotted with the random username vandals? --Syrthiss 22:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Can/could they have been range blocked? Note that these were not random username bots, since those would be shootable-on-sight. These were all IPs. -Splash 22:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

More activity from apparently the same source User:140.127.139.247 --pgk 20:15, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

GNAA "War on blogs" campaign

See User:Timecop/The war on blogs and also see, for instance, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/TechPhile (2nd nomination) and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Unalienable Right. Some of the blog articles they are systematically targeting may be legitimate deletion candidates; it's just that few websites end up in an improved state after any organized campaign by self-proclaimed GNAA members. So a little extra scrutiny of what they're up to wouldn't hurt. -- Curps 22:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I've already looked over most of the nominations and they're great. Timecop is operating completely within Misplaced Pages's rules. He should be thanked for focusing on a specific area of cleanup. silsor 23:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Until as recently as five days ago, they had The Volokh Conspiracy in their hitlist queue (until some anon IP removed it from their list). That raised a big red flag that they might be trying to sneak some non-delete-worthy articles past us, mixed in with the crowd of more obscure blogs. And their methods are questionable regardless of whether any given targeted article actually is a valid deletion candidate or not: meatpuppets systematically voting as a bloc on multiple articles in response to an organized campaign, often with few other contributions to Misplaced Pages other than the systematic party-line AfD voting. -- Curps 23:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, there's reasonable evidence of this, as they've tried it already. Phil Sandifer 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

For those who aren't aware, User:Timecop is the founder and leader of the GNAA. -- Pakaran 23:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Femmina, User:Depakote, User:Jmax-, and User:Tapir do almost nothing on Misplaced Pages except vote to delete blog-related articles. An honest effort to delete useless articles would be fine, but these guys are clearly coordinating their efforts off-site and they don't care if they delete useful articles. They all vote "delete" soon after an article is nominated, in order to build momentum. Rhobite 04:44, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Rhobite - I realize they are from a "trolling organization" but it seems like an honest effort to remove what is otherwise blatent spam. Also, despite the notariety, timecop has made mostly good contributions (which admittedly is kind of strange given the circumstances). I and several other admins are already watching this list (I've voted delete on most and keep and transwiki on a couple others) so I don't think there is a need to be worried at the moment. WhiteNight 05:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I take issue with Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler (deleted and currently listed on WP:DRV) and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/W.bloggar (current AfD). Anyone who is familiar with right-wing blogs will recognize the Rottweiler; it won a couple awards in 2002 and 2003, and has been linked from LGF, Instapundit, et al. I think this blog is clearly notable. A disappointingly small number of people voted in its AfD. I will also be very annoyed if W.bloggar is deleted. Thousands of people use this software to post entries to their blog; I used it in the past. GNAA made no attempt to assess the notability of this software, and there are several illegal votes in the AfD by users with no other edits. I see you voted to keep that article, and I'm glad that you're not just knee-jerk deleting. That's what they are doing. It doesn't matter if they get it right most of the time - I care about their disruptive methods. Rhobite 05:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm right-wing, I maintain a blog, and I've never heard of it, nor do I gutlessly promote my own droll musings. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 11:45, Jan. 11, 2006

Well, in terms of the Rottweiler article there is obviously geniune disagreement between admins over that one with the majority favoring deletion - plus the GNAA interference in that debate was somewhat minimal (indeed the debate itself was rather minimal). As for W.bloggar that will probably easily be kept, and even if it doesn't there are other high-edit and admins who wanted that article deleted also so it isn't really an open-and-shut case. While the pile-on votes from the new users are somewhat disruptive, as far as I can see it isn't much different then the old schoolwatch debate a while back - except this is even in userspace and not public space. In terms of nominations they actually provide at least some varafiable information (google hits, alexa rankings, etc.) and guideline arguments for most articles which is honestly more than most AfD nominations do, and this was due to criticism about earlier nominations so it seems like an honest attempt to contribute. Call me optimistic, I guess.WhiteNight 06:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you consider "minimal"... two votes were by self-proclaimed GNAA members (Timecop, Femmina) and a possible third (User:supers). Without those votes the deletion wouldn't have happened. -- Curps 22:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

In the past Fammina has denied involvement in the GNAA (not that I neccesarily believe that, but I can WP:AGF), and it is a stretch to throw supers in as they are not usually ones to be quiet about their allegience. Even then it runs into the problem of guilt by association and the fact that the users you mention are not really new users here and have other contributions. However, I am slightly concerned with the queue, but the process itself is working ok (besides, if I were to post something like "GNAA NOMINATING GOOD ARTICLE FOR DELETION, PLEASE WEIGH IN" et al. on the blog talk page I'd wager it would be kept pretty quickly. WhiteNight 22:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to contradict, but Femmina has a GNAA logo on his/her user page. Hence, "self-proclaimed" GNAA member. We might charitably suppose this represents a change of heart rather than the original denial simply being an outright lie. -- Curps 05:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget that in their "queue" are several very notable articles including Moblog, Sousveillance (publicized by Steve Mann and covered on Slashdot), Overheard in New York, Video podcasting, and MetaWeblog (widely used API). I wouldn't be surprised if they followed through and nominated The Volokh Conspiracy as well. This isn't good-faith editing. No user should make it their sole purpose to delete articles from Misplaced Pages. Rhobite 06:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Stop conspiracy theories. The only people who want to read tripe like "The Volokh Conspiracy" are the same people who enjoy Photocasting from their newly-pucrhased Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro's. Volokh WAS in the queue, no idea which idiot removed it. Probably the article author (and the only person who actually cares about it). --Timecop 07:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Stop conspiracy theories. Kindly don't insult people's intelligence. It's not a "conspiracy theory": it's a open, visible-to-the-naked-eye conspiracy. --Calton | Talk 13:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I added sousveillance to the list. A neologism being plugged on slashdot doesn't convince me of its validity, and it's worth debating on AfD. But that's irrelevant, the point is that timecop & co are operating within the rules, on a job that SOMEONE needed to do sooner or later; the avalanche of blogcruft and foocasting articles was getting crazy. There's enough people watching the War On Blogs to make sure it stays copacetic. Proto t c 07:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You do bring up a good point: luckily RN was watching Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/W.bloggar closely enough to catch you voting twice. Rhobite 15:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, Rhobite - I honestly hadn't noticed.

It may well be related to the above, but I tried to merge The Volokh Conspiracy into Eugene Volokh, only for User:Curps to revert with no explanation. Lack of communication is not conducive to keeping things pleasant. Proto t c 11:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you could have done some communicating or discussing yourself, right here for instance, before carrying out part of the GNAA agenda (immediately after doing that merge, you posted to User:Timecop/The war on blogs, writing "Done" next to the Volokh Conspiracy entry on their target queue). You obviously knew that attempting that merger would be controversial, not least because you were aware of the above discussion, having posted in this current discussion yourself yesterday . It takes a certain chutzpah for you to complain about lack of communication. -- Curps 11:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

"The war on blogs" AFAICS is really just a glorified cleanup project, and I myself have listed fine articles such as TWBPSK Kevin Ray's Corner Blog for deletion, and have done some real non-deletion-related cleanup of blog-related articles. The merger was well within WP:BOLD as the controversy here was about deletion, and the merger was fairly nice. I'd encourage people to sit back and relax and let others handle it if they are vehemetly opposed to anything with a GNAA label on it. WhiteNight 21:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

sousveillance has been nominated for deletion twice already: Talk:Sousveillance, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sousveillance. Uncle G 19:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Edit Counter

The edit counter looks like it's broken again. I keep on making contributions and the number of edits don't change. Sigh :-( Will it ever be properly fixed? SWD316 23:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It probably only checks the database on the toolserver, which doesn't get instantly updated from the live one here. (Disclaimer: I haven't checked the source code.) —Cryptic (talk) 04:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The edit counter does indeed run against the replica on the toolserver, which is usually anywhere from a few minutes to several hours behind the masters (I think the record lag is well over one day). Kelly Martin (talk) 04:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

For those who don't know, there is another copy of the edit counter running: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/count_edits. It won't solve the problem of server lag, but when Kate's is down, it should still be available. -- Essjay · Talk 12:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes for deletion

In the past month, wikipedia has seen an explosion of userboxes. Many of these templates feed into dedicated categories. Misplaced Pages has also seen a massive controversy over which userboxes are desirable and which are not, and what actions and processes are appropriate to deal with "undesirable" userboxes. I personally don't see this issue being resolved soon. Also, a lot of bad blood has been created, which might interfere with community operations in the future. Would it be an idea to create a new deletions process, Misplaced Pages:Userboxes for deletion (UfD), to deal with this issue? I believe that there are now so many userboxes, with so many more being created every day, that filling this with new deletion requests shouldn't be much of a problem. It could also prevent an overflow of deletion requests at tfd. This overflow could obstruct non-userbox-related deletion requests. Furthermore, the occasional linkage of templates and categories could create some friction with tfd and cfd. The same has happened between rfd, cfd and tfd on one side, and sfd on the other side. I don't know if this is the proper place to raise this issue, or whether I should go to the Village Pump for it. I also don't know if this is feasible, viable and/or desirable. What are the obstructions to this issue? Aecis 00:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Or just delete the lot. --Doc 00:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with Doc. I thought that the recent RfCs should have taught one that single-handed actions by people "feeling strongly" about issues is unproductive. I would also add that it is abuse of administrative powers to go on a deletion rampage; actually to delete even a single userbox without proper process, unless it is clear nonsense or clearly offensive. For full disclosure, I hate userboxes, even the Babel ones (the granddaddy of them all I would guess). But if one does anything, let it be done by proper process, whatever that may be. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

A terrible idea. Witness the morass that WP:SFD has become, where perfectly good redirects like Template:Us-rail-stub → Template:US-rail-stub are unanimously deleted, until it's gotten so that it's practically impossible to sort stubs unless that's almost the only thing you do. Specialized wikiprojects should not have sole voice in deletion. Send 'em through TFD. —Cryptic (talk) 04:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Cryptic. TfD is the appropriate venue. I'm also concerned that having a separate UFD would lead to a subcommunity of voters that develops a sense of consensus and practice that is at odds with the broader sense of community standards. Kelly Martin (talk) 04:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

What Kelly said about a separate UfD culture developing makes sense to me - we don't want that. The userbox situation is going to have to be resolved by some kind of widespead discussion and consensus about the role of the Misplaced Pages community and what bounds, if any, need to be placed on its growth as a community, which is a non-trivial question. That's the root of the userbox issue, though, and has to be addressed somewhere.

Meanwhile, I would take issue with Cryptic's characterization of SfD - are you aware that template redirects cost double the server resources, and that developers support deleting template redirects? Fascinating stuff, that. Turns out not all redirects are cheap. -GTBacchus 04:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware that they cause an extra database query. I'm also aware that they're cheaper than normal redirects, since don't make the squids cache an extra copy of the whole, rendered page. This is an argument for either a soft redirect or bot enforcement. The rest of Misplaced Pages abandoned CamelCase a very long time ago. —Cryptic (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I find your referring to a "UfD subcommunity" a bit of a fallacy. That's a risk you get with every deletions process, whether it's AfD, CfD, TfD, IfD, MfD or SfD. I don't see why it should be more of a problem with userboxes than with other types (although I agree that some people have become overly owneristic of new userboxes). Aecis 11:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It still never ceases to amaze me that we have new users with a ton of fugly userboxes and very few actual edits. One quick example: The Ungovernable Force, with all of 15 articlespace edits and 18 userboxes, most of which express an opinion rather a skill. I'm still suffering from red-userbox-blindness. --Deathphoenix 05:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• I sense the impending invention of Deathphoenix's Law: The number of opinion-expressing userboxes on a user page is inversely proportional to the number of edits to articles. ☺ Uncle G 18:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Ultracoolxxx blocked

I just did my first block ever (yay me!) of Ultracoolxxx (talk · contribs) for repeated vandalism. He was warned and blocked back in September, took a break, and then today created Bomber Dream which I speedied. I then blocked him for a month, given that he was a repeat vandal. I figure he's unrepentant and although I didn't warn him this time around, he can't say he didn't know it would be coming. Was that too harsh? howcheng {chat} 00:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

restore edit history

I merged and edited Template:Numismatics and Template:Numismatic infobox. When I was done, I requested that numismatic infobox be deleted, and it was. I thought it would be confusing to have two templates around for the same purpose. I was not aware that templates could have redirects, and didn't think of preserving the edit history, most of which is at numismatic infobox. Anyway, can someone either merge the edit history of numismatic infobox into numismatics, or undelete it so I can make it a redirect, or otherwise fix my mistake? Thanks. Ingrid 02:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. (In the future, requests like this are more properly placed at WP:DRV.) —Cryptic (talk) 04:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

қазақша

I've noticed that on the Interwiki link, the link to the Kazakh Misplaced Pages is displayed as "қазақша". Wouldn't it make more sense to display it as "Қазақша"? Waynem 03:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on Jeffrey Vernon Merkey, legal threats

I've blocked 67.177.35.222 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) for a month for persistent vandalism of Jeffrey Vernon Merkey and for making legal threats. I'm fairly sure he's the same person as 67.177.35.211 (talk · contribs), and may be Jeffery Merkey himself. --Carnildo 07:42, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User 68.159.20.189

User 68.159.20.189 has devoted the majority of their edit history to placing external spam links harassing and reverting users who try to stop them. They have made up to 7 reverts in a row, and 10 reverts in total of commercial spam. This has been posted on the Administrators' 3RR noticeboard. The user has a history of insulting me personally, calling me a "latino hater" and falsely claims I have made "derogatory statements about latinos" because I have reverted his spam. They have reverted spam warnings on their user page, so they are clearly aware of the rules. Please give this user a block, they have been warned at least 10 times on talk pages and user pages. Thank you.--Urthogie 08:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Sock puppetry at Talk:Trentino-South Tyrol and Talk:South Tyrol

Hi! I think I need help. Take a look at the article talk pages above, some of the latest contributions at User talk:Gryffindor and User talk:Pgk, and the following users' contributions:

Special:Contributions/Viewtool, Special:Contributions/Account101, Special:Contributions/Wikifun-usa, Special:Contributions/Nospu, Special:Contributions/Infinity88, Special:Contributions/Jamesbozen, possibly more.

This is the first time I've had to deal with sock puppets, so assistance would be appreciated, as I'm rather stumped on how to resolve this, apart from striking out sock puppet votes in the move vote. I'm afraid I may already have violated the WP:3RR in the process of dealing with this, which is not good, I know. Thanks for your help! —Nightstallion (?) 09:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Clear-cut sockpuppetry. See for CheckUser request and discussion. I recommend blocks of all of:

• Viewtool (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Account101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Wikifun-usa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Nospu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Infinity88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Jamesbozen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log),
• Rossifumi-gp (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and
• Mud-Miner (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

The senior account appears to be Rossifumi-gp; while there are other accounts on both IPs I'm not convinced that they belong to this editor. Both IPs involved are probably shared IPs; IP blocks should be short-term as a result. Kelly Martin (talk) 12:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I've let him keep Rossifumi-gp for now as a measure of WP:AGF. All the others have been blocked, sans the IPs. Thanks for your help! —Nightstallion (?) 13:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This and this don't seem like very well-meaning edits, to me. User:Zoe| 20:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

True enough, but I believe in second chances. I'll monitor him, though. Thanks! —Nightstallion (?) 06:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for Comment/All (and possibly elsewhere)

This page includes the text "See Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment#User_conduct_RfC for the minimum requirements." The link there should be pointing to #User-conduct_RfC instead (a dash, not an underscore) because the title of that section seems to have changed since the link was made. ~Topaz 09:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, I think. Notice that, while the Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/All page is protected, it actually includes several pages, and that text was coming from Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct, which is not protected. You could have edited it yourself by using section editing. --cesarb 12:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I suspected it was something like that... sorry to bother you, then. ~Topaz 18:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Bot generated AFD summaries

I have undertaken a project to create a bot that can parse AFD in order to identify AFDs that probably need more attention. This has been mentioned in a number of places without generating much feedback, but now it has reached a point where it is probably good enough to be useful to people concerned with AFD. (Not perfect mind you, but pretty good most of the time.)

The summaries and description of what I have been doing are at User:Dragons flight/AFD summary and subpages thereof. As something of a trial run, I am going to have it update the lists every few hours so people can get a feel for whether it is helpful and point out bugs I may have missed. Dragons flight 16:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

USER:64.90.240.50

Hi user 64.90.240.50 (edit history: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Contributions&target=64.90.240.50) has been vandalising many page after being warned once before and twice today. Wondering if someone could block? Mike 16:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The user also vandalized another page and I've blocked them.--Alabamaboy 17:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Mike 18:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Remington and the Rattlesnakes unbanning request

This user is not a vandal. Many of his contributions were helpful, and he also wishes to be unbanned.Gex Terimilu 18:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Remington_and_the_Rattlesnakes is reported to be the North Carolina vandal. As for yourself, you are a new user (3 edits). How could you be in contact with this vandal unless you were a sock puppet? Anyway, User:Remington_and_the_Rattlesnakes's block should remain.--Alabamaboy 18:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that while I am unfamiliar with the North Carolina vandal's style, I didn't find a non-vandalism edit in my random sampling of the history for that user. I also share Alabamaboy's skepticism, especially considering your username. --Syrthiss 18:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It's the NCV, making more sockpuppets to claim some of his other sockpuppets are innocent, etc. etc. This is characteristic behavior for this kid. See the message he left on my talk page from a similar two-edit sockpuppet . I'm surprised he's not in school today; normally he doesn't edit 8-4 EST. Antandrus (talk) 19:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Rattlesnake Hunter just requested on RFP that the pages be unprotected. Obviously, they aren't. I indef blocked the account as a sock. · Katefan0/mrp 22:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Marvelvsdc

I have blocked Marvelvsdc (talk · contribs) indefinitely until he/she discusses the copyright violation made on the Eclipso article. When the copyright violation was discovered, I asked the User if he/she had made more such violations, but they claimed it wasn't them. When I specifically gave them a link to the copyright violation's insertion, they refused to respond. I have given them several chances to discuss this, and have blocked them until they do. User:Zoe| 19:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah hell, I have just blanked part of Damage (comics) as another copyvio started by him. Dragons flight 20:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

threats to hurt one's self

What do we do when users threaten to commit suicide? I found this four month old edit in the history of a user that I've blocked. - BanyanTree 20:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Nothing you can do. First, this was four months ago. Second, even if were today, if someone wants to do it, he'll do it. Sbz5809 20:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The standard approach in all organisations without exception that have public participation is for the location if possible of the person who made the threat to be established and the local police notified immediately. It is never the policy to ignore it. The comment that even if were today, if someone wants to do it, he'll do it shows no understanding whatsoever for the reason why such threats are made.

Actually, it shows precisely the opposite, as your next sentence acknowledges. Sbz5809 21:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

People who want to kill themselves usually don't announce the fact. People who announce their attention are usually desparately seeking help. If it is was just a prank post, to ignore it would be wreckless in the extreme. Furthermore if the person did kill themselves after making the threat, and nothing had been done, and the fact that the threat became public (eg, if the family found out and revealed it to the media) it would make news headlines (WIKIPEDIA IGNORED SUICIDE THREAT CLAIMS FAMILY ; WIKIPEDIA ALLOWED CONTRIBUTOR TO KILL THEMSELVES ; SUICIDE VICTIM APPEAL NOT HEEDED BY WIKIPEDIA or worst of all because of its double meaning WIKIPEDIA USER KILLS THEMSELVES etc) that would in themselves result in a flood of both joke and serious threats. All threats should be reported to someone who can seek to establish where the person is contributing from or to Jimbo and then they could quietly handle the issue with the local police if they can establish who sent the message. Under no circumstances can such a threat be ignored if freshly made. FearÉIREANN\ 20:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Though I would have said it with fewer capital letters, I agree with Jtdirl, these things should be taken quite seriously. However, we probably don't have to worry too much about a 4 month old threat from someone who is still contributing (albeit temporarily blocked at the moment). Has anyone talked to him about it? I noticed that the unsigned threat post in question was removed after some weeks without any reply. Dragons flight 20:52, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that that looks like a (quite sick and morbid) joke to me. --Kiand 21:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to throw my two cents in and agree wth Jtdirl and Dragons flight; we should certainly take these threats seriously. Because of his schedule, bringing the issue to Jimbo is unlikely to get the swift response it requires; I feel sure he would want to take immediate action, but is simply unlikely to see anything in time. However, his talk page is monitored by many, many admins, so that might be a good place to report it after all. Here, of course, would be a good place as well, as would the talk page of any of our Board members or especially the ArbCom members. For those that are IRC users, bringing it up in #mediawiki will get a very quick response. -- Essjay · Talk 21:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that a checkuser admin get his IP address and fire off an email to his ISP/local police dept, only solution I can think of. Even if it is not real, this is a simple solution. While they may not have actually killed themselves, they are obviously crying for help, and require assistance from someone trained to deal with this. Mike 21:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not see any discussion of it in his talk, or from the scan of his contribs. I figured out where I had heard precedent. It's at Misplaced Pages:History of Wikipedian processes and people#Other stories and during a previous threat (albeit one that was immediate) in 2003, Wikipedians contacted local authorities. I did find Image:Mattcollinsliar.gif, which was used for subsequent vandalism and may be useful in IDing the user. (Has an IfD tag, but doesn't appear to be actually listed.) - BanyanTree 21:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Tykell (talk · contribs) has made edits as recently as today. android79 21:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been told that it seems not to be urgent on IRC, so have stopped pursuing it. - BanyanTree 21:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

since we would need to be working pretty fast the best people to contact would probably be the developers and the cheackuser people to get their IP. After that all we can do is contact their ISP.Geni 21:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Last fall an editor talked about suicide and made broad hints that he was desperate, including a short but poignant biography on his user page. Other editors left notes on his talk page expressing their concern about him and their appreciation for his contributions (though he was relatively new). The editor made it through his dark spell and he has made many more contributions since then (which is why I haven't provided links or names). We certainly don't want to lose good (or even bad) editors that way. Misplaced Pages is not, primarily, a community; but it is one anyway. It is merely civil to tell someone who is considering harming himself to refrain from doing so. However intervening in another user's life, without being asked, may be taking on more responsibility than encyclopedia editors ought to have. I hope it all works out well. -Will Beback 09:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections notice on Special:Watchlist

On Special:Watchlist (maybe elsewhere?), there is a notice which states that "Arbitration Committee elections have commenced, and will continue until 23:59 UTC, January 22." The comma after 'commenced' shouldn't be there. Who controls the content for that notice? ~Topaz 20:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

ANy admin can. It's Mediawiki:Watchdetails. -- Essjay · Talk 20:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Problem is that some people use a serial comma where others don't. Technically it is correct to some, and incorrect to others. Me I perfer to drop the comma before and. Mike 21:16, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not a serial comma. Serial comma is one that's used before a conjunction in a list of three or more items; here we only have two. I removed it from the notice. Good catch, Topaz!—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) 21:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It is probably correct (or, at least, not incorrect) in the far-less-strict UK English. ] 22:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It would certainly read oddly to me without the comma, as if it were to be spoken all in one breath with no chance to pause. With the comma, you can read it as: Arbitration Committee elections have commenced <pause> and will continue until .... User:Zoe| 22:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Zoe. To me, the message read oddly without the comma (which was why I added it in the first place). I've updated the statement in a manner that eliminates the issue entirely. —David Levy 23:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, commas in this sense are supposed to separate independent clauses. "will continue until <this date>" is a sentence fragment. The addition of a noun or noun phrase is necessary to make it an independent clause. Just my two cents, don't really care if you do it that way or not. --Deathphoenix 23:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

<smacks himself in the head for not noticing that> You're absolutely correct that the comma is excessive, and I'm glad you caught that. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, the text should read "Arbitration Committee elections will continue until morale improves." Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 15:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

User:152.163.100.130

A user using the IP 152.163.100.130 (edit history: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Contributions&target=152.163.100.130) has been vandalising pages again. It appears he has been warned multiple times in the past. Reqesting a admin to temp block him? Mike 21:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Left a note on your talk page about a more appropriate place to list violations such as this. I also have checked this user and they didn't vandalize since your warning so I'm not inclined to block them at this time. --Syrthiss 21:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Main

This is a request to restore the long-standing appearance of Template:Main to what it was before Adminstrator User:Neutrality changed its appearance today without consulting anyone (he removed the indentation). The page was recently "protected", so I have to ask for help to restore the template to its long-standing appearance before Neutrality's edit today. He made no discussion nor achieved consensus to change its appearance. I am not the only one who feels this way. This template affects thousands of articles and editors who choose to use it based on its long-standing appearance. There must be some discussion and consensus before its appearance changes. --Stbalbach 22:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

It appears to be reverted now, but have you asked Neutrality why he changed it? While I haven't reviewed the situation (appears to be a long-standing debate), in the future please try and communicate more - I'm sure he would be happy to explain things to you. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I know why he changed it, his own personal asthetic taste, there is a long standing problem with him and this template, he believes anyone should be able to change how it appears anytime they want without consensus, this is documented in the Main talk page. He is not the only one who is mistaken in this viewpoint of course, but since the page is now protected, and since Neutrality is an admin, it is a more serious problem with him in particular (see the template edit history for his previous revert history and lack of consensus building). I would be interested in knowing who placed protected status on the template to begin with, it had no reason to be protected, there was no vandalism problem and there were a whole bunch of us maintaining it. Now we are essentially "locked out". --Stbalbach 23:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

You may check the protection log to see records of every protect and unprotect. However, I have to agree that this particular template required protection - if it's used in thousands of articles and is high-visibility, it needs to be protected to stop vandalism. One change not only impacts thousands of pages, but also causes strain on the servers. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Remington and the Rattlesnakes and the Socks

I've now indef blocked User:Rattlesnake Hunter and User:Ghyst who are requesting the Remington and Jake Remington pages be unprotected. I'm sure more are to come. · Katefan0/mrp 22:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

And User:Danny Phantom. I'm about to go out with some friends, someone else might want to watch for this stuff. Seems to be hitting RFP, and mine and Woohookitty's talk pages. · Katefan0/mrp 23:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:StroikinBury · Katefan0/mrp 23:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Appearant Vandalisim

I have a case of appearant vandalisim on the article Phoenix Lights. I have a alleged Skepticisim section and a neutrality template on the article. It says see the talk page about why this is in dispute. Done so. There is NOTHING on the discussion page. The history section reveals a anon. account, and when investigated, that is a nonexistant account. Stand by for the detected User designation. Martial Law 23:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The latest is designated 84.12.181.244. Martial Law 23:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Still investigating. Martial Law 23:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this a sock at work ? Martial Law 23:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Should I just throw the mess out ? Martial Law 23:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I do really appreciate the assisstance. Martial Law 23:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Well yes it is POV at present (the skeptic view is capmentalised into a tiny section at the end of the article) I fail to see the problem with the template.Geni 00:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Template says go to the Discussion page. I did. There is nothing on it. Martial Law 02:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The article discusses a still ongoing UFO sighting, a movie rendition of the UFO incident, Art Bell's radio show when this was going on at the time, some UFO sightings. Martial Law 02:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey ML, I have edited the article to make it at least a little less POV, less verbose, and less of an ad for Art Bell. I have also moved the gist of the very last line up to the intro. Readers should not have to wade through screeds of speculation to discover that there has always been an official USAF explanation. Moriori 03:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Got it. When I saw that the template had nothing on it to support its cause, I thought I had found some vandalisation. When the UFO incident was going on, Art Bell was taking calls from people who had seen these things, even as the incident was still unfolding. One caller said that Luke had launched armed planes at the UFOs, and one does'nt send $60 Million planes up after flares, another witness said it hovered over their vehicle. The incident continues to unfold, in spite of what the USAF has said. Something is going on there. Appreciate the assisstance. Go to the UFO Casebook website, and see the main "newspage". The latest is that someone got a pix of a flying cigar w/ a "light". Maybe this witness is a Wikipedian. Hope so. Martial Law 04:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Wonder who the anon User was. Martial Law 04:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Community Panel proposal - Misplaced Pages:Community Panel

Recently, I've written a proposal outlining a new decision-making body which I termed the Misplaced Pages Community Panel, made up of 20 elected representatives of the Misplaced Pages community. My idea was that it would, amongst other things, replace the arbcom, work on policy and collaborate with the Wikimedia Foundation board, thus providing a better integration between the Wikimedia board and the community and circumventing the current somewhat bureaucratic arrangement of the arbcom. The proposal, which is rather embryonic, is at Misplaced Pages:Community Panel; I would greatly appreciate feedback on it, and if possible other people interested in the concept to work on it - or, of course, to lay it to rest as a terrible idea! Thank you, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 23:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:rbj

Hello all, rbj (talk · contribs) has been doing little else than a constant NPA wikistalking campaign against myself(no need for diffs, just see his contribs and throw a dart, that's basically all he does), please advise on an action to take regarding this. karmafist 03:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest a short block from an uninvolved user. And remember, he makes lots of noise over tiny 24 hour blocks. (which is what started this crap anyway). :( --Phroziac _. o º 04:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yep. The noise is getting absurd in regards to WP:NPA vios though. Can someone assist here? karmafist 05:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocked for 48 hours.--Sean|Black 05:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You don't mind playing the role of "bad guy", do ya, Sean? :) Quadell 20:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this seems absurd to me. Wikistalking? Karmafist, you claim there is "no need for diffs"... well guess what, I'm gonna ask for one anyway. Please identify even ONE page that Rbj has 'wikistalked' you to... some article or talk page where you were contributing and he showed up not for some legitimate interest, but just to harass you. Just one diff to show that this 'wikistalking' claim isn't completely baseless. Or were you claiming that he 'wikistalked' you to the RFC you filed against him? The arbitration vote pages where he voted based on how likely he thought people would be to oppose what he sees as your harassment?

If wikistalking is "basically all he does" then no doubt you are a regular contributor at Gravitational constant, Shannon-Hartley theorem, Planck units, Disrete-time Fourier transforms and the many other pages where he has contributed in the last few days. Either that or you just engaged in personal attacks / false accusations against him.

Yes, Rbj complains about Karmafist and Phroziac (and some of their friends)... just as they complain about him. The complaint above happens to be untrue. Plainly and obviously untrue. A 'personal attack'. There are absolutely no grounds for the claim that Rbj 'does little else'... he does ALOT else. I can actually provide diffs showing that (see above). Yes, he also spends alot of time complaining about the (largely baseless) RFC these same users brought against him. They attack him... he attacks them... it's all an unseemly uncivil mess. Yet what happens? The regular user gets blocked based on blatantly untrue claims that he is not contributing to the encyclopedia and creative re-interpretation of blocking policy to allow blocks for such, while the equally 'guilty' admins do not. It is dead wrong. --CBD _☎ 21:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Protection of user pages

1. What does everyone feel about admins protecting their user pages permanently? I know there are a few handfulls of admins who do it, and I know I don't like it, and have commented on it to a few admins already. This is because this is a wiki, and userpages aren't special. Most user pages don't get much vandalism, users that would are often watched by many people, and vandalism quickly reverted. Protecting these will tend to make users envy us. It also encourages us to be more pro-protection. Furthermore, I specifically allow people to edit my userpage, with a note at the bottom. I suck at web design and a few bored users have made my user page pretty cool.
2. I've noticed that many user pages of indef blocked users are being protected. That's perfectly ok if the user is vandalizing their user page, but many are being protected pre-emptively. That's not neccessary, wastes time, and stuff. Some of these are just Willy on Wheels socks, and our wheelers normally don't care about their accounts...at this point, they're basically making the on wheels accounts to waste our time and never going near them again.
3. Anyway, I've made a list of protected user pages at User:Phroziac/Protected user pages. --Phroziac _. o º 04:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• 1. I think the only reason to protect userpages is an onslaught of uncontrollable vandalism (in which case semi-protection works too). I used to have my userpage protected, but I have seen the error of my ways.
  2. I think this is okay just to play it safe.
  3. Umm —Ilyanep (Talk) 04:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

User pages are not articles. It is basically accepted that users generally have carte blanche on their own user space within limits. If I don't want someone messing with my user page, it is only logical (and perfectly acceptable) to protect it. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 05:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Mine is also protected. With all the anti-vandal work I do, I just feel better that way; the only people who want to edit my user page are vandals, and I don't want them to. If others want their pages unprotected, so be it. Antandrus (talk) 05:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I never found it necessary to protect my main user page, although it has been vandalized often in the past, but I fully understand and have absolutely nothing against anyone else protecting his or her user page due to vandalism. Protection of user subpages used as boilerplates for subst'ing is of course also fine by me, as one wouldn't want some vandal changing it. From Phroziac's list I gather that there are about 300 protected pages in user space (user pages or subpages thereof). Why worry at all? It's not a performance bottleneck, is it? Lupo 08:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I protected mine once when some kid ran a bot on it, but in general I think it's better that vandal-time is spent on my simple and rather unimportant page than some article where it might not be discovered. Userpage-vandalism is usually reverted very quickly and the vandal revealed and blocked. And sometimes it's just a kid testing and having fun. I don't mind, but I can understand those who do mind and want it kept clean. Fine with me and no big deal. Shanes 09:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I've never found it nessecary to protect my page. Most vandalism I get is simple one off 'omg u suk!' things. I have however semiprotected a few users' pages over the past weeks, mostly because they've been hit on and off by AOL vandals. Blocking one vandal ip on AOL doesn't stop them from coming right back with a new one in the cases I've looked at. I don't think I would full protect a userpage though; vandalism not handled by semi should be handleable by normal channels of blocks. --Syrthiss 13:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jeffrey as well, but I have not completely disenfranchised the vandals, as my page is only semi-protected, and there is still a subpage for them to attack instead. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 17:32, Jan. 12, 2006

I agree with Jeff, obviously. If troublemakers are allowed to have virtually anything they want on their userpage by the reasoning that user pages are different, what reasoning would not allow me to keep mine from being vandalized? I see no reason anyone needs to edit my userpage and it's been really nice not having to worry about vandalism on it. Reverting vandalism on my userpage is wasted time that could better be spent on basically anything else. Besides, the protection policy specifically allows it: "A permanent or semi-permanent protection is used for: User pages and their subpages that are subject to repeated vandalism." I also don't like being included on a list as if I've done something wrong. - Taxman 14:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Phroziac's lists are of pages that are protected against both moving and editing (by anyone other than administrators). It's widely accepted at other projects that protecting a user page against page moves only is entirely reasonable, given that there are few occasions where one would want to rename a user page, and given the propensity of some vandals to rename user pages. Uncle G 18:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems with protecting against moves only. Userpages never really need to be moved. --Phroziac _. o º 18:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Cartoons depicting sexual abuse of children

Hi, I just had a conversation with someone (who said he was a law student in U.S.) in IRC who said that our article on Lolicon had inaccurate legal information and a picture that was possibly illegal to distribute. The article suggested that cartoons depicting sexual abuse of children were legal and would likely remain legal in the US, however my IRC interlocutor linked me to several reputable publications writing on a recent child pornography trafficking conviction for transmission of cartoons over the internet. I have updated the article to reflect this information, but because the cartoon in the article does not seem to me to depict sexual abuse (though it may be intended to arouse pedophiles, I don't know) I have not removed the image. I would appreciate it if some of you (perhaps with a legal background) would have a look at the Lolicon article. Thanks. Babajobu 05:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Update: interlocutor says that relevant statute criminalizes cartoon depiction of "sexually explicit conduct" with minors, rather than "sexual abuse", and that this is enumerated on page 75 of relevant statute, here . Just thought I should throw this one to the crowd. Babajobu 05:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You are going to be in for a battle if you want that image removed as several users appear to want it kept. I'll be honest I was slightly surprised by it too but there has been various edit wars over that and basically the majority of the talk page is discussion relating to that one image. WhiteNight 06:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine. As I say, I can't see how it could be viewed as constituting "sexually explicit conduct", so I think it's fine from a legal standpoint. But since someone off-wiki had warned me about it, and since he was right that we had incorrect legal info in the article, I just thought I should throw it out on the noticeboard. Babajobu 06:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this part was already overturned at least once by the Supreme Court... do you people actually look to see what court document your reading and google it? The PROTECT Act "virtual child pornography" section was overturned by the Supreme Court as Unconstitutional in its previous rendition as the COPA "Child Online Protection Act. I've no doubt this would also hold in court now. I suggest you approach the WikiProject Law about it.  ALKIVAR™ 08:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Alkivar, that's lovely, but yes I did read it and the PROTECT Act is entirely different from COPA and has not been overturned. Moreover, the case in question was decided on December 1, 2005, so clearly the provisions of PROTECT are still operative. This doesn't mean, though, that the picture in question is covered under the act. Cheers. Babajobu 08:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Even if the picture is legal in some jurisdictions, we may still decide to delete it. All articles do not need to be illustrated. The last IfD, a month ago, did not have a strong consensus.]. -Will Beback 09:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Notice about when you protect/unprotect pages

When admins full protect, semi protect or unprotect a page, please remember to make the appropriate changes on the protected pages page. User:Splash, User:novacatz and I are having to go through the PP page daily to take out pages that are no longer protected and to add pages that are protected but that haven't been added to the page. For example, I just removed pornography, which was unprotected 4 days ago. It's a major pain in the rump to have to do this every day. So please remember to add/remove pages from the list when you take action on a protected page. Thanks. --Woohookitty 07:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Will do. I don't know if I've ever forgotten, but I'm sorry if I have.--Sean|Black 09:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

A feature for this comparable to Special:Ipblocklist would be a useful addition, don't you think? Talrias (t | e | c) 19:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not simply check Category:Semi-protected, etc. Pages are automatically added there. -- Curps 22:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we do have that, but it's handy for those who watch the protected lists to be able to see at a glance the original reason and datetime of protection, neither of which are available directly from the category. It's a little more paperwork but, since admins seem often (HINT) to forget to unprotect pages, especially semi-protected ones, it makes others' lifes a little easier. -Splash 23:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added a notice to MediaWiki:Protect-text reminding people of this, as well as a link to WP:SPP. the wub "?!" 18:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Restraint when using humor and sarcasm

I've been noticing some tension over comments meant to be humorous and/or sarcastic. Written language is not very good at conveying the emotional intent behind these comments. It is just as likely to be misinterprted as being appreciated as intended. As a rule of thumb, it makes sense to use humor and sarcasm if you are really good at it, certain of your audience and are not in an emotionally charged situation. I often don't know how to interpret many of these comments. Often these remarks get interpreted literally and things get heated. So, I'm not saying that everyone shouldn't be humorous, but that it should be at the right time, in the right place, in the right situation and with caution. -- Samuel Wantman 10:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

User creation pattern

• Nothing wrong with it, but I don't like the pattern on the user creation log I'm seeing, could be someone setting up a WoW run or something similar. Bringing here for higher visibility. Wikibofh_(talk) 15:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ssuusissaaan (talk · contribs)
• Ssusissaaan (talk · contribs)
• Susissaaan (talk · contribs)
• Suusiisssaan (talk · contribs)
• Suusiissaan (talk · contribs)
• Suusiisaan (talk · contribs)
• Suusisaan (talk · contribs)
• Susisaan (talk · contribs)
• Susisan (talk · contribs)

Notable is that Wikibofh only mentions 10 users...which means that they're probably all from the same IP, and the 10-per-IP-per-day limit kicked in (at least, I think that's what the limit is...) Perhaps it would be of interest for Kelly Martin to checkuser these and see if they correspond to other vandals...then again, it could just be someone who was bored and decided to make a ton of articles. Ral315 (talk) 17:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Note: I don't know if you made a typo or forgot a letter, Wikibofh, but the last two user names (Susisan and Susisan) are the same. Aecis 18:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Removed last one that was a duplicate. Cut-n-paste error. Had to dig through the user creation log to find them again. Wikibofh_(talk) 01:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Internal error... um... error

If one goes to delete a page that has just been deleted, you get an error message that reads:

Internal error

Could not delete the page or image specified. (It may have already been deleted by someone else.) Return to: * Category:Candidates for
speedy deletion * ] * ] (anons

What you see above is exactly how the error looks, bad wiki/html syntax and unfinished parentheticals included. I've tried like hell to find the MediaWiki code for this to fix it, but cannot seem to find it. Does anyone here have an inkling where this is, and better yet, can fix it? This has been like this for quite a few days now. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, while I'm at it, ffs, WE NEED MORE ADMINS ON NEW PAGE PATROL! This has been a public service anouncement. Thank you. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the error message is contained in MediaWiki:Cannotdelete, if anyones interested in trying to fix it. :P —Locke Cole • t • c 17:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• (diff) (hist) . . Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard; 11:22 . . Jeffrey O. Gustafson (Talk | block) (Newpage patrol is like being hip deep in monkey vomit while standing in front of a canon firing elephant shit at your face.)

Lol, I couldn't agree more. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 17:40, Jan. 12, 2006

Very fixed. Thanks for mentioning it. ] 17:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You, sir.... are the man. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

reverting after 3RR block expired

If a user immediatly after his block for a 3RR expires, starts reverting again (against overwhelming consensus on the talk page), can I immediatly list him for a 3RR again or should I wait until he makes 4 reverts? Cheers, —Ruud 17:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Technically, they haven't broken 3RR. However, if they continue to revert and revert, a longer block may be required, or else a request for comment might be filed. Ral315 (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

POV pushing is enough for a block.Voice of All 18:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

What gave you that idea? Jkelly 19:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I was refering to severe POV pushing. It comes in the form of constaint reverting for days, near vandalism edits, bad faith, and disruption. IMO, those constitute a well-earned block.Voice of All 19:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I read that as a general statement, instead of specific one. Jkelly 19:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

NOTICE: please get this tool

I have been reverting WAVES of IP vandals in mere minutes today. Please download Lupin's tool and use the IP edits and filter pages allong with new page patrol. I need help down there sometimes. Check out this too .To much elephant...Voice of All 18:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

User:KDRGibby

Please review his history and Talk:Wal-mart. For disclosure I am slightly involved and Rhobite is very involved, but this kind of conduct is problematic. I'd like another admin to look it over before I start passing judgement around.--Tznkai 18:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

It took so long for the rest of the community to notice, eh. I have been in conflict with KDRGibby for over a month. Elle _{vécut heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 23:07, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

KDRGibby has opposed my ArbCom candidacy without suffrage. Mine is the only one hehas voted in, and he gave a reason that to me is a WP:POINT. NSLE _(T+C) 01:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The vote should have been flagged by now (I think this is one that I flagged myself). Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

It was flagged by you, yes, heh, thanks. NSLE _(T+C) 01:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Forest Wraiths

Yesterday I listed Forest Wraiths for speedy deletion because it was a work of fiction created by Caseycool. It was deleted by Administrator Enochlau. Today Caseycool posted to my talk page stating that he'd wished he'd gotten a chance to move the contents of the page to his user page before it had been deleted. This is probably an odd request, and I know it's not quite a normal administrator task, but I'm under the impression that administrators can view deleted pages. If that's the case, would it be possible for an administrator to copy the former contents of Forest Wraiths to Caseycool's talk page as sort of a favor? I understand if you guys don't have time or can't do it. Thanks! TomTheHand 18:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Moved to User:Caseycool/Forest Wraiths. DES 18:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Outer Hebrides

The article Outer Hebrides has been moved to Na h-Eileanan Siar again. (This is the Gaelic name for the same place). User:Warofdreams (admin) has moved it back twice already, please could an admin move it back again? Perhaps the time has come for some stronger action? CarolGray 18:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• No actual moves, just edits. You can fix those yourself. I've added test1 to the user's page and rolled back the changes. Wikibofh_(talk) 18:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• The page could be protected against moves. User:Zoe| 00:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio images from User:Mad stratter

Greetings. The above noted user has uploaded a bunch of images. They have no license, and most are copied from websites (probably without permission). I addressed one of the images, placing it up for deletion, but there are several more, and I just lack the time today to get to it. --Durin 21:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

All are now tagged Template:Unknown or Template:Nosource as appropriate. Jkelly 22:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Jkelly. --Durin 00:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Second opinion please

User:Flacinhell uploaded this iumage as part of an ongoing attack campaign waged at Pedro's BTMusic Only Tracker; I was wondering if I should tag it for deletion since it's now been reverted from the only article where it could possibly have a place, and I for one can't see any way it could go back consistent with policy. - Just zis  Guy, you know? / AfD? 22:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't delve into the attack campaign, but if the image is an orphan it should be listed at IFD. --Syrthiss 22:50, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, thought so. Thanks. - Just zis  Guy, you know? / AfD? 00:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Possible problem with User:Sleepyhead81

User's company was deleted following AfD, user is now AfDing articles on other companies Sleepyhead81 (talk · contribs). Nominations are sketchy ("non-notable" being about the sum of it). Some may be justified, some not according to the article contents. I have left a heads-up on the user's Talk page User talk:Sleepyhead81#ERP companies. - JzG 12:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The following comment was directed at the user during the Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/24SevenOffice (second nomination) AFD discussion:

This argument is specious - existence of other articles for minor software of no verifiable importance does not justify inlcusion of all such. You are free to nominate those other articles for deletion should you feel they fall below the level for inclusion. - Just zis  Guy, you know? / AfD? 13:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks like he's taking you up on that.  ;) Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 12:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, he's probably skirting WP:POINT, but if you ask me, less advertisements masquerading as articles on tiny companies is a Good Thing. · Katefan0/mrp 13:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

• The guy's doing fine. He made four AFD nominations, two of which tend towards delete so far, one would be an obvious keep, and one is borderline. Looks like he's just cleaning up to me. Radiant_>|< 00:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The special character cheatsheet?

Umm, someone must have changed something in the special character cheatsheet template that appears at the bottom of edit pages. If I knew where it was kept I'd go take a look, but I don't. --Syrthiss 14:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

That's MediaWiki:Edittools Carbonite | Talk 14:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I thought the CATEGORY REDIRECT etc stuff was normally hidden things that were showing up because it was broken...not that they were there as one clicks for putting Category:Stuff etc. Thanks! --Syrthiss 14:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Issues with MediaWiki messages

I have a couple problems with the state of the system messages. First, there is currently no specific GFDL license grant on the edit screen. This could result in legal problems. I have proposed a fix at MediaWiki talk:Copyrightwarning#Minor_Change. Also, I feel useful text was removed from MediaWiki:Edittools. See MediaWiki talk:Edittools#Mistaken_Removal. In general, admins need to be less unilateral about changing these pages. Remember that they are permanently protected. Proposals should be made on talk first. Superm401 | Talk 20:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:Uploader unsure of copyright status

looks like this needs some serious clearing out.Geni 01:41, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

What sort of cleanup do you want? I can turn OrphanBot on it to remove those images from articles. --Carnildo 08:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

anything older than a week old needs to be orphened then vaporised.Geni 14:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Commencing operations. --Carnildo 07:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Jake Remington vandal

Upper-class_Jake_Remington (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

He just created tis account; can someone block him? SWD316 01:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Curps had gotten it, great bot work. NSLE _(T+C) 01:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Redirected Page

The page for Kurt Beyer, famed professional wrestler and son of Hall of Famer The Destroyer, was redirected to Kurt Beyer Films. Kurt Beyer Films can keep it's page, but it should NOT have taken over the page dedicated to Kurt Beyer the wrestler. How do we get the original page restored? (above unsigned but by User:Zatoichi101)

It was a normal old redirect so just a matter of going into the history and reverting to an older version, which I just did. When there is a dispute over who should be at the plain old name usually we do some disambiguation and discussion instead of erasing the article and redirecting. I'll leave a message for the anon as well. I don;t know if your article meets notability guidelines (didn;t really look) but some discussion needs to be done here on the appropriate talk pages. DreamGuy 08:46, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not only not sure which Kurt Beyer is more notable, I'm not sure either one is notable at all. For fairness I tagged both Kurt Beyer and Kurt Beyer Films and hope people will discuss and give good reasons. Both seem a bit vanity/spammy to me. DreamGuy 09:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Spam rollback

Could an admin look at doing a roll back on this user's link fest. I'd do it, but without admin priviledges, it'd take all day... thanks. --Jgritz 06:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

All done. NSLE _(T+C) 07:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Jgritz 07:28, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for checking into this. It should be noted that Kurt Beyer's fame is centered more around Asia, especially, Japan. His father, Hall of Famer The Destroyer, will be added soon -- as soon as we all learn more about Misplaced Pages. This has all been quite a learning process.

Río de la Plata

Could an admin please review the discussion at Talk:Río de la Plata on the articles' name? It has been at River Plate as the common English name for a considerable time, but it was moved to Río de la Plata a few weeks ago after a limited discussion, which only came to the attention of the wider community when links from Battle of the River Plate started to be changed. There has since been a "vigorous" discussion which has, in my opinion, demonstrated that "River Plate" is by a considerable margin the preferred English name for the place (even when discounting the battle, the movie of the battle, and the Buenos Aires football club from the search). I would move the article myself, but I've already been involved in the debate and have no wish for an RfAr! -- Arwel (talk) 13:36, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Mistress Selena Kyle blocking (2)

Obviously by looking threw the Misplaced Pages block log there hasn't been a clear consensus on how long Mistress_Selina_Kyle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) will be blocked, Few have said 24 hours while one says 1 month. Some sort of agreement has to be made. SWD316 17:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

It is clear by the 12 other previous 24hr blocks that a 24hr block does absolutely nothing to solve the situation. There is also no clear consensus to block indefinately. My one month block was a long enough period to actually make MSK sit and mull the constant NPA/Civility issues as well as 3RR violations. 24hrs is clearly not going to do a damn thing.  ALKIVAR™ 23:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I would say up to 1 week, possibly with some kind of Misplaced Pages:probation or Misplaced Pages:mentorship on return. MSK's longest actually-served block previously was 24 hours (4 times, all for 3RR), and regarding the snowballing disruption and NPA violation and so forth, we shouldn't completely disregard the Asperger's issue (nor that the extent/severity of that behaviour is disputed). The other allegations (of sockpuppetry for User:chaosfeary, who isn't banned anyway, or of having any connection with program vandalism) are at best unproven. Rd232 00:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking over some of her "contributions" I tend to think a 20 day block is in order. Chooserr 00:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd say no more than 96 hours (or time-served + 12 hours, if 96 hours have already elapsed). —Locke Cole • t • c 04:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably the best solution would be, as suggested, a 20 day block, to let MSK think about it and Probation to monitor her actions in the future. SWD316 03:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Didn't we checkuser her to find out that she's the same IP as a bunch of vandalbots? In which case "forever" sounds good to me. Phil Sandifer 03:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

IIRC that was proven false. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

IIRC it was (said to be) a proxy of some sort, and hence unproven (unprovable?) that MSK had anything to do with the vandalism from that IP. Rd232 12:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Regardless if the IP addresses are/were vandals, I don't think MSK ever vandalized under her user name space. She did however get blocked 3 times for 3RR. Also, she commits several infractions of other various WP guidelines such as WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:COOL and WP:POINT. I believe she can become a valuable contributor here but she needs some couseling. SWD316 13:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

MSK was apparantly the only person editing through the IP group that wasn't an obvious vandal, and there is circumstantial evidence that she is not using a proxy. If this isn't good enough for quite a few other admins than I don't mind sitting it out and seeing if her behavior improves, but I suspect that we have another, slightly brighter, Enviroknot on our hands. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The Puppeteer

There has also been some recent creations of users that have been calling themselves sockpuppets of each other and I feel that "The puppeteer is an inappropriate user name.

1. The_Puppeteer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
2. reeteppuPehT (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
3. ATeppup (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

   I've indef blocked this one. The accounts only actions were adding {{delete}} to pages and using divs to hide the template from view. --GraemeL 00:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

4. BTeppup (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

These are the list of "Puppeteers". SWD316 18:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Bah, let em be. Block if anything actually starts to happen though.Voice of All 23:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Category:Pages with userspace redirects

I found this category somewhere in maintenance. It contains about two dozen "user/old" pages with apparently little history or anything. Any reason for not deleting the lot of them? Radiant_>|< 22:03, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd say delete the redirects. Secretlondon 22:16, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, will do. Radiant_>|< 14:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocking

The current Special:Blockip page sucks just a wee bit. I'd like to improve it, but I can't just go off willy-nilly adding things, without asking you lot what you'd like to see. Asking for ideas? Yes, I have gone off the bat. Still, your thoughts, suggestions opinions will be welcomed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/User:Robchurch/Blocking - sign, please, so I know who to ask for more information on an interesting idea.

Ta, Rob Church (talk) 23:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

There are some pretty good ideas there. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Please review my actions

I have just been promoted to the adminship, and I'm not sure I have followed the proper procedure. A user had moved his userpage, User:Mistle, to the article namespace (Mistle) because he didn't like the user:-prefix. I have moved the article back to User:Mistle and deleted the resulting redirect (Mistle) and its talk page, which had become a redirect to User talk:Mistle (afaik, cross-namespace redirects are speediable). I have left a note at the user's talk page explaining to him that userpages do not belong in the article namespace. Have I done everything the way it should be done, or have I made mistakes? If I have, please tell me so I won't make them again. Aecis 01:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

No, looks fine to me -- Francs2000 02:03, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

(ec) I see that you did the right thing with the move, and explained the situation very well on the user talk page without biting. Looks good to me. Friday (talk) 02:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I've awarded Aecis a barnstar for a) doing an excellent job as an admin, and b) being quick to ask for help when he needed it. If more of us did this, Misplaced Pages would be a lot better place. Let's all take a moment to stop by Aecis's talk page and tell him "Good job", as well as a moment to reflect on how this new admin can teach some of us old admins a thing or two. Essjay 02:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Protection of Misplaced Pages today

It is a vandal target and it is linked off of the main page today. Today is our 5 year anniversery. I know the temptation is to protect or semi protect it. Don't do it. :) Why? Well it's not good to protect articles linked from the main page anyway, but I feel like this one is particularly important given it's about us and it's our anniversery today. We even have a small notice up at the top of our pages today. If we need to SP for 10-15 minutes to clean out vandalism, I think that's ok, but let's not go beyond that. --Woohookitty 02:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Didn't last long. Got hit by a new user attack and then it was SP and we had a sleeper account hit it. *sigh* --Woohookitty 05:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if these vandals have realized the irony of vandalizing Misplaced Pages on Misplaced Pages. Jtkiefer _{this user is a candidate for the arbitration committee} ---- 17:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

User:152.163.101.13 and User:63.138.121.4

These two (assuming they're actually two people) need to be blocked PERMANENTLY. They have constantlly defaced pages. Both of them do so on the Tim Lynch page, and may therefore be the same person. The former, in fact, User:152.163.101.13, has been warned on his user page numerous times, and has been blocked at least TWICE, and yet continues to deface pages. The temporary blocks obviously have no effect on him, and he needs to be blocked permanently. The latter, User: 63.138.121.4, has been warned on his page at least three times for vandalism to various articles. Something needs to be done about him/them. Nightscream 05:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all it's against blocking policy to indefinitely block IP's, it is also against policy to do long blocks on AOL IP's which is what 152.163.101.13 is, the other one I don't know about but I'll keep an eye on both of them in and will implement blocks if they start vandalizing again, though neither has vandalized for some time. Jtkiefer _{this user is a candidate for the arbitration committee} ---- 05:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Username impersonating well-known figure

Hi. I've received a request that User:Adrian Appleyard is impersonating on Misplaced Pages someone named Adrian Appleyard well-known in the Big Footy forum. Is this considered to be a violation of the Impersonation guideline and what is the proper response? I thought I had seen something like this before, but can't find it now. --Scott Davis 05:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

As a rule of thumb, I'd say if we don't have an article on the person, he's not a well-known figure. So unless the user is creating disruption in some other way, let it go. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 05:53, Jan. 15, 2006

Or it could be him, or some other nn person with the same name. Mike 05:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The BigFooty Appleyard has contacted another Wikipedian expressing concern that he is being impersonated. The problem is that in the AFL fan community, the Adrian Appleyard at bigfooty is well-respected for his opinions, but the Misplaced Pages Adrian Appleyard is claiming to be the same person and making edits to footy-related articles. --Scott Davis 06:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, Adrian Appleyard himself, has e-mailed me telling me of the situation. This is his user profile on BigFooty, and he is the administrator of that forum. As many people do in response to authority, a user from that forum has apparently signed up as "Adrian_Appleyard" on this site as a joke. Look at User:Adrian_Appleyard, it says "Dictator of bigfooty.com" on there, meaning someone has set up the account as a joke.

Anyway, surely there's some way to allow the real Adrian Appleyard access to his own name on this site, and force the imposter to use another name? Rogerthat 06:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I've received further correspondence from Mr. Appleyard:

 That would be satisfactory if I could get that account.
 A few people have been talking about the project on the site. I'll
 include a link in my next e-mail. 

Rogerthat 08:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Given the lack of contribs for Adrian Appleyard (talk · contribs) and his userpage, I think it's entirely reasonable to ask him to change his name, and reserve the account for the Appleyard that mailed you. Radiant_>|< 10:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• You might do better to take this up at Misplaced Pages:Changing username, where it will get the direct attention of the people who actually have the power to change usernames. My understanding is that one cannot "take over" an existing account. In any case, it looks to me like the person who registered User:Adrian Appleyard may have gotten bored and gone away. FreplySpang (talk) 18:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Well the current Adrian Appleyard account can be moved to another name, moving all its edits with it. In the renaming procedure we then recreate an account with the original name and block that to stop impersonation. In this case we'd recreate the account and then send the real Appleyard the password. Secretlondon 23:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Image deletion logs

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. I just provided information from the deletion logs of two images for the editors of an article who were wondering what happened to the images. Is there any reason why the images cannot be deleted while keeping the image page with the image history and deletion history? It seems that all it would take is to replace the images in the history with blank ones. This would only be in the case of copyright problems. Is this possible? Who would I talk to about this? -- Samuel Wantman 09:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

People putting libious statements into edit comments.Geni 13:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact, this information was publicly available at one point, but the devs were increasingly forced to manually edit the deleted edit summaries on high-profile pages. Ral315 (talk) 20:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

That would be a reason to delete the page, but otherwise, why not just delete the images? -- Samuel Wantman 01:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Special:log/check

I have made suggestion administrators of wikipedia may be interested in at Misplaced Pages:Help desk#¬¬¬¬\_How long are IP addresses logged and stored by Wikimedia?_/¬¬¬¬

I think it is probably good suggestion, I got the idea from meta:Talk:Checkuser_Policy --168.131.46.80 18:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Open proxies and range blocks thereof

I'm in the process of expanding the blocks for the various open proxies I've found to cover the entire range owned by whatever hosting center hosted the proxy. Several of these proxies move (their hosting centers reassign IPs on a semi-regular basis), and as a result I end up blocking them over and over again. For more infomation, see my list of open proxies. Such hosting centers are range blocked with block message {{OpenProxyBlock}}, so they're obvious in the block log. Please exercise caution when unblocking one of these blocks. Kelly Martin (talk) 21:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism of British Commonwealth-related pages

User:Hu has been listed here, as he persists in vandalising pages in relation to the British Commonwealth. The worst act of vandalism is of Category:British Commonwealth Honours Systems. He has left this namespace blank. What a waste of space! - (Aidan Work 23:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC))

What's he actually been doing. Can you give an example? Secretlondon 23:37, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

He's right that you've misunderstood categories. They are not a list of links. Secretlondon 23:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The category was created by Aidan Work (talk · contribs), who, instead of adding the category markup in the related articles, created an article in the category space, with lists of the related articles. That's not how categories work. Hu (talk · contribs) is entirely correct in dealing with the page. Thanks. --Ragib 23:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Look at Help:Category for more info. Leave me a message if you need help. Secretlondon 23:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Left a message at User_talk:Aidan Work, recommending him to use lists instead of categories for this type of thing. Bjelleklang - talk 10:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

User Attacked

Can I get a Admin to have a look @ my Talk page ? I have a User who says he is leaving due to attacks as soon as he became a Wikipedian. see Re.:"hello" on my Talk page.

Appreciate the assisstance. Martial Law 10:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The attacked User is DeveloperFrom1983. What he said happened to him is in violation of WP:BITE and WP:NPA and no telling what other Wikipedian protocol has been violated. Martial Law 10:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• The guy's got a point. Misplaced Pages seems to be becoming increasingly unfriendly. Unfortunately such problems are far easier spotted than resolved. Radiant_>|< 10:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I've left a couple of nicely worded notes to the involved users asking them to take a look back at things and see if there is anywhere they could be of help to DF83. Hopefully, they'll take the gentle suggestion and make a reconciliation; if not, there is always RfC and/or disruption blocks if there is a recognized history. Essjay 10:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Willy sock

• possible Willy sock Westwooler (talk · contribs) - Just zis  Guy, you know? / AfD? 11:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I think so too. Blocked indefinitely. Thanks for the notification. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Looking at the tally, I might be able to do it myself next time :-) - Just zis  Guy, you know? / AfD? 15:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Page deletion and merging on article that has failed two votes for deletion by user

Islamofascism (term) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Islamofascism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (redirect to (term) page)

Both of these are being revert warred by BrandonYusufToropov (talk · contribs) and Irishpunktom (talk · contribs), the latter of whom is making personal attacks on me for reverting the change without consensus, calling me "abusive" when I was polite as possible, see for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Islamofascism_%28term%29&action=history
(I left a message about the sockpuppet message on Talk:Islamofascism after BYT said that he wasn't using it as a sockpuppet and have now put a notice on User:24.34.154.167 and User talk:24.34.154.167 as there was no indication that it was him previously, and from the contributions he has been using the IP as an alternate username for a while - hope this is acceptable, not really sure what's the standard to be done for this kind of thing)

Talk:Islamofascism has a small debate near the bottom involving 3 users, this is claimed to be consensus by BYT. The article has failed two previous votes for deletion, the latter of which was made by Irishpunktom (talk · contribs) who is the other editor reverting the change to point to Neofascism and religion: This is the exact change he sought to make in the vote for deletion that failed, except he and a small group of friends are now seeking to make the change by force of "pack-reverting" behaviour (so bypassing 3RR) --Mistress Selina Kyle 17:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Tone down the rhetoric and deal with it on the talk page. And review the sockpuppet policy carefully.--Tznkai 18:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Virago

I found this page, which had a {{deletedpage}} on it. However, there was a legitimate disambiguation page on Virago (disambiguation). Since I had edited the disambiguation page, and moving it over the {{deletedpage}} would mean the content would end up being protected, I took the unusual decision of pointing Virago to Virago (disambiguation), which is exactly opposite the usual way. I would like for other admins to review that unusual decision (since, while it was an editorial decision, it involved changing a protected page). --cesarb 17:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Virago was recently AfD'd (Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Virago_2); why not move the disambig page there now? Any attempt to recreate the article can be dealt with. Rd232 18:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, done. --cesarb 21:14, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Curps email address

Hi everyone, I've asked Curps to add an email address to allow users to email him (due to the number of blocks he places, occasionally sometimes an innocent user will be blocked and will have no way of contacting him to be unblocked) twice now, and he hasn't even acknowledged my messages. I think it is important that an admin who places as many blocks as Curps does should be contactable by email to be able to deal with any cases where he has blocked another user because of shared IPs. What do other people think? Talrias (t | e | c) 20:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I second this as I was misidentief by Curps as a pagemove vandal and had no way of contacting him directly. (Although in this case he unblocked me within two minutes after realizing his mistake, he forgot the autoblock and I could only contact him by using another IP address.) —Ruud 20:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I have a strong feeling either way. It isn't like someone blocked has to email only the blocking admin...tho I suspect thats one of the easier paths to unblocking. In most cases, they still have access to placing {{unblock}} on their talk page. --Syrthiss 20:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

True, but you assume that Curps reads the talk pages of all the people he blocks (my experience was that he doesn't) or that you know an admin (the page you see when you are blocked only allows you to email the admin who blocked you. —Ruud 20:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be mandatory for an admin who performs blocks on a regular basis to have an email address enabled in their preferences. I might even go so far as to say that the software shouldn't enact a block if an admin isn't contactable by email. It's trivial to get a Gmail, Yahoo, or other free email account specifically for Misplaced Pages use. Carbonite | Talk 20:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

It's also trivial to give a non-working email address or just ignore email entirely. android79 20:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that restriction could easily be bypassed, but it would be a clear message that admins were expected to provide an email address if they're going to perform blocks. Carbonite | Talk 20:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If an address were required, then that would be a breach of policy, thus not allowable. ] 20:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

A1sdf Sockpuppet (talk • contribs)

...was blocked, and it was implied that it was my sockpuppet!? Trust me, If I make a sockpuppet, you'll know about it(like now for instance)--I (Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents) really should check in on this place more often 21:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I blocked User:Dantine Ice indefinitely. --Woohookitty 22:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You're easily confused, so I corrected your error for you--I (Dantine Ice) really should check in on this place more often 22:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Zen-master banned regarding article titles

After his previous two proposals to remove the term "conspiracy theory" from articles failed, Zen-master has now started a third, nearly identical proposal at Misplaced Pages:Conspiracy_theory_titles. I've tried pointing out the mistakes in his reasoning for a while, but he tends not to be responsive to any opinions other than his own, and prefers wikilawyering to back his claims, and prefers repetetive polling or voting over sensible discussion. I do believe he qualifies as being a vexatious litigant.

Hence, to put an end to these fruitless one-sided discussions, and by his ArbCom probation, Zen-master is hereby banned from discussing, or commenting on, article titles on any page in the Misplaced Pages namespace, and is requested to use the relevant talk pages instead. Additionally, Zen-master is hereby banned from starting polls or votes related to article titles on any page in the Wikipedia_talk namespace, and is requested to use consensual discussion instead. Both bans have a duration of one month.

I'm putting this here for general notification (and discussion, if need be). Note that several other admins have recently expressed disagreement with Zen-master's opinion and methods, such as on Misplaced Pages:Speedy deletions and WP:RFAr. Radiant_>|< 22:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is a request for clarification on the WP:RfAr page where I'm asking for zen to be banned. At this point, he's been blocked from enough articles that I can't even keep track of them. Is there a listing somewhere? If there isn't, one should be compiled. --Woohookitty 22:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a listing. It is on zen's RfAr page. Apologies. --Woohookitty 23:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I endorse User:Radiant!'s enforcement. User Zen Master has been pushing this issue throughout his Wikiepdia career, and his actions have been disruptive to the project. -Will Beback 22:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I formally dispute this ban, for starters Radiant and those allied with him are only censoring me and my User:Zen-master/Conspiracy theory titles proposal because they disagree with it. Secondly, there is no justification within Misplaced Pages:Probation to ban a user from discussing or proposing a straw poll/vote or criticizing a title as being non-neutral, that is the antithesis of Misplaced Pages. By what justification was the proposal moved to my user namespace? By what justifiaction did Radiant rollback my edits to other user's talk pages informing them of the vote 2 days ago? By what justification was version 2.0 of the proposal speedy deleted, after 4 months of work, from its Misplaced Pages:Title Neutrality location? User Radiant falsely claimed the proposal failed twice, voting on version 1.0 of the proposal closed 6.5 months ago, version 2.0 of the proposal was mistakingly speedy deleted 2 days just as voting had begun. zen master T 23:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Fine zen. Then what you do is to challenge the speedy delete at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. It's what it is there for. You often ask "how is x disruptive?" Well this is a textbook case. Instead of using the correct process, you decided to create new versions of the same proposal. If that doesn't define disruptive, nothing does. And you are not a newbie, zen. You should know better by now. If you disagree with the speedy delete, fine. Use the propoer channels. We don't hide these things. --Woohookitty 23:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Since Zen was once more started discussing article titles on Misplaced Pages:Speedy deletions (of all places), I've blocked him for 24 hours. Radiant_>|< 23:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That's actually a good block. Hopefully he'll learn to use the correct process. We don't hide these things. What he was complaining about is exactly what deletion review is for. --Woohookitty 23:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Talk page being vandalized by malber

Can someone please get malber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to just leave me alone? He's edited my user page, which I reverted, and now keeps trying to change the formatting of my Usr Talk page and has been deleting my comments from there and changing things too

I have already previously asked him to stop, and he has been previously blocked for making personal attacks on me elsewhere, see User talk:Malber#Vandalism of talk page. yet he continues to change the formatting on my talk page and delete messages by me, and repeatedly changing links that have nothing to do with him, some examples:

He seems determined to harass me as much as possible, despite prior to these edits having asked him to stop..

At this time he is STILL making changes to my talk page that aren't messages, editing the layout, reformatting, changing links and deleting messages after I have told him to stop...

User_talk:Mistress_Selina_Kyle (] · history · watch) --Mistress Selina Kyle 01:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Drop him a {{test4}}, and report back if he does it again. NSLE _(T+C) 01:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

No, don't do that. That is very provocative and thoroughly unnecessary. Politeness never did anyone any harm. ] 01:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's not vandalism. Nevertheless, it is definitely Not Cool to reformat others' user pages/user talk pages without just cause. Have you asked Malber to comehere to discuss the issue? While I would request Malber ceases doing this, I would also ask you to reread Misplaced Pages:Vandalism, which doesn't include reformatting talk pages. ] 01:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

He is still doing it over and over again. I left the test4 message already, Pilotguy reverted it and I said that I got told here to put it on and not to use rollback to revert non-vandalism

Every time I revert he changes my page again in a different way --Mistress Selina Kyle 01:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm currently talking to malber in IRC, and he agrees to ignore you, if that's a fair compromise. NSLE _(T+C) 01:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Politeness went out the window a long time ago in the case involving MSK unfortunately. He should still stop, it's not nice. MSK, have you checked to see if he's broken 3RR? NSLE _(T+C) 01:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

In all fairness, I have not reverted your template continuously, it was just once and an honest mistake on my behalf, but it is not nice to take it out on me. Obviously there is still debate on it. You see the top of my talk page, MSK? I thought you were different; apparently I was wrong. --Winter 01:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I never said you reverted my template continously! O_o I said malber was reverting me continuously, or if I didn't say that clear enough that's what I meant anyway. I know you reverted only once, I wasn't saying that. sorry! --Mistress Selina Kyle 01:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• This is not about reformatting or layout. MSK has struck out part of Malber's comments on her talk page and added "(blatant lie, see below for proof --Selina)" in the middle. And there's a couple of other lines that the two are reverting over. MSK should simply blank the relevant paragraph entirely rather than editing in the middle. Malber should stop reverting. Both need to grow up. Radiant_>|< 01:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

While I don't condone MSK's response to it what Malber was doing was blatantly innapropriate, since he has continued to do it I have blocked him for 24 hours. Jtkiefer ---- 01:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Paranoia

It's official, we're all part of a big conspiracy, as proven by the very clever IP who figured it out and made this quote. Let's send him the ninja already to tie his shoelaces together, that'll teach him to expose us.

"I estimate that over 93% of admin accounts are sock puppets of other admin accounts. I see all over articles, admins who control a small number of articles. They check these articles around 16 hours a day" -- some IP

• Radiant_>|< 01:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• I made Radiant say that. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Exactly, there is no massive sockpuppet conspiracy, except for mine of course--I (Dantine Ice) really should check in on this place more often 01:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

  So, there is a cabal behind the cabal? Not that I didn't know that, of course, but I thought my socks were more careful than that... Titoxd 01:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• If I were an Admin I'd be very worried about now about this exposure about all the things that are all about stuff that nobody is supposed to you know, know about. hydnjo talk 03:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

"Supercunt" vandal

We seem to have a very pesky new vandal a la Jake Remington and his ilk. I've nicknamed him the "Supercunt Vandal." I keep blocking his user names and he just keeps hitting us with nonsense. Can a sysop look into blocking the range if at all possible? - Lucky 6.9 03:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

French Revolution

Hit very close together by two different ips that traced to two different ISPs. Might be wroth doing an open proxy cheack on them.Geni 04:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Hu is an idiot!

Hu has put in this very offensive message that when I put in a catagory listing at the bottom of an article such as Rhodesian Honours System, it really proves how ignorant he really is about British Commonwealth history. A lot of people, especially those in New Zealand have never heard of the Commonwealth of Nations. We have all heard of the British Commonwealth. Can an administrator please correct this offensive category tag to read 'Category:British Commonwealth Honours Systems', which is politically neutral? - (Aidan Work 05:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC))

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