Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:50, 21 February 2016

• WP:AN
• WP:ANB

• For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
• To request review of an administrator's action or other use of advanced permissions, use Misplaced Pages:Administrative action review
• If you are new, try the Teahouse instead.
• Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead, follow the instructions on Misplaced Pages:Requests for oversight.
• For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent.
• Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here.
• Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly.
• If you want to challenge the closure of a request for comment, use {{RfC closure review}}

When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough.

You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search)

Template:Active editnotice

This page has an administrative backlog that requires the attention of willing administrators. Please replace this notice with {{no admin backlog}} when the backlog is cleared.

You may want to increment {{Archive basics}} to |counter= 38 as Misplaced Pages:Closure requests/Archive 37 is larger than the recommended 150Kb.

Archives

Index no archives yet (create)

This page has archives. Sections older than 5 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present.

• WP:CR
• WP:RFCL
• WP:ANRFC

Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Misplaced Pages discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

Do not list discussions where consensus is clear. If you feel the need to close them, do it yourself.

Move on – do not wait for someone to state the obvious. In some cases, it is appropriate to close a discussion with a clear outcome early to save our time.

Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.

On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

Include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing easier. Move discussions go in the 'other types' section.

Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale.

Closing discussions carries responsibility, doubly so if the area is contentious. You should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion (consult your draft closure at the discussions for discussion page if unsure). Be prepared to fully answer questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that editors may have.

Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this is not normally in itself a problem at reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would need tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

Other areas tracking old discussions

• Misplaced Pages:Requested moves#Elapsed listings
• Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Old
• Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion
• Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure
• Misplaced Pages:Templates for discussion#Old discussions
• Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion#Old business
• Misplaced Pages:Proposed mergers/Log
• Misplaced Pages:Proposed article splits

Administrative discussions

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive367#Close challenge for Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War#RFC for Jewish exodus

(Initiated 26 days ago on 13 December 2024) challenge of close at AN was archived nableezy - 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Sander.v.Ginkel unblock request

(Initiated 24 days ago on 15 December 2024) voorts (talk/contributions) 00:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Place new administrative discussions above this line using a level 3 heading

Requests for comment

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 93 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 459#RFC_Jerusalem_Post

(Initiated 73 days ago on 28 October 2024) Participation/discussion has mostly stopped & is unlikely to pick back up again. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  22:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Genocide#RfC: History section, adding native American and Australian genocides as examples

(Initiated 63 days ago on 6 November 2024) RfC expired on 6 December 2024 . No new comments in over a week. Bogazicili (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Team Seas#Re: the ocean pollution additions

(Initiated 55 days ago on 15 November 2024) Clear consensus that the proposed edit (and its amended version) violate WP:SYNTH. However, the owning editor is engaging in sealioning behavior, repeatedly arguing against the consensus and dismissing others' rationale as not fitting his personal definition of synthesis; and is persistently assuming bad-faith, including opening an ANI accusing another editor of WP:STONEWALLING. When finally challenged to give a direct quote from the source that supports the proposed edit, it was dismissed with "I provided the source, read it yourself" and then further accused that editor with bad-faith. The discussion is being driven into a ground by an editor who does not (nor wish to) understand consensus and can't be satisfied with any opposing argument supported by Misplaced Pages policy or guidelines. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel#RfC

(Initiated 47 days ago on 22 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice. Can we please get an interdependent close. TarnishedPath 23:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: Ongoing discussion, please wait a week or two. Bogazicili (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RFC_Science-Based_Medicine

(Initiated 32 days ago on 7 December 2024) slowed for a while Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading

Deletion discussions

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 December 20#Category:Belarusian saints

(Initiated 20 days ago on 20 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Arab migrations to the Levant#Merger Proposal

(Initiated 106 days ago on 25 September 2024) Open for a while, requesting uninvolved closure. Andre🚐 22:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Donald Trump#Proposal: Age and health concerns regarding Trump

(Initiated 85 days ago on 16 October 2024) Experienced closer requested. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

 Closed by editor S Marshall. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  20:43, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Winter fuel payment abolition backlash#Merge proposal

(Initiated 72 days ago on 29 October 2024) There are voices on both sides (ie it is not uncontroversial) so a non-involved editor is needed to evaluate consensus and close this. Thanks. PamD 09:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel–Hamas war#Survey

(Initiated 63 days ago on 7 November 2024) Looking for uninvolved close in CTOP please, only a few !votes in past month. I realise this doesn't require closing, but it is preferred in such case due to controversial nature of topic. CNC (talk) 10:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

•  Note: I'm happy to perform the merge if required, as have summarised other sections of this article already with consensus. I realise it's usually expected to perform splits or merges when closing discussions, but in this case it wouldn't be needed. CNC (talk) 20:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Shiv Sena#Merge proposal

(Initiated 43 days ago on 27 November 2024) Discussion seems to have stopped. As the proposal is not uncontroversial, and I, as the initiator, am involved, I am requesting an uninvolved editor to close the discussion. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 11:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading

Magioladitis

Magioladitis (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) and his bot Yobot (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) have been blocked many times for issues relating to violations of the bot policy and AWB's rules of use. The most common complaint is that he makes many trivial ("cosmetic") changes which do not change the appearance of an article but clog up editors' watchlists. The most recent block was for one month. He was unblocked three days ago on the back of strict conditions that he would not perform any automated or semi-automated edits for the duration of the block length (see User talk:Magioladitis#Unblock request for details). However I have just reblocked because he was not adhering to these conditions.

In usual circumstances I would remove access to AWB, but as Magioladitis is an administrator this is not possible. I have suggested to him in the past that it would be better to cease all automated editing from his main account. However he has not acquiesced to this yet, and judging from recent events I wonder if he is able to restrain himself in this way voluntarily.

I would like to stress that I believe Magioladitis is acting in good faith, his non-automated edits are beneficial and his administrator actions are not concerning. However the automated editing is proving problematic and we should find a way to manage this.

I'm here to propose to the community that Magioladitis be topic banned from making all automated and semi-automated edits from his main account indefinitely. Any bot jobs approved at WP:BRFA may continue, and we gain from his experience as a long-term editor, admin and BAG member. If this does not achieve consensus, then let's brainstorm other avenues to deal with this.

I am notifying the following editors who have been involved in the past: xaosflux — Materialscientist — The Earwig — GoingBatty — Frietjes — Fram — Bgwhite — intgr — JohnBlackburne — GB fan: and I will notify Misplaced Pages:Bot owners' noticeboard too. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:44, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps Mag could be unblocked only to participate in this discussion? I'd like to know why he is so persistent in applying cosmetic changes, whether he's trying to climb a leaderboard or is just slightly obsessive about articles being "just so" in terms of whitespace, bypassing harmless redirects, etc. No matter the reason, it's not setting a good example as a member of BAG. And it's a significant annoyance and timesink as people review the edits and have to determine what the reason was (when there is really, none). –xeno 21:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I have reminded Magioladitis of WP:COSMETICBOT bot several times over the years, more than anyone else, so I'll join the crowd here. These pointless edits have to stop. I'm fine with the occasional bot malfunction, or the occasional misclick on 'save' when you meant 'skip' with AWB. But there's a larger issue at play with Magio's bot in that the bot logic rarely seems to be tested to prevent trivial changes before being unleashed on the wiki. As a BAG member, Magio should understand that WP:COSMETICBOT is not an optional rule and has to be anticipated and tested for just like one needs to test their bots against replacing ] with ]]] on all pages when you wanted to replace ] with ] on some pages.

I'm not going to say Magio should be removed from BAG at this point, but it's certainly an option I'm willing to consider if Magio keeps running their bots without making sure they first comply with all aspects of WP:BOTPOL, including WP:COSMETICBOT. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I second xeno's suggestion to allow Magioladitis to participate in this discussion on this page. GoingBatty (talk) 01:22, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I do not oppose an unblock on condition that he only edit this page and his own talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:50, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping, I do recognize the positive contributions that Magioladitis brings to the project, which is why I tried to work with him on a limited topic ban as his unblock condition (see WP:EDR#Final_warnings_.2F_Unblock_conditions). As clearly stated in the unblock, condition violation may lead to additional sanctions including re-blocking. As one of the WP:AWB developers, I would expect he would need to make minimal AWB edits (possibly via LEGITSOCKS) for testing and troubleshooting purposes even if he ends up under a long term editing restriction, possibly under specific conditions? — xaosflux 22:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• Note, I have delisted the prior temporary WP:RESTRICTIONS as Magioladitis was reblocked and unblocked under NEW conditions. — xaosflux 15:00, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a real shame and sad to see energetic editors who like to make mass-fixes get blocked for it. Though the fixes I see here would be so low on my priority list that I couldn't envision them ever rising in my work queue to get even close to approaching the top of the list. Is there any real concern here, though, besides cluttering up watchlists? Can't you just scan or skim the edit summaries in your watchlists and just disregard or ignore "Cleaned up using AutoEd"? If Magio needs something more important and substantial to clean up, then I have several tasks in my overloaded work queue I'd love to outsource to him. Wbm1058 (talk) 23:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for the ping MSGJ. I'm not sure what to do. As people have said, he makes positive contributions. Since he was unblocked, Maigoladits has probably done ~2,000 semi-manually edits via Yobot's account. Most of this is due to the latest dumpfile via CheckWiki. This is the first dump since ISSN checks were added, which contributed to this message on Yobot's talk page. So, ~2,000 good contributions vs ~20 pointless ones. I don't want to see him blocked because of his overall contributions, but on the other hand, something must be done.

MSGJ, AWB's CheckPage does allow for blacklisted names. I'm not sure if a blacklisted name takes precedent over an admin. Rjwilmsi is the person to ask. Plus, as the main AWB programmer, he could come up with suggestions.

WPCleaner and AutoEd don't have a permission system. But, AutoEd needs to be added to a person's common.js/vector.js file to work. Removing this from the .js file and making it sure it isn't added back should be easy. WPCleaner doesn't make the "trivial" changes or general fixes as the other two programs do. I don't see a problem in not letting Magioladitis keep using that. Bgwhite (talk) 23:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

This is refreshing because it's the first time I've seen you accept that there is a problem. In the past you have steadfastly defended him. I'm hopeful we can work together to find a solution. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ Actually, last time I made only one comment and that was to defend one type of edit as non-trivial. The time before I suggested a topic ban on editing talk pages. Talk pages are Magioladitis' kryptonite. Kryptonite and OCD is a dangerous mix. Bgwhite (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I interacted with him on this issue several times when I was an administrator. The problem has been going on for years, both with edits from Magoioladitis' main account and from his bot, Yobot. For example, search for "cosmetic edit" on Magioladitis' talk page , or look at the block log for Yobot . The responses that always seem to be given are that the edits were a mistake, or are from bug in the software that is being used, or are necessary because of some other bug in the software that is being used. I would expect to see these same excuses again if he comments on this thread. After years of seeing them, I have yet to see Magioladitis take responsibility for his errors by making the changes necessary prevent them (e.g. fixing the years-longstanding bugs in his software that allow cosmetic edits to be saved, making his edit summaries more descriptive, etc.). I believe that any long-term resolution to the problem will require very tight edit restrictions on both his main account and his bot account. Otherwise, you will be back here again soon enough. Good luck, — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:44, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

There is also the repeated violations of WP:BOTREQUIRE, in particular for bots to be conservative in their edit speeds. Non-urgent tasks such as the bot does should be done at the rate of no more than once every ten seconds, so six a minute. But only yesterday it was making edits several times faster than this, with dozens of edits per minute. This has been raised before, and is surely easily fixable – any code on any computer can query the system clock to at least second accuracy. It is just he thinks WP:BOTREQUIRE does not apply to his bot and can be ignored, as well as the above problems with cosmetic edits and edit descriptions.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 05:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Based on the circumstances outlined here, I really think the only solution is desysopping, followed by loss of AWB privileges. Adminship shouldn't be a "shield" which protects one from the kind of restrictions that a "regular" editor in the same circumstances would see. I suspect Arbcom could handle this by motion, though they might want to make a "full case" out of it... But, ultimately, this is boiling down to "trust" and "judgement" (and it's come up repeatedly) and Admins that display neither probably need to lose the bit. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:37, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I have raised this issue with him several times in the past. Lots of pointless AWB edits that add no value whatsoever. He stops for a time, then restarts after the dust settles. Thankfully I'm not alone with these concerns. Rulez iz rulez for AWB, but this user seems to be "untouchable" due to their so-called admin status. Once again, it's one rule for AWB running bots and one rule for the rest of us. At one point I put my foot through my laptop and sent him the bill. PS - Do I win a fiver? Lugnuts 08:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

• Considering the block log, Lugnuts, that user/admin is clearly not untouchable. If they were, we wouldn't be here. Drmies (talk) 22:19, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Go on, give him a 53rd chance. He's an admin afterall! Like to see how quickly a non-admin would have been indef'd for similar bahaviour. Or even to have their block lifted so they could participate at ANI. Lugnuts 10:32, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I have till now held back from calling for his administrator status to be removed, and am still hopeful this won't be necessary. Obviously I expected the issue to come up, and I acknowledge the apparent inconsistency in the treatment he is receiving. We are looking for the best solution for the project and there is absolutely nothing wrong with his admin actions. (Okay he unblocked his own bot once, a long time ago, but I don't remember the exact circumstances.) Personally I'd like to have a try with some editing restrictions before we turn to Arbcom. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

So far we have lots of editors pointing out the problems, but not many solutions being proposed. It might be useful if you could indicate whether or not you support the proposal in the first paragraph. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:44, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Remove AWB and ban from operating bots. Problem disappears. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:06, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I would support a ban on automated edits, meaning both tools such as AWB, AutoEd and through a bot, as the problems occur on both accounts.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 10:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Yep, support AWB and bot removal. Lugnuts 12:15, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne you can also kick me out of Misplaced Pages. Problem disappears too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I have unblocked Magioladitis (after the agreement of the blocking admin in this discussion above) solely to participate in this discussion. Magioladitis has agreed to only edit this discussion (and their user talk page) until the end of the original block (15 February). Fram (talk) 12:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Here are my points in brief. I'll try to expand the, later:

• No, I am not interested to climbing any virtual ladder.
• The last unblock violation was a misunderstanding. I thought the restriction has to do only with AWB. It would be stupid of me to violate the rule just to make 3 edits with AutoEd.
• I edit a lot. People who edit a lot get a lot of complains anyway. Yesterday I fixed 1,500 pages with invalid ISSN. Yes, there were 20 mistakes. Yes, I went back and fixed them. This is my typical day.
• I do a lot of mistakes. I run on multiple tasks and I usually use brutal force (I ignore the skip conditions). This is my main negative. I know about it.
• I reply to every single comment in my talk page I never escaped any complain.
• I make an effort to pass most the tasks I do to others. I encouraged people to take over.
• I have published almost every single script I use. I want others to use my tools. I don't want to be that guy that when they leave Misplaced Pages they take the tools with them.
• Not all complains are valid. Many times I get complains because the editor did not understand what I did (example: removed a duplicated category). I try to use the edit summary a lot. Better than some people who don't use it all.
• I wrote on my talk page a lot of stuff I would like the community to agree for. It's not about me. I see a lot of complains around about AWB and tools in general. Some are valid, some are not. I want specific rules. NOTBROKEN has changed. COSMETICBOT has changed. The rules have relaxed. Some of you may know that,some may don't, some may want to deny this fact. Yes, it is a fact.
• A lot of people when banned, blocked for using the tools all these years. Even there were different reasons behind, some people may have the impression that the reason was the same: The tools. No, it's not the tools.
• When this started I got the impression that some of the blocking admins want me out of Misplaced Pages. I apologise for that. I see now that this is not the case. I am happy to see that the vats majority does not think I act on bad faith. I still believe though that some editors might want me out. They may believe this would be the solution. Well, it's not.
• I typed this in less than 5 minutes I hope it's not too emotional. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:37, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I would propose the following as a possible set of edit restrictions:

1. AWB may only be used by the Yobot account, and only for tasks that have bot approval. No semi-automated tools of any kind may be used on the main account.
2. All "general fixes" and other changes apart from the literally approved bot task must be disabled within AWB when Yobot runs.
3. No edits that consist entirely of cosmetic changes may be made with either the main account or the bot account. These include edits that only affect white space and underscores, changes that only bypass redirects, and other changes that do not affect any visible aspect of the rendered page.
4. All Yobot edits must refer to the specific request for bot approval that authorizes them (in the edit summary).
5. All CHECKWIKI edits must be clearly marked with the specific CHECKWIKI task they carry out (in the edit summary). Different CHECKWIKI tasks should be handled by different runs of the bot to permit clear edit summaries to be used.
6. Yobot may only save changes to a page when the specific bot task it is carrying out has been applied to that page, and must skip pages to which the bot task does not apply.

— Carl (CBM · talk) 15:08, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

• Wow. So on one hand we have a person who won't stop making tiny harmless, but not very helpful changes. On the other hand we have people that want to really insist that tiny harmless, but not very helpful changes are not made. It seems to me that either side could let this one go and everything would be fine, or both sides can be stubborn and we probably lose an editor. HighInBC 15:59, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Or we could insist that Admins follow the same rules as everyone else, and get treated for infractions like everyone else – the fact is, if this didn't involve an Admin, this situation would have been dealt with a long time ago. (And, before anyone brings it up, I'm pretty sure I've seen non-Admins blocked for edits not all that dissimilar to the ones mentioned in this case.) Instead, this is another shining example of where someone has been cut multiple "breaks" simply because of the usergroup they're in... Bringing this back around though, in terms of "solutions", anything less than the loss of AWB privileges in this case would be unsatisfactory – that combined with an understanding that "self-granting" AWB privileges at a later date without community consensus first would result in immediate desysopping. Anything less than this would be unacceptable IMO. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:20, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

IJBall they were blocked. I don't see how they are being treated any different for being an admin. Not everything needs to boil down to admin v non-admin. HighInBC 16:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Of course Magioladitis has – a "regular" editor would already have lost AWB privileges. And I'm of the strong opinion that an Admin that gets blocked multiple times (esp. for the same infraction) should no longer have Admin privileges. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:40, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Then you should file a case with ArbCom, since they're the only people who can take the bit away. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I could, if I had unlimited time to burn on Misplaced Pages activities that will likely only end in aggravation. Fortunately, I have a real job for that instead! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:52, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Instead of taking away his admin privileges (which are not the reason we're here), how about doing the exact opposite and saying "Magioladitis, here's the mop! When your block is over, could you please help us clean up ? Your work there would be much more valuable to the project than these minor edits." GoingBatty (talk) 18:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

• • IJBall I would like to know example of editors who lost AWB right. It's one of the reason I insist that we resolve the situation by strong consensus. I do not like to see people losing their AWB rights. AWB is a browser so in some level equivalent to FireFox or Chrome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:24, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Of course the main use of AWB is to perform bot-like editing, either with manual review or in a fully automated way, not to "browse" in a normal sense. The first sentence of WP:AWB describes AWB as an "editor", which is indeed the main purpose of the tool. The AWB rules of use on WP:AWB directly state "Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in your software being disabled. ", and the reason for this thread is repeated abuse of the rules. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
      • Agree with HighInBC The edit's are harmeless, let 'em go. If he was harming Misplaced Pages with those edits, then I could see imposing the conditions stated here, but he isn't. The main complaint that I saw was that it was clogging up people's watch lists. Big deal, I ran across that a while ago, some one was doing a mass update of templates and it was filling my watchlist, big deal, I skipped those and looked only at articles (I was doing a vandal run at the time ) and ignored their edits. As long as Magioladitis isn't harming the encyclopedia, let it go . KoshVorlon 16:41, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

If clogging up the watchlists was blockable I would have blocked User:MediaWiki message delivery ages ago. HighInBC 16:44, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Clogging up watchlists is blockable if what is clogging them are trivial edits. If the MediaWiki Message Delivery System only added or removed whitespace, it would get blocked/disabled under WP:COSMETICBOT just like Magio was for edits like . Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Again, no big deal. Magioladitis could stop doing it, people could stop caring, either way everything is fine. HighInBC 17:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Awesome attitude you have. I guess if you brought an issue here, but no-one cared about it/you, then you'd be fine with it? No, thought not. Lugnuts 19:50, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I see you have already answered your question to me on my behalf, but you failed to predict my response so I will answer it myself. If said harm was this insignificant then I would not expect people to get too worked up about it. HighInBC 19:59, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

As the issues with this users edits have been raised time and time again, by multiple different users, I can only conclude you don't know the definition of insignificant. Lugnuts 20:09, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Lugnuts: Your premise that if people get worked up about something then it must not be insignificant is flawed. People get worked up over insignificant things all the time, humans are kind of famous for it. HighInBC 16:40, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

You were obviously so worked-up about being incorrect it took you a week to reply. Lugnuts 19:03, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

If you had pinged me I would have responded earlier. Not worked up about anything, not sure what you think I am incorrect about. HighInBC 23:56, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Headbomb that particular one was a very specific bug that was fixed in a few hours after you reported it. That's the problem here: If any of the scripts has a bug it may result in something like this. Is this common? No it's not if we discuss percentages here. Ofcourse for a bot with 4 million edits, 1% is 40,000 pages. Can this be prevented? Well, yes and no. CHECKWIKI scripts are not done by me. My method is based a lot in the fact the list created actually contains the error in question. But, since I fix every single error and I fixed this immediately after the report why just re-reported this? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Still this one is a very good example that I want to get more people involved in Misplaced Pages. I keep reporting new errors to User_talk:Knife-in-the-drawer#New_ISBN_tracking_categories even they have not edited since June. Check the entire talk page. I want mot motivate more and more people to work for Misplaced Pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

See also the fact that I encouraged a lot of people to make copies of my bot tasks. GoingBatty, Bgwhite know this at hand I believe. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Like I said earlier here "I'm fine with the occasional bot malfunction, or the occasional misclick on 'save' when you meant 'skip' with AWB." This happens to everyone. But the larger issue is that the bot logic rarely seems to be tested to prevent trivial changes before being unleashed on the wiki. And should understand that WP:COSMETICBOT is not an optional rule and has to be anticipated and tested for just like one needs to test their bots against replacing ] with ]]] on all pages when you wanted to replace ] with ] on some pages."

Solution? Don't brute force. Don't ignore skip conditions, especially if the condition is "whitespace only". Do a semi-automated test run if need be. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Headbomb yes I can sort this out. The problem nowadays (speaking about mainspace edits) has been reduced to newly introduced CHECKWIKI errors. The ISSN errors were rather new and my script was a hell of a mess. I already sent it to Bgwhhite via email for review. Redrose64 also did some comments. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Headbomb and something personal here: OK I got that a few (I think 40 out of 1,5000) edits of the ISSN fixes were "pointless", but I would enjoy a more polite way to hear this. Something like "hey, your bot failed to fix something in this page. What was about?". Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe so, but after this, this, this, this, this, and many others, I'm sure you can understand why I'm opting for the direct approach.

Look, I'm not looking to shit on you. Your bots clearly do more good than harm. But the harm is doing is in many, many cases preventable. Look at it from our perspective. You get blocked/warned for cosmetic changes, get unblocked on good faith , then reblocked for violating restrictions less than a week after the unblock. No one here wants to be back on your page next week/month because the bot once again ran amok. You say you acknowledge the issue, but no steps seem to be taken to prevent the issue from occurring in the first place. I give you full credit for fixing specific problems when flagged, but the root of the issue remains unaddressed. No other bot op is so often warned for cosmetic changes. What are we to do?

Bluntly put, we're at a crossroad here. You can commit to follow WP:COSMETICBOT / not ignore skip conditions / not using a brute force approach / do semi-automated testing of things where you personally review a substantial amount of edits before letting a fully-automated process take over / whatever other voodoo magic is necessary. Expecting < X/1000 trivial edits is not something I'm willing to put forth as a criteria of success, but their frequency has to be drastically reduced.

Or do we have to revoke your AWB access? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:13, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Headbomb I of course appreciate your comments and I am excited every time you report something. This is because some people do not even bother to report bugs. Have you ever reported a bug about Visual Editor or Content Translator? I have. And many times. Most of them are still unfixed and there is a group of WMF professionals working on VE and CX. I am a volunteer. I hope you can at least appreciate that I make effort to fix everything as fast as possible. The diffs you provided had examples of Yobot doing "pointless edits". All 4 cases were fixed not only as part of my skip conditions but as part of the software itself. And this is better because at some point I may not be around to edit or use my bot. Someone else will try to use AWB. Bug fixing is better than adding skip conditions to a single bot. Bug fixes have global positive effect. In the first case I noticed I found the software bug and fixed it in less than a day. Sometimes, I am faster. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Just to bottom line this, it seems like the main issue, at heart, is the complaint by some editors/admins that Magioladitis does not follow the letter or the spirit of their unblock restrictions. Can these restrictions be made more specific to cover those edits these editors have problems with and can Magioladitis assure the participants in this discussion that they can abide by these restrictions, not temporarily but until such restrictions are formally removed? It seems like this would solve the problem, the end of "pointless" edits without Misplaced Pages losing a very productive editor and unproblematic admin. Liz 18:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Removal of AWB from his user account and removal of AutoEd from User and bot accounts should be step one. Cannot use these at all from his user account. I'm not sure how to put "restrictions" on bot account activities or how to word it. For example, besides what the bot does, he does semi-manually fix maintenance categories and does requests. Bgwhite (talk) 22:11, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I wrote a specific proposal above. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Too complex for no reason. The only necessary restriction is #3. Don't edit in violation of WP:COSMETICBOT. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:30, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

That won't solve the whole problem. There is an equal problem with poor edit summaries that make it impossible to tell what the bot was *trying* to do. The more effective single sanction would be to disable all general fixes whenever AWB is run - but that will also not address the entire problem, and will leave us back here soon enough. If Magioladitis was able to work with just "don't violate the existing rules", we wouldn't be here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:49, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Carl: I commend you for posting a detailed proposal. For #1, could you think of a more specific description for "No semi-automated tools"? Magioladitis didn't understand this included AutoEd, and I wonder if this would include Twinkle or Hotcat. I would also ask that Magioladitis be allowed to edit the User:Yobot page if he would like to indicate which bot tasks he is choosing to discontinue and which bot tasks he could improve per the suggestions here. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:25, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

It is very hard to find an airtight wording. Perhaps it would work to say that Twinkle and tools whose main purpose is to interact with users or handle vandalism are OK, but tools such as AutoEd or Hotcat that are primarily for editing should be avoided. In the end, a lot will depend (regardless of the sanctions that are used) on how much Magioladitis wants to resolve the situation by not pushing boundaries. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I recently requested this T124868. If this is implemented I won't be doing anymore trivial edits when working with maintenance categories. This is still not the root of the problem but a step forward. Also if other take over my talk page fixes which are my weakest point we save a lot of bad edits done by me. I promised to work on it. I sent GoingBatty an email with my settings file to review it and I hope they take over (GB, did you receive it?). As someone else wrote GoingBatty has better communication skills than I do and they are more careful than I am. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: Your request is a great one - I hope it can be added to AWB. Thank you for sending me your settings. Once my current WP:BRFA is complete, I'll play with yours to see if I can get it to work with the proper skip conditions. GoingBatty (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty someone's comment that "GoingBatty can play out the community better than you" rang as a huge bell in my head. :D -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:13, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it speaks well of any editor or admin that they are aware of their editing strengths as well as those areas where there is room for improvement and they can be honest about themselves. A technical solution might be the best answer here. Liz 00:28, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Looks good to me. — Earwig  00:33, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Remember non-admins - just admit your faults when dragged though AN/ANI and you'll get away with it be OK. Lugnuts 17:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

A built-in AWB solution for most of the errors is underway thanks to the AWB team. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Note the conditions of the temp unblock was to To participate in the AN discussion ONLY, yet this edit was made after this condition was agreed. @Fram:? Lugnuts 08:00, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts check the edit that was done 30 seconds later in the same page. Plese be more careful in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:23, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I need to be more careful?! That's rich. So why did you make the edit in the first place against the sanction of your unblock? I guess you'll weasel out of this one too. Lugnuts 08:24, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts I was pinged by Redrose64 in commons and I replied in the wrong window. Is this OK with you or do you think I have to be blocked for this too? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

You know what I think. However, no one will action this. Admins win again! Lugnuts 08:31, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts is clearly out to get anybody who uses AWB. It says at the top of his talk page, "FUCK AWB". He just left a message on my talk page accusing me of doing one trivial edit. No hi or what you doing? Just judge and jury. He then left, Fine, but your edits are now being monitored. Look forward to seeing you at ANI when you fuck up again. I can't remember the last time anybody accused me of a trivial edit... 8-12 months? Guess I'll be hauled into ANI later today. Bgwhite (talk) 09:23, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I hate to correct you, again, but it's anyone who misuses AWB. There's a difference. And you don't seem to know the difference. As you've been using AWB for a long, long time, you should be more than familiar with the rules of use. Lugnuts 09:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

You only saw the edit, you never, ever asked why. If you would have asked, you would see that it wasn't a misuse. Shot first and don't ask questions later.... Bgwhite (talk) 11:37, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

No, I saw the edit and then pointed it out to you. Are you now trying to cover up your errors after Fram pointed it out to you too? Lugnuts 12:24, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Stop with the threats. Why is it that you have falsely accuse people and threaten them every time. Fram understood with what I'm doing. You've accused me of yet another mindless bot edit even thou it did exactly what the edit summary did. You've threatened me with ANI again. You said I broke 3RR with only two edits by me. I've asked 5 times to stop writing on my talk page. Stay away from me. Bgwhite (talk) 08:18, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

And here you are stalking me! Pot. Kettle. Black. How pathetic. Lugnuts 08:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

So what's the outcome of this user's editing? We all bend over and let him continue until the next time he's brought here? Or the time after that? Or the time after that? Seems this isn't really being addressed now. Lugnuts 15:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

1. The technical issue on the CHECKWIKI error fixes: There are 100+ errors checked and every month there are alternations to the code generating the list. Since Bgwhite now does a reproceccing of the dump files i.e. cleaner lists I deicded with him and I ll get a message of when my bot should start fixing. Till now by bot was triggered automattically in the large lists resulting a large percentaage of "did nothing" edits. This can be addressed at list at the part of the list.
2. The technical issue on the deprecated parameters: Rjwilmsi created a custom module that enusres that we will have skip conditions. I asked GoingBatty to help in testing. So on that part we can have 100% of good edits.
3. The technical issue on the the talk page fixes / tagging. This is tricky because consensus on the placement of the banners changes very often, AWB's code is incomplete, most edtors who requested tagging of a WikiProject have given me bad lists. This can be partially addressed with GoigBatty's help if he uses my scripts and reports bugs and fixes some things.
4. On my editing: I can promise not to perform any large scale editing from my main account (i.e. automated edits will be done mainly from my bot account) and I can los stay away from AutoEd. In fact, I ve been using AutoEd mainly to get ideas to implement in AWB so it's not a big lose for me. I still believe AuoEd needs update in many places. Frietjes has better AutoEd-like scripts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:43, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Hats off. See you back here in a month. Lugnuts 07:50, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts why is that? I have not received any serious complains about my editing for years. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:13, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

In that case, you should pay closer attention to your talkpage. Lugnuts 08:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, could you help myself and others understand the thinking behind the assertion "not received any serious complains"? (ie. is there a word missing somewhere?—The assertion as it stands appears to be inconsistent with the public record – available for all to view – in the history of User talk:Magioladitis). —Sladen (talk) 09:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The implication is clear: Mag does not consider complaints about trivial or cosmetic edits to be 'serious', which really highlights the problem being discussed here. –xeno 13:02, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

@Sladen and Xeno: How many complains go I get per year? Should I count? I do hundreds of edits per day. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:20, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Ah I see. By "serious" I meant "major". All reports are serious ofcourse. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for that Magioladitis. Looking back over the responses in this discussion above and distilling out the important parts from your responses:

1. "hundreds of edits per day." – automated edit rate has been too fast/too high for review.
2. "a lot of mistakes." – the automated edits had some $error-rate.
3. "All reports are serious" – there was feedback about the edits/errors.
4. "every time you report" – that feedback was frequent/repeated.
5. "Should I count?" – feedback was so large, it would require an explicit effort to count.
6. "it's not the tools." – compliance with WP:BOTREQUIRE/ WP:COSMETICBOT/ WP:AWB#Rules of use/ WP:NOTBROKEN has been proved achievable by other editors, using with the same automated toolset.

Could you confirm whether this is a correct synopsis of the situation? —Sladen (talk) 10:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Sladen.

1. Yes. Many people do that too. I do not think that this necessary bad.
2. The mistakes are usually mainly when something changes in the code. Long-standing scripts work fine. So usually there are many mistakes of ONE kind i.e. easily fixable.
3. Yes. I reply to all reports. I try sometime to reply in a few minutes after the report. Not all reports are valid though.
4. Yes. I fixed all errors reported. Mainly bug fixing or revisited a page to finish the task. Most fixes were really quick. Not all reports refer to the same thing. Take this under consideration. (See below).
5. True. In the past I kept logs of the bot edits. But this logs were manual and there were getting too large.
6. Almost true. Most of the times I am the guy who uses AWB against newly generated lists. I am also the guy who said that I trust WikiProjects to generate their lists for me and I won't double check them assuming good faith. During the years I established some extra rules for that.

To resolve one main part of the latter I already contacted Bgwhite to refine lists before feeding them to my bot. I also contacted GoingBatty and other to distribute the talk page related tasks.

There are many bugs of different nature. If the bot/script/module/AWB/etc. fails to fix a page the result is usually the same: "Cosmetic changes". This gives the impression that the root of the problem is the same while it's not.

Please, also read my report on the situation. I try to separate the errors by their kind. Just calling them all just "errors" or "trivial edits" does not help. It's like reporting a hug by saying "the program does not work. Fix it". Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 12:45, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

"There are many bugs of different nature. If the bot/script/module/AWB/etc. fails to fix a page the result is usually the same: "Cosmetic changes"."

And this underlies the frustration that I (and probably other people) have with Magioladitis. Every time that he does trivial edits and I have reported it, he claims he has fixed it, but in a few days, the same kinds of trivial edits show up again. Every time Magio cheerfully claims that he has resolved all reported problems, but to me it looks like nothing changed. But underlying the specific bugs that he is "fixing", there is a systemic problem should be addressed on a more general level: to skip saving a page if the edit would consist of only trivial changes.

There are also some other recurring problems reflected here, such as denial of responsibility: "Most of the times I am the guy who uses AWB against newly generated lists. I am also the guy who said that I trust WikiProjects to generate their lists for me and I won't double check them assuming good faith." -- intgr  14:17, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Rule one of WP:AWB could not be more clear: "You are responsible for every edit made. Do not sacrifice quality for speed and make sure you understand the changes." Seems there's a core of AWB users who chose to ignore this or think it doesn't apply to them. Lugnuts 14:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

intgr for the first: As I wrote there a custom module underway. This will reduce the error drastically. For the second, I always WP:AGF when someone asks me to fix a list. I do not care about the tagging myself. I find WikiProject boring and useless when it is done in thousand pages. Anyone wishes to take this task is more than welcome. All my code and "house rules" are online. I had to participate in creating rules for talk page fixes. I try to help others. This is not denial of responsibility. I guess you are aware that many BOTREQs remain unanswered. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:36, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Check also that in 2009 I did work for others Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 7. I see Misplaced Pages as a cooperaive projectwith people who trust each other. I later expanded this in a more general way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:39, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

2009? Wow. I'm sure I did something good 7 years ago too. Do you have something a bit more recent that might carry a bit more weight? Lugnuts 19:05, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts Why you behave like this? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you have something more recent? I mean, seven years is a long time ago and standards were, how shall we put it, not as good as now. Look at any FA that crept through back then and compare it to today's standard. So, what can you dig out from say, the last 12 months? Lugnuts 19:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

My talk page fixes are based on Wikiprojects requests. What do you mean? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:14, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

In 2010 I asked some of the talk page fixes to be done in toolserver and it was done by Larabot till toolserver was shut done. Check User:Yobot#Logs_2008-2012. I resumed the tasks after Larabot discontinue the Wikiproject Biographyvtagging. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Yet, another proof that even single-task bots operated by experienced programmers can fail from time to time: User_talk:T.seppelt#Non-removal_of_comments. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:17, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, thank you for the heads up. Looking over the bug reports and replies, it would appear that T.seppelt has been reasonably responsive and has replied to the reporters of the bugs in correspondingly timely fashion. I can see the responses "stopped the program", "adjust the replacement pattern", "implemented several improvements". There would be room for improvement in the edit summary pointing to the precise bot task authorisation and in the bug report it would be nice to see pointers to revision controls corrections of the patterns. However all-in-all the bot appears to have stayed on-task and not wander off into things that weren't requested, (eg. into whitespace rearranging), was done from a bot account, not a user account, and the operator has not attempted to deny responsibility for the automated edits or shift the blame on to other people. Is there something I've missed about this (nearly) model response by a bot operator? —Sladen (talk) 02:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, many bots have errors from time to time.Typically, these are different errors. The difference with Yobot is that it has had the same errors for years, and they have never been resolved. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Sladen Please reread my points with the root of the problem. No AWB bot just removes whitespace. I never just removed whitespace using AWB. Moreover, in contrary to other programs AWB always shows which code revision is used. I looks that your approach tends to reach my point of view. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

A comment about HotCat just for the record: HotCat is a java script installed internally by Misplaced Pages perferences under the section "Gadgets" and comes with no additional terms of use. It is considered to be part of the Misplaced Pages environment. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

As for never "just removing whitespace using AWB", see . This seems to be a relatively common failure mode your AWB code, which has been happening for several years now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

CBM Exactly! Code failure. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk)

Moreover, you gave two bad examples! The latter is by WP:LISTGAP we even have bots for that. The first is typical wikilink fix and bots do that too. So, both are accepted edits! But, OK we agree in the spirit of the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The problem is not code failure - it is operator failure. Looking through your contribs, it took me less than 1 minute to find more examples: . Those are not bot edits - they are edits that you personally reviewed and approved with your own account! Your claim that "I never just removed whitespace using AWB." is simply false. The pattern of your responses, when problems such as this are brought up, is to deny your own actions and/or blame the code. The fact that you continue to violate the AWB rules of use in this way, with no plan to resolve the underlying problems, shows why there is a need for an AWB ban on your main account, along with much tighter rules on your bot account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis breaching the terms of his unblock

Moving towards a resolution

xaosflux — xeno — MSGJ: This thread has been sitting for a while now. Do you think it is time for one of the administrators handing this to work out the precise terms/restrictions that will be in place going forward? I suggested some possible restrictions above. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• Recuse; I have strong feelings about useless edits and on the other hand I am also quite fond of Magioladitis as regards his other useful work. –xeno 15:42, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
• Unfortunately I'm with Xeno above - I'm involved with Magioladitis frequently as part of the Bot Approval's Group and only came in to this as a broken between the original block and a short-lived unblock w/ restrictions, would appreciate some input of uninvolved admins here. — xaosflux 16:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
• I'm not sure there is much consensus for any particular remedy, but I think we need to get something in place before 15th. I could certainly support #1 in your proposals. The rest would be good practice and/or covered by other policies. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
• I fear that #1 is probably an inevitable necessity, given the continued claims and long-term denials of the situation. All that's being requested is simple compliance to existing Misplaced Pages's norms, so ideally #2–#6 (which attempt to summarise existing bot policy) should not need to be necessary—but perhaps spelling them out may help to focus the mind of Yobot's operator. I'm hopeful that in 6–12 months Magioladitis may be able to return here voluntarily with a a greater understanding and a demonstrable clean slate. —Sladen (talk) 07:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
• I also don't see much consensus for any particular remedy. Most of Carl's #2-6 suggestions are not bot policy. For example, #3 states, No "changes that do not affect any visible aspect of the rendered page". This would disallow DEFAULTSORT changes, removal of deprecated or changed infobox parameters, etc. #2 and #6 are not feasible with AWB. Support #1 and #5. #5 falls under WP:BOTREQUIRE and is something Magioladitis hasn't done well in the past, but has gotten better.

  Carl's suggestions doesn't include AutoEd, which is what Magioladitis used the last go around. I already suggested and would support Magioladitis not using AutoEd for a year. I've already removed AutoEd from his .js file and left a message that I removed it so it wouldn't "tempt him". Bgwhite (talk) 08:26, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

  • The point of special restrictions is that they can go beyond the ordinary policy, of course. The question is: what set of restrictions will prevent us from coming back here again? Regarding #3, there is no need for Magioladitis in particular to perform the kinds of edits mentioned - DEFAULTSORT, parameters, etc. - and given his long track record of being unable to do so in accordance with ordinary norms (cf. this thread), it would be better for him to let others take care of it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
    • My stating that it is not normal bot policy is in response to others saying that it is normal policy. So, your statement just reaffirms my point. Yobot does have bot approval to fix Defaultsort, deprecated parameters and others. Your #2 and #5 also means he can't do bot approved tasks. Either he can do bot approved tasks or he can't. Bgwhite (talk) 18:49, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
• For what it's worth, I stand by Carl's efforts to put stricter/clearer limits on Magioladitis's editing. I believe it is inappropriate to let someone to systematically and repeatedly violate Misplaced Pages's policies and neglect user feedback, despite how useful their good edits may be. The current approach of many people simply complaining with no enforcement, has clearly been ineffective. I think even simply a clear re-statement of aspects of the bot policy, together with consequences when violated, is a step forward. (Non-administrator comment) -- intgr  11:55, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
• I don't personally understand what most of Carl's restriction would do (e.g. the edit summary restrictions), in real terms, other than have pointless bureaucracy to govern Magio's editing. #3 (no purely cosmetic edit) is the only problematic issue. General fixes are fine, but the "whitespace only" and "cosmetic only" skip condition have to be used. However, Magio doesn't seem to be enclined to use them, and short of such a commitment, I would support a 3 month ban on script-assisted editing on his main account, and a restriction on Yobot's CHECKWIKI edits to be performed iff the "whitespace only" and "cosmetic only" skip conditions are used. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Headbomb I can add these two skip conditions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:41, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

This "I can …" terminology seems quite familiar (eg. Special:Diff/691603628: "I can stick to bots do the job instead of using my normal account. … -- Magioladitis … 23:21, 20 November 2015 (UTC)". Magioladitis, will it be done (+infinitely, not just for a short time)? —Sladen (talk) 10:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

There are several approaches we could take here:

• Restrict access to certain tools, including AWB and maybe some others. This may be worth a try, and I could support a restriction of this type. But it may encourage him to explore other automated tools which haven't been mentioned or to disguise the tool that made them.
• Restrict a certain type of edit, i.e. cosmetic changes. I don't think this will work because based on past experience if the automated editing continues I am sure there will be further cosmetic edits.
• Restrict all automated, semi-automated, or script-assisted editing from the main account. This is the simplest remedy. The bot can continue with tasks that have explicit approval (and there is less of an issue with watchlist clogging from the bot account anyway).

Thoughts? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Concerning the first option, the worry that this leads to 'hidden' or 'disguised' automated editing is seems like a big dose of unwarranted bad faith.

But in general, Magio has, for the first time I think, acknowledged there is an issue and said they were willing to make use of the the skip conditions (which I interpret both for them and for the bot, unless what they are trying to fix would be prevented by skip condition, like a fix to a badly-formed template (e.g { {reflist}} → {{reflist}}) that would be prevented by the whitespace skip condition. They've been blocked/restricted from all editing for a good week (if not more now), so I'm sure the message has sunk in by now that compliance with WP:COSMETICBOT (which also covers bot-like editing via WP:MEATBOT) is not optional.

However, I'm also semi-wary of an unrestricted return. But something like a one-month restriction on AWB edits from the main account, while also allowing Yobot to resume its tasks (with the skip conditions enabled, and a better description of its task via edit summary) would be reasonable. And if there's no issues (allowing for some false positives due to GIGO/vandalism/live version different from dump version if building edit lists from database dumps/etc.), then lift the restriction on AWB, provided the skip conditions are also used going forward. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:48, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Have struck that part from my sentence, although the part of exploring other tools was not hypothetical given his prompt switch to AutoEd when his use of AWB was curtailed. One month is too short - I would prefer an indefinite restriction which can be reviewed in a few months time. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:17, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I think a one-month ban on AWB and other semiautomated tools from the main account, and mandatory skip conditions on all Yobot edits (so that the edit is only saved if the specific bot task applies to the page) would be a reasonable option. If he can follow that for a month, but then happens to revert to problematic behavior, it will be easy enough to re-impose the restrictions. The purpose for having better edit summaries (re Headbomb above) is exactly so that it is more clear whether the part in parenthesis is achieved. Vague summaries that just mention "CHECKWIKI", for example, don't give enough information to tell what the bot is *trying* to achieve. If that means that he has to run separate tasks separately, I would view that as a normal part of bot operation.

Magioladitis has very unexpectedly posted a wikibreak message on his user talk page today, running through the 17th, which is after the original one-month block would expire. A return to the old "status quo" would just bring us back here in a few days. I think it would be better to go ahead and notify him of the restrictions that will apply when he returns, or else extend the original block until he is able to properly interact with this thead (cf. the unanswered question from Sladen above). — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis is off to a WikiConference being held in Athens. He is a speaker, so it was not unexpected.

Having skip conditions (cosmetic or blank space) will mean the majority of CheckWiki errors cannot be handled... section headers, invisible Unicode, missing ref tags (< ref>), defaultsort problem, pmid, isbns, etc. As I explained to Headbomb yesterday, there are errors that "only cosmetic change" and/or "only whitspace" have to be on. If articles are fixed before we get to them, it will cause a cosmetic only edit. There is no way around that, only minimizing the amount of articles. Not to mention, forgetting to check or uncheck a box between running different errors.

To MSGJ's first point. AWB AND AutoEd must be included. The only other tool Magioladitis uses is WPCleaner. WPCleaner does not have the cosmetic changes problem. Bgwhite (talk) 22:48, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

The argument you are making seems to be "the software is broken, so we have to use it as it is". But that is not correct: the solution is to fix the software so that it is able to make the desired changes correctly, without making undesired changes. In the meantime, a responsible bot op would not continue running the software in a way that causes the error to re-occur. That is 100% standard bot development procedure, which Magioladitis as a BAG member should be completely familiar with. If he is unable to make certain kinds of edits until the software is improved, perhaps that will be an incentive to fix the longstanding bugs in his code. But it is clear that returning to the status quo is not an option. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:57, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Did I ever say the software is broken? No. Did I ever say the status quo? No. Don't make up things I never said. I said, there are instances where blank space and "only cosmetic change" MUST be checked to fix errors. For example, I'm currently running a 100,000 article bot job that only removes blank lines. Another example, changing ISBN1234567890 to ISBN 1234567890, which only involves a blank space. I've also said there are times when the article is fixed before we can get to it. There is no way around this. Others have the same problem when they run off dumps. Headbomb mentioned this in his proposal above. There are no software problems. Status quo? I've said... Magioladitis must not use AWB from his main account and no autoEd from any account. He must only run AWB for approved jobs. He must do edit summaries better.

What you are proposing means Magioladitis can't use AWB for most of his bot approved jobs. I've replied to you before, Your #2 and #5 also means he can't do bot approved tasks. Either he can do bot approved tasks or he can't. There was never close to any consensus to take away AWB privileges. Bgwhite (talk)

@Bgwhite: (Irrelevant snark) "Don't make up things I never said." Sounds familiar, maybe you should refrain from doing that yourself, too. -- intgr  10:07, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Bgwhite, you wrote above ¨... it will cause a cosmetic only edit. There is no way around that, only minimizing the amount of articles.¨ and "there are times when the article is fixed before we can get to it. There is no way around this.". Remember the saying "a bad carpenter always blames his tools". Nobody is suggesting Yobot cannot use AWB, but if AWB has bugs that cause undesired edits in bot mode then Magiolatiditis needs to fix those bugs or run AWB in a way that does not cause them to trigger. If that means doing some code development before running some bot jobs -- well, that's part of being a bot operator! For example, I am certain that the problem of determining whether the desired problem still exists can be solved, because if a program detected the problem in the first place, then AWB can test to see if the problem still exists before making the edit. That kind of check should have been implemented years ago, when the issue of outdated dumps for CHECKWIKI was first noticed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:25, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

These are reasonable false positives, and have been tolerated with all bot ops, provided they take steps to minimize how often they occur. The issue mostly is that Magio has not taken these steps in the past. To quote him "The ISSN errors were rather new and my script was a hell of a mess." That indicates improper testing of new code and logic. I've reported similar errors to BGWhite (see here, scroll down a bit), but those were caused because the database dump (of which edit lists are built from) and the live version of the article differed because of vandalism. These are unavoidable short of putting a herculean effort in coding. A 'good enough' code that edits correctly 99% of the time and doesn't break anything in the other 1% is something the community and BAG considers acceptable in cases like this. The ISSN edits, however, were not caused by this, and proper testing would have caught it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:41, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, the ISSN edits were also being done manually. One can't blame software in manual mode. If software had an issue, one shouldn't have pressed save. Bgwhite (talk) 23:08, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

So after a lot of back-and-forth, what is the resolution to this and, more importantly, is anyone going to act on it/enforce it? Lugnuts 07:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts; Magioladitis is on a wikibreak—which we should respect—and can hopefully contribute when back. If that doesn't happen, one of the blockers/unblockers (Materialscientist, Xaosflux, MSGJ, Fram) can probably go ahead with a block extension for Special:Diff/704691363 on 13 February 2016 being outside the agreed unblock conditions ("… only edit your user talk page and the Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Magioladitis discussion" + "bot's talk page and subpages" + "not edit any other page until the original block would have expired (00:00, 15 February 2016)"). —Sladen (talk) 20:44, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Sladen. I think we all know no-one is going to block him for that breach of his unblock conditions. Or this breach either. So that makes four edits (see the collapsed section direcetly above this) that are clearly outside the terms of the unblock. He's back tomorrow though, so we'll see how this goes. I'm lifting the corner of the rug in readiness. Lugnuts 20:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Suggest ignoring that, it is mostly in the spirit of the block if not the letter - blocks are not "meant to be" punitive and I don't see any reason to extend. — xaosflux 20:54, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

FYI - Magioladitis has returned. GoingBatty (talk) 03:40, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

And making yet another edit that is outside the terms of the unblock. Lugnuts 08:02, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Those restrictions expired with the expiry of the original block, on February 15. -- intgr  09:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Yobot continuing to make pointless edits, such as this and this, clearly against WP:COSMETICBOT. Lugnuts 08:48, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: So what happened to your "I can add these two skip conditions"? -- intgr  09:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis was working off of a list for CheckWiki #22. The list was generated on the 12th. Lugnuts fixed the issue in both articles after the list was created. As stated a zillion times, there will be cases where the article will fixed before we arrive. The blank space and minor edit skip must be turned off in order to fix this. Lugnuts also reverted the edits in spite of WP:OWNBEHAVIOR. How many times do Magioladitis and I have to be accused of this only to be told by other people that this is ok? Look at the discussion just above where Carl thinks I have to be 100% perfect. Look at the discussion on my page where Lugnuts accused me of the same thing, twice this year. Bgwhite (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Note that Bgwhite continues his reverts of my edits, despite the fact I'm bringing this issue to the attention of the bot owner. I guess it's too hard for you to fix the issue at hand. Bgwhite needs to read the rules of use for AWB (again) - "You are responsible for every edit made" so you do need to "be 100% perfect". Lugnuts 09:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Nobody is 100% perfect around here, not even you. As explained to you by multiple people, Fram and Headbomb among them. Stop repeating the same thing. You've been after me atleast three years about this. Once again, stop with the insults. Bgwhite (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't need to be, as I'm not operating a bot! After you for at least three years? So that means your edits are against the rules of AWB. I see I'm not the only one who has brought this to your attention, but you think you're above the law. How sad. Lugnuts 09:58, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Read-modify-write is a basic premise of most concurrent programming (ie. checking something before modifying). Bgwhite, there are several solutions for this, the simplest might be to store of a SHA1 hash of the page content at the point of list generation, and retrieve+rehash again before attempting to save. I fail to understand why this sort of basic validation is still not present; and it certainly does not excuse a bot operator who continues to use known-defective software without proper oversight and responsibility as required of the bot policies. —Sladen (talk) 09:31, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

There is no sort of validation for any bot that I am aware of. The SHA1 hash is useless. Pages are updated all the time that don't fix the errors. It would also be complicated. This is normal practice by all bot operators. Defective software causes bugs. AWB does have bugs and it is updated all the time. We are talking about a very small minority that isn't causing errors. As headbomb stated above These are unavoidable short of putting a herculean effort in coding. A 'good enough' code that edits correctly 99% of the time and doesn't break anything in the other 1% is something the community and BAG considers acceptable in cases like this. Bgwhite (talk) 09:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

There are indeed forms of validation. For a long time, I used a Linux equivalent to AWB that I wrote, called LWB. This would let me manually approve systematic edits after reviewing each one. One one hand, the use of the edit token automatically detects certain kinds of conflicts. But the code also checks the return value when it makes a text substitution, to make sure that the desired substitution actually occurred. If the return value indicates that no change was made, the page is skipped. Checking the return value after calling a function is very basic programming technique which all bot operators should be aware of. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:17, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi again. I am back. :) So: The "not only whitespace removal" is not only about my main account but includes the bot account too? This can't be easy to fix since there are some CHECKWIKI errors that are about whitespace changes. Error 22 (category with space) is one of them. I am open to suggestions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:34, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: Do you agree that the fix to checkwiki error 22 is a "cosmetic change"?

Have you read WP:COSMETICBOT? "Cosmetic changes (such as many of the AWB general fixes) should be applied only when there is a substantive change to make at the same time".

Do you think WP:CHECKWIKI or your bot approvals give you the permission to make cosmetic changes to articles even if there aren't any "substantive" changes to make? -- intgr  10:20, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

intgr you just gave me new data to process in my brain. :) My bot has approval to fix all CHECKWIKI errors. CHECKWIKI errors were defined by others and not by me. Why it should be me to be bothered about it? I mean it's OK for the community to define which errors should be activated by the CHECKWIKI project but I am only the guy who says "OK, bring me your lists and I'll fix them". All these years in CHECKWIKI I focused on making automated tools (AWB, AutoEd, WPCleaner) and bots more effective against these lists. I also tried to coordinate these attempts to fix errors and resolve any conflicts (some years ago Yobot was fight against SmackBot over a whitespace due to different programming approaches. YES my bot in on the list of lamest Misplaced Pages editing wars ever). I work on the direction of making the list of errors more effective but it takes time. The ere more than 100 types of errors processed daily. I could exclude error 22 fixing if there is consensus for that. I could also ask the CHECKWIKI project to disactivate the fix. I am open to suggestions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:49, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Sladen what you say it's true. The way we work right now is due to the lack of better software. In order to reduce unnecessary edits in the past we did the following tricks (which are not proper solutions):

• We update the CHECKWIKI lists more often (daily scans)
• We ensured that AWB won't affect a page when revisiting it ("Do-all-in-one-run" project)
• We added skip conditions but they can't check whether a specific error has been fixed.

-- Magioladitis (talk) 09:43, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Who is the "we" you refer to here? Lugnuts 10:28, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts in the first one I mainly mean myself and Bgwhite. I was fixing things of the CHECKWIKI project which was an idea by a German editor but it was not updated that often. Back to these days I was making more cosmetic changes than now. Bgwhite rewrote the entire thing, added many errors and removed some old ones. In the second and third bullet I men the AWB team. I still keep the things that are not fixed in one run at User:Magioladitis/Notes#.22Do_all_in_one_run.22_project. This list was much larger but mainly Rjwilmsi helped in fixing most of them. Example. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

"Bgwhite rewrote the entire thing, added many errors" Well that certainly explains a lot. Lugnuts 13:13, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Can't you (general checkwiki bot you, not only Magioladitis) build in a rule that says: "if page is edited between update of checkwiki list and now, skip page"? It's a more conservative approach that will see some pages where the error isn't fixed in this run, but which will also prevent most of the unnecessary edits. Fram (talk) 10:18, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Sladen T127173 Thanks for the idea. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:54, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Fram too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:54, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

T127185 too. In 1.5 month is the Mediawiki Hackathon. I'll be there and there is a plan that the AWB team tries to implement this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:21, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Fram, that is *very straightforward* to program - the API already provides the time that any page was last edited, so it is straightforward to query this inside a bot program. The more important check, though, is for AWB to verify that the error it is fixing still exists before saving the page. That can also be done - if the error can be detected by software to make the list, then it is possible for other software to check for the same error before making changes. This is all programming 101 level stuff, which should have been implemented in AWB long ago. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

CBM I would be more than happy if you create a code patch for me. This would save me and Reedy a lot of valuable time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:03, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

To note two more breaches of the conditions of the unblock. Nearly into double figures. You had a good run, kid. Lugnuts 13:16, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts, the unblock conditions expired four days ago, Magioladitis is at the moment free to edit anything and anywhere he likes (just like any other editor). This was pointed out to you in this very discussion a few days ago when you made your previous such accusation ("Those restrictions expired with the expiry of the original block, on February 15. -- intgr 09:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)"). And please don't address people you have a conflict with as "kid", it's an attitude and approach that won't help to solve anything. Fram (talk) 13:30, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Apologies, my mistake. I should have used AWB for that edit. And I don't have a "conflict" with him, or indeed anyone, so please check your facts before making accusations. Maybe you can be as quick to sum up this situation now you're here? Lugnuts 13:41, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts, quite frankly, shut up. No one here believes you don't have a conflict with Magio given your constant hounding so you can jump on them for the slightest of so-called 'violation', create a AWB/non-AWB user divide, or whatever your WP:BATTLEGROUND bullshit du jour is. We're all tired of pointless cosmetic edits, and we all agree that Magio's editing pattern has been problematic. We're here to find solutions, not to conduct execution by firing squad. It's getting to the point that I would support a one-way interaction ban on you for the remainder of the discussion. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

So what are your solutions to all this? I'd quite like to hear them. Lugnuts 14:21, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts, one of the early steps is probably for the user of your account to try to resist drowning out the signal-to-noise ratio. Please, pretty please, try to reflect on what useful contributions you can make. —Sladen (talk) 14:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I already have. I've posted time and time again on the user's talkpage about the issues in hand and finally, we're here. However, nothing is likely to be addressed with this. We'll probably be back in in a few months with the exact same concerns. Which will be ignored. Again. Lugnuts 14:30, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Minor comment: Thanks Bgwhite for removing the AutoEd script from my account. thanks to Rjwilmsi for fixing T121203. This resolves a long standing inconsistency between AutoEd and AWB. This means AutoEd won't affect most of pages that have been previously edited by AWB. This was the thing I was trying to spot and fix lately. On less problem with whitepace addition/removal. Thanks GoingBatty for discovering and fixing a duplicated piece of code in the wikiproject fixes. This expalins why my bot kept fixing WPBS while at some point I claimed I disactivated this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Taharrush jamai RM

I'm looking for an admin to close a contentious RM: Talk:Taharrush jamai#Requested move 1 February 2016.

The title has been in dispute since the article was created on 12 January. Because of that, the article scope keeps changing. SPAs and IPs have arrived on talk and have been reverting, and the page has had to be semi-protected twice since 5 February. An admin decision would therefore be very helpful. I posted a request for closure on WP:AN/RFC, but there's a long backlog. SarahSV 00:16, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

• Sure thing, SarahSV. Drmies (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks for doing that, Drmies. And I must apologize for posting about "circles of hell" before thanking you. You must have been thinking "no good deed ...". But when I wrote that, I hadn't noticed the close; in fact, I almost wrote: "I don't suppose I could tempt you to look at an RM," at which point I scrolled up and joyfully saw the purple. SarahSV 04:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• I saw the ping while I was closing; I saw your earlier talk page post after I had made that edit--all this makes clear we can disagree on this point or that in good faith, I suppose. I was cheered by your change from the one RM to the next: your mind is agile. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Drmies: I don't know whether you forgot to move it. The target page, Mass sexual assault in Egypt, exists as a redirect and has been edited by a bot. Because of the bot edit, I'd have to use the tools to delete it. SarahSV 06:17, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Done. I'm uninvolved in this, so there should be no problem in me using the tools to implement Drmies' close. Jenks24 (talk) 06:41, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jenks24: thank you for doing that! SarahSV 06:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Ha, sorry, didn't know it was my job to actually do something. I thought I only got paid to yak. Drmies (talk) 14:52, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Drmies: you get paid? I seem to be missing out here. How much am I owed for 10 years editing and 6 years admin? Mjroots (talk) 19:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Help requested with the MediaWiki:Titleblacklist

Hi, there is currently a file rename request pending for File:KFNB-DT1 & KWYF-LD2 Logo.png that is held up by the titleblacklist. Anyone know why?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:59, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Couldn't find it on the blacklist so I moved it for you. Tag the redirect if you don't need it. :-) Katie 00:09, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

":KFNB-DT1 & KWYF-LD2 L" -- too many consecutive non-lowercase letters. I think the limit is ten, while you've got 22. --Carnildo (talk) 02:26, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC close review please?

Hi all, can I request a discussion about one of my own RfC closes please?

Recently Sandstein closed an RfC here, saying that there was consensus to remove portrait galleries from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups. This was expanded into a second RfC concerning galleries of images of living people in general, and after a post on WP:ANRFC I closed this second RfC here. I felt that there was generally a consensus to remove galleries of images of people wherever there's contention about which people should be selected to represent that particular group. In subsequent discussion on the talk page, users agree with the general thrust of my close but are concerned that I may have overreached the consensus in that (a) I suggested the close should apply to galleries anywhere in articles, not just to galleries in the lead and (b) I did not confine the close to ethnic groups; I felt it should apply to any large group of people rather than merely ethnicities and similar groupings.

I've considered this carefully and I think I'm right. If I applied the first restriction, i.e. just to the lead, then the only effect of my close would be to move galleries farther down the page. I don't see how this could abate the pointless contentions editors are concerned about because it's so easily circumvented. And if I applied the second restriction then I'm opening the way for endless quibbles about whether a particular grouping is really an ethnicity.

However, I generally agree that RfCs should be closed conservatively. I can understand the counterarguments to my close even though I think they're wrong ---- so I turn to the community for advice. Do I need to re-close more narrowly? Or would that open so many loopholes as to be self-defeating?—S Marshall T/C 01:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

As the person who closed the original RfC (and didn't substantially participate in the one you closed), I think you got the gist of it right. In the first RfC, the question was whether ethnic group articles (e.g., English people) should be illustrated with a gallery of group members in the infobox or lead. I concluded that consensus was to not do this, and also that consensus was that this applied to other large groups or classifications of people (e.g., religions, genders) for the same reasons: selecting these people is often very contentious (such as when a famous person's ethnic origin is contested), there are no objective criteria or sources for the selection, and the selection may not be representative. The second RfC, which you closed, was about whether consensus was really to also cover other large groups of people other than ethnic groups. I believe you correctly determined that there is. In my view, you also correctly put forth the view that this would also apply to galleries further down the page, if these galleries had, like a lead image, no purpose other than "here's what a bunch of x-people look like". But I don't think that consensus also covers galleries of aspects of human existence, such as amputations or haircuts. These remain covered by the general rules about galleries (no gratuitous or indiscriminate use of them), but the RfCs didn't really address this aspect in sufficient depth.  Sandstein  08:18, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: As seen at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Images#Discussion of close (permalink here), I'm one of the editors who have expressed dissatisfaction with S Marshall's close. TaivoLinguist (Taivo), NebY and perhaps Carlotm are the others. I'm sure that if I pinged all of the editors involved in the RfC, more would object to his broad interpretation as well. I told him that I took issue with one part of his statement; it's where he stated that the close "would affect the galleries in Amputation or Child." It was clear to me that he was extending the the wording beyond lead issues and also to cover any gallery that has a bunch of humans in it. I stated, "The wording in dispute is about images in the lead, since that wording is in the guideline section about the lead. If I thought that the wording was to dictate galleries placed anywhere in the article (meaning not just in the lead), then I would have alerted a lot more people to the discussion, including WP:Med and WP:Anatomy, since I highly doubt that they would agree to remove galleries from the bottom of our medical and anatomy articles. The current wording of your close might be taken as license by editors to remove galleries of people or their body parts from any part of an article, even though the guideline wording at hand is currently in the lead section of the guideline, and this page is not a policy page." It's also the case that the text states, "Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations." It focuses on articles that are about the groups, not every article that might concern humans. For what I mean, see Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Images#Images for the lead. I also noted that, despite his broad interpretation that the wording should extend beyond the lead, I (just like him) also questioned how it is any more of a problem to have ethnicity galleries or similar in the lead than lower in the article. I mean, the same concerns would still be taking place in the article, except now it would concern the lower part of the article instead of the lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I see that Taivo already commented here...but removed his comment. So I'm no longer sure what his full stance is on this matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:15, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I commented very quickly after this was posted and then thought that it would be better to get other, neutral comments, rather than rehashing the same things I said at the Talk Page for the guideline. My opinion on the matter (stated above quite clearly by User:Sandstein) hasn't changed--this guideline should affect articles about groups of humans, but not other articles. --Taivo (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, Taivo. And for the record, I don't necessarily object to S Marshall's interpretation that the wording extends to the lower part of the article as well (as in not just the lead). After all, I noted above that I've thought similarly. I think the people who didn't want these galleries in the lead wouldn't want them lower either, at least for ethnicity issues and issues very similar to that. I object to S Marshall's even broader interpretation that the wording applies to all articles that may at some point address a large group of humans; for example, a gallery of amputees at the bottom of an article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:18, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Sandstein. To expand the scope also to other articles would in my opinion require (God forbid) still another RfC. --T*U (talk) 09:24, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• I'm now minded to amend my close to elide the word "amputation", but would appreciate further commentary from previously uninvolved people.—S Marshall T/C 08:43, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Blockcalc: IP range calculator

Admins doing range blocks may want to try {{blockcalc}}. It extracts IPv4 and IPv6 addresses from its input and calculates minimum-sized ranges. Discussion at Template talk:Blockcalc. Johnuniq (talk) 04:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I still use NativeForeigner's calc tool, but this is great. I'm to the point with IPv6 range calcs that I could tell the number of affected users just by looking at the list of IPs in the examples, but I know others aren't there yet. We're all going to have to get familiar with IPv6 addressing and rangeblocking them and this will help a lot. I think it's easier for us than IPv4 in several ways, though the sheer amount of digits can be intimidating. :-) Katie 16:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC close review request: Jeremy Corbyn, place of birth

This is a request to review the RfC close at Jeremy Corbyn, to determine whether the closer interpreted the consensus incorrectly. I discussed this with the closer here. The issue the closer was to decide was whether the existing use of "England" for Corbyn's place of birth in the infobox should be changed to "UK", in terms of WP policies and guidance. Over two dozen editors noted a preference; slightly more of these editors were in favour of noting England than UK. Some others (including the closer) suggested noting England and UK. Noting no country or sovereign state was also suggested. The closing comments were: "This RfC was closed with a compromise which is "Chippenham, Wiltshire, England, UK"", which reflects the preference of the closer. Several editors specifically opposed the England and UK suggestion (e.g. here, here, here and here). Clearly, no consensus was achieved at this RfC. Only uninvolved editors should close discussions where consensus is unclear. WP:INVOLVED states: 'In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputed cases in which they have been involved.', which is the case here. This close should be overturned and reclosed by an uninvolved admin. Daicaregos (talk) 10:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Any close (even if by a different editor) would surely arrive at the same result: views on the matter are evenly split, and the solution that has been adopted is a perfectly acceptable way to accommodate both perspectives. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:54, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The fact that it may be "perfectly acceptable" to one editor (you) does not mean that it is "perfectly acceptable" to others (me) - because it's, frankly (in my opinion), silly. As Daicaregos suggests, it was absolutely wrong for an involved editor to have closed the discussion. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:05, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

FYI, I closed the discussion, and explained on my personal page, responding to Daicaregos' request: "Actually if I have well understood the procedure for closure, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Requests_for_closure is (point 1) "if the consensus is clear, any editor—even one involved in the discussion—may close the discussion". With no opposition on the compromise during 12 days, and one month after the RfC was opened, it seemed to me that is was a consensus." Wykx (talk) 11:11, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

And I answered you there: "Your compromise position was not one of the options given in the RfC. Consequently,it would be impossible to say the consensus for that option was clear, so 'point 1' could not apply. Also, several editors noted their opposition to the England, UK suggestion, this is just one example. I can't see any other possible close but 'no consensus', but that should be for an uninvolved editor to decide." I linked to this discussion above. Daicaregos (talk) 11:31, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I find nothing wrong with either the 'compromise' or the closing. GoodDay (talk) 11:47, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

You surprise me. Your post at the RfC asking “Does anyone agree with the compromise?” was unanswered. If editors opposed to including UK had changed their minds (i.e. the majority), surely at least one would have mentioned it. Considering the opposition to including UK, such a 'compromise' should have required a separate RfC. Daicaregos (talk) 12:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I asked my question on Feb 8, the Rfc was closed on Feb 13. Why didn't yourself, Ghmyrtle or anybody else respond to my question, during those 5 days? It's quite possible for anyone to assume that no response after 5 days, is a silent consensus. GoodDay (talk) 12:22, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Because the question posed was “Does anyone agree with the compromise?”. Since it was unanswered, the only possible assumption for a silent consensus, as you put it, would be that nobody did agree with the 'compromise'. Daicaregos (talk) 12:52, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

That's not how I read it. One could easily have responded that they didn't agree with the compromise. It's not very difficult to press the buttons on one's keyboard. Particularly over a 5 day period. GoodDay (talk) 12:55, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Then you should have asked a different question. We shouldn't expect editors to have to reiterate their positions. They should be taken into account. Several editors had already noted they didn't agree with 'England, UK'. Their opinions have been ignored. Further options should be phrased in a neutral way and, preferably, in a separate RfC to elicit response. Daicaregos (talk) 13:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Any objectors had 5 days to respond & none did. This may well be a case of 'you snooze, you lose'. GoodDay (talk) 13:18, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

BTW, it's going on 3 days now, since the Rfc was closed. Of the 30 or so editors who participated in that Rfc, only 2 (so far) have complained about the closure. GoodDay (talk) 13:03, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't make it right. Daicaregos (talk) 13:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I reckon we'll have to allow a passing administrator decide that. GoodDay (talk) 13:16, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I have to concur with Daicaregos and Ghmyrtle. There really was no clear consensus for an involved admin to use. And the compromise was never presented clearly with a statement like "unless there are objections I propose this compromise". When there is a clear debate between A or B, I would have thought that a comprise of "A and B" risks leaving both sides quite dissatisfied? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:29, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

We'll have to leave it up to a passing by administrator, I reckon. GoodDay (talk) 13:33, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

As a "passing administrator", my view is that closure of this RfC by a participant was highly ill-advised and definitely trout-worthy. I don't see any consensus for the eventual outcome – it was undoubtedly a compromise, but one that only a tiny number of the participants had settled on. It really should have been closed as no consensus, perhaps with a suggestion to continue the discussions on the compromise version to see if it had wider support. Number 57 13:50, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

On the other hand: where would "no consensus" leave us? The person who started this thread says that "England" was the "existing use". But here is a version I've chosen simply because it's close to the bottom of the current list of recent 500 versions -- where UK (not England) is used in the infobox. So what do we "default" to if (while) there's no resolution? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I think you mean where does "no consensus" leave us? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:07, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

• As an uninvolved user who has closed a fair few RfCs, I totally agree with Number 57. To answer the couple of questions in response to Number 57's view, the fact is there is no resolution, and discussion needs to continue with a view to reaching a consensus. The compromise wording in the original closure may be a good temporary solution while that discussion continues (which may be worth considering for example by the editor who initiated this review). That said, the compromise wording was certainly not the final resolution, consensus, or outcome from this particular RfC (particularly given the wording of the question which was subject to comment). For now, I have overturned the closure and re-closed as seen here which should address the issues which the original improper close caused. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:43, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this. Good call. Daicaregos (talk) 15:25, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Fangusu - indefinite talk protection request

• Fangusu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• User talk:Fangusu (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

This is an unusual request that needs some explanation so I'm making it here instead of WP:RFPP. Fangusu is a long-term sockpuppeteer (SPI page) who is indefinitely blocked. Over the last few months she has been using IPs and new accounts to edit around her ban, and to post pleas for unblocking on her talk page, as well as occasionally mine and Steel1943's. A while ago after a particularly exuberant round of appeals, I left clear instructions on her talk page about the standard offer, and then archived everything else on the page so that what I wrote was the only thing left, in hopes that if she really wants to be a productive editor she will read it and pay attention. Since, I've been removing other automatic notices because they're not relevant to her at this point, only the standard offer is, but she still occasionally uses an IP to make an unblock appeal or revert a templated message, or just randomly revert one of my edits. Her talk access is already revoked; I'd like to request that her talk page be indefinitely semiprotected so that she can't edit it from IPs either. Although it should be noted she has never tried to remove my instructions.

Furthermore, it's easy to spot Fangusu's edits when an IP or brand new account restores an edit by a previously flagged sock, or makes an innocuous edit with a ban appeal in the edit summary, always on one of a handful of her favourite targets. I don't think it's a very good solution, but in response I'd like to propose six months of semiprotection or PC-protection on those pages, which include undergarment, camisole, Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles and Zapp Brannigan. There are others but these seem to be the most frequent. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

• @Ivanvector: Add Melissa Duck and List of recurring Futurama characters to that list. In my opinion, Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles shouldn't be included in this request since it was only used by Fangusu to perform one sole edit to get a logged-in account to auto confirmed status. (Per the most recent SPI report, this can be disregarded. Steel1943 (talk) 18:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)) (I may have more to say later, but I have to go through my history with this sockmaster to see what else I can add.) Steel1943 (talk) 17:34, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

• Example diffs? I found this edit to one of "those pages", which got reverted as "rv block evasion". Is that one of what you're talking about? Nyttend (talk) 02:18, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Of course yes, I should have provided diffs. As far as activity, yes, you can go to the histories of any of those pages and see that the recent activity is made up primarily of revert wars with IPs and blocked accounts. What tips these edits off as Fangusu are usually the edit summaries pleading to ignore her ban and leave the edit alone (e.g. This is a good faith edit. Please lift my ban and please overlook my flaws. One cannot expect any user to be a figurative "angel"; Please let this edit stand. You have not explained its flaws to me) or if one of her socks is blocked and its edits reverted () she will turn up on an IP not long after and revert to restore (), and she seems to have given up on her attempts to get the reverting users blocked at ANI () but that was one of her hallmarks. You can also see that there's very little activity on any of those pages that isn't obviously her, or random IP vandals (which I don't think are her).

I've suggested semiprotecting her talk page specifically because of this edit in which one of her IPs restored a notice that I had removed to keep her talk page clean.

Honestly (I'm assuming she's reading this, she's obviously hanging around the site) I believe that she could be a productive editor if she would respect her ban and pay attention to the plentiful advice that other editors have given her, that's why we have the standard offer for banned users. But each new sock digs her a deeper hole. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:00, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: Contrary to what it may seem, I also believe that Fangusu could be a productive editor ... but first, she has to respect their community-established site ban and not edit at all for at least six months, as well as stop socking completely. However, at this point, my belief that is going to happen is next to zero, given that Fangusu had their 7-year block lifted last July, started socking again, got site-banned in August, and has been socking since, including socking with DJ Autagirl, an account she had been using to sock since 2013. Anyways, if somehow she manages to finally respect the community's site ban, I see good things ... if that ever happens. Steel1943 (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Her biggest problem is constantly trying to get the community to overlook her sockpuppetry, which given time could certainly happen, but each time she uses a new IP she's throwing the sockpuppetry issues back into the limelight. She was given a chance, was told not to sock, was reminded that it would earn the ire (figuratively speaking) of the community and her indefinite block would be reinstated. If she refuses to listen to people, then there's little that can be done for her. Blackmane (talk) 02:22, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I see no chance of rehabilitation for this editor, just an apparently endless series of obvious socks. See and on Camisole over the last week. The first edit was by a now-blocked sock, and each of the next three identical edits were made by different IPs. I don't even bother warning Fangusu's IPs now. Meters (talk)

Retrieval of content of a deleted article

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

Hi.

Could someone please provide me with a copy of the latest version of RoPeCast before deletion, I'd like to reuse the information in that article on a different page. A temp copy to user NS would be great, maybe User:Chrkl/RoPeCast would be suitable? Thanks! --chris 論 09:45, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Chrkl, the correct place to make that request is WP:REFUND, or the talk-page of the admin who deleted the article (in this case: Fastily). Softlavender (talk) 09:49, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the place to go, since I don't want the article undeleted and moved, I just want a copy of its latest content to work with some other place. --chris 論 09:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Chrkl, the correct place to make that request is WP:REFUND, or the talk-page of the admin who deleted the article (in this case: Fastily). Softlavender (talk) 10:19, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, thank you for that overly polite and unbureaucratic piece of help. --chris 論 10:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Softlavender is correct. You've been advised of the proper place to make your request (by the way, undeletion/moving is the only way to fulfill your request, as simply copying the last version would not maintain proper attribution). ansh666 01:44, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Motion: Activity

In accordance with the standing procedure on inactivity, the checkuser permissions of Deskana (talk · contribs) are removed. The committee thanks them for their service.

Supporting: Callanecc, Doug Weller, Drmies, Gamaliel, GorillaWarfare, Guerillero, Keilana, Kelapstick, Kirill Lokshin, Opabinia regalis

For the Arbitration Committee, --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 04:46, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Original announcement

Cross-posted for the Arbitration Committee, Kharkiv07 (T) 14:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion: Activity

Sockmaster flagging archive.today links en masse

This is too big for me, really. We had a user a few days ago, FixDefunktDomain, tagging archive.today links en masse and avoiding the abuse filter. He continued to do this despite being asked to explain his reasoning. He's arguably admitted this is a single-purpose, potentially bad-hand account: "I do not mind blocking, it is special account for the only task as you can see from its name." Now, he's using a large network of open proxies to continue doing so, which is the main reason for this post. See for example , and . Advice would be appreciated. — foxj 15:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm.... I wonder if Rotlink is up to his old tricks again, he did exactly the same thing and used multiple IP's as described on this RFC for archive.is. KoshVorlon 16:56, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

And now at Special:Contributions/178.165.64.241. --Izno (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• I blocked that last one. I see that User:Vituzzu is also on the case. Drmies (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, archive.today really is gone. We may need our own bot to tag those links. Katie 20:12, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi all!

That's rotlink for sure. What puzzles me is his *complete* refusal to abide to some basic rule. By default he uses a zombie proxy for no more than three edits. Then he switches to another one. Regardless of any block, regardless of any question. I've never seen such a massive scale lack of collaborativeness! Yesterday I set up an abusefilter on my homewiki (it.wiki) then he switched to this kind of silly edits.

I think archive.today was also his (maybe an attempt to move his archive to a non-national tld) thus showing how (non) reliable is this kind of service. Dealing with my homewiki I plan replacing those links by archive.org (today I did ~20%, the rest will be pretty harder). I'm comforted to see I'm not the only one thinking there's something *so* wrong with those edits. Also I'm comforted to see en.wiki can handle that by herself without my input. But I'm discouraged to think there are 800 more wikis (more or less) unaware of this problem, handling them definitely exceeds my possibilities. --Vituzzu (talk) 23:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• Vituzzu et al, I found another one: IP 72.252.181.106. Drmies (talk) 01:14, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

But also about then more IPs caught by it.wiki's abusefilter. --Vituzzu (talk) 09:04, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I believe you should also consider the IPs that made the following edits: , , .--Jetstreamer  11:00, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

One more: .--Jetstreamer  11:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

And another. --Izno (talk) 12:15, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/46.40.106.173 and another. --Izno (talk) 20:34, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I blocked the last few. The last one Jetstreamer listed is globally blocked as an open proxy. I haven't checked to see if the ones I blocked are open or not but I'll try to get to it unless someone does it quicker. Katie 22:19, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Possibly one more. Special:Contributions/188.83.31.72. Not quite the same MO. --Izno (talk) 22:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

And another: Special:Contributions/182.183.254.91. see edit.- MrX 12:49, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

And another two altering the original URLSs to ones that never existed.--Jetstreamer  13:34, 20 February 2016 (UTC).

Another: Special:Contributions/125.166.221.175 - MrX 12:59, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding CheckUser & Oversight inactivity

The following is proposed as an ArbCom internal process, it supplements the ArbCom procedure on CheckUser/Oversight permissions and inactivity.

1. Arbitrators will check the CheckUser and Oversight statistics at the end of each month to identify functionaries who have not met the activity requirements in the preceding three months.
2. If a functionary has not met the requirements, they will be sent an email notification reminding them of the required activity levels and asking if and when they plan to return to activity.
3. If within two weeks a functionary does not meet the activity requirements or reply with an acceptable plan to return to activity, an arbitrator will send them a second email notification. This message will alert the functionary that their advanced permission(s) (CheckUser and/or Oversight) will be removed after two weeks unless they respond with a plan to return to activity.
4. If an arbitrator objects to a functionary's advanced permission(s) being removed automatically, they may notify the rest of the Arbitration Committee and initiate a discussion.
5. If a functionary has not responded to the second notification within two weeks or has not provided a plan to return to activity, and no arbitrator has objected, an arbitrator will post an announcement on the Arbitration Committee noticeboard announcing the change and thanking the functionary for their prior service, and will request removal of the permission(s) at the Stewards' noticeboard.
6. If an arbitrator has objected to automatic removal, a motion will be initiated and the Arbitration Committee will be notified via the arbcom-l mailing list. After two weeks the discussion will be closed and the permission(s) removed per the step above unless there are at least three arbitrators opposing removal, in which case it can be left open for more comments or a normal vote can be proposed.

Supporting: Callanecc, Opabinia regalis, Kelapstick, Kirill Lokshin, Guerillero, Keilana, Gamaliel, GorillaWarfare, Casliber, Doug Weller

Opposing: Courcelles

Not voting/Abstaining: DeltaQuad, DGG, Drmies, Salvio giuliano

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:27, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding CheckUser & Oversight inactivity

Speedy Delete request - Can't tag the Flow page

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

Due to (yet another) Flow bug I can't edit the page header at WT:WikiProject_Breakfast/Flow_archive to properly tag it for Speedy Delete.

RFC - Remove Flow from WikiProject Breakfast? reached an affirmative consensus. The WMF converted all of the content back to a Talk page at WT:WikiProject_Breakfast. The project page and the Flow_archive contain identical content in wikitext/Flow formats. On Phabricator the WMF told me they were leaving it to Admins whether to delete the old unwanted Flow version.

I believe the Flow page falls under speedy criteria WP:G6 Technical deletions as a duplicate, and arguably WP:G4 Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion (it is an "identical and unimproved copy" and an RFC to "remove" is a synonym for a deletion discussion for the Flow version).

If this Speedy request is declined I can open an MFD, although due to the bug I still can't tag the page and I believe an MFD would be a waste of time. I have previously run two MFDs covering three Flow pages which closed as deletes, and an admin MFD'd a fourth Flow page which also closed as delete. This leaves only two other Flow pages (1) inactive Wikiproject Hampshire with one Project-related post in a half a year and (2) the Flow testing page. Several editors&admins have been discussing an RFC to remove Flow from EnWiki completely. We decided to wait for resolution on the Village Pump Gather RFC. Alsee (talk) 09:44, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject Hampshire may be inactive because several people (myself included) deserted it after its talk page got Flowed. If it gets de-Flowed, I may return. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeuch. I understand the distaste for Flow, but I think in this case it would be better off to keep the archive for attribution purposes. If you look at the history of Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Breakfast you can see it is largely nonexistant. This is not a copyright problem like it would be in article space because everyone's contributions have their signatures next to them, however it is still less than ideal if anyone is ever trying to navigate the history to figure out how things got way they are. Additionally, deleting the Flow archive would mean all edits to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Breakfast (pre-Feb 2016) would be deleted, which isn't ideal for looking at editors' contribs. If this were a 'normal' case, the archive would just be histmerged into the current project talk page and then what was leftover at the Flow archive could be deleted. I almost tried this just to see what would happen, but who knows with Flow – it could break the wiki just trying it. I also note the archive is fully protected (this is probably why you can't tag it for deletion), so it's not like someone will edit it by accident and I don't think anyone would now count it as a 'live' Flow page. In sum, I think we should keep it for attribution purposes, because it's not actively doing any harm and hopefully one day it will become histmerge-able. Jenks24 (talk) 13:00, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

This page should disappear anyway when the Flow extension removed from en.wp altogether. Otherwise, if this page stops Flow from being undeployed it is doing harm, especially with the large quantities of known bugs. MER-C 13:27, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

If this page is being used as an excuse not to disable Flow on en, or if disabling Flow on en while the page is undeleted will cause serious problems, then sure, I agree it should be deleted. But at the moment, I don't see any evidence of that. I suggest keeping it until then. Jenks24 (talk) 13:49, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Jenks24, the replacement talk page has non-existent history and only in-line attribution because the WMF didn't feel it was worth their time to build more complete conversion software. There is a (declined) Phabricator discussion on exactly how they could have created a full page history & edit-attribution for the talk page. I consider the current conversion software grossly inadequate for general use, but the conversion software is unlikely to be used anywhere on EnWiki beyond Project Breakfast and (hopefully) Project Hampshire. I dropped the issue in the interest of getting rid of Flow with a minimum of conflict.

I'm very averse to the idea of keeping Flow solely because the WMF declined make it removable. If a detailed page history for Project_Breakfast is important, we could request that the WMF set developers to work updating the software to fix the history. My first preference is to just leave it be and quietly delete Flow. Alsee (talk) 19:25, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I suggest you bring it to MFD, just tag Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Breakfast/Flow archive, and leave a note on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Breakfast. Explain your edits in the MFD. — xaosflux 16:15, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Ah, lovely Flow bugs. The page *is* fully protected, but there's no protection entry in the history. The EDIT DESRCRIPTION link for the page is gone, but the new topic, reply, and edit-post buttons are still there. Those buttons still open the editor and let you type in a new post or edit an old post, but they all give a badly bugged error message when you try to save anything. Alsee (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Lovely indeed. Just tested (as an admin), I created a new topic and at no time did I get any indication that this page was protected. No popup, no pink box, no warning, nothing from start to finish. Fram (talk) 09:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Tony Wilding Article

Respected Administrator Sir/Madam.

I have edited a article about Tony Wilding,and i have edited a article about Tony Wilding,not many people in the world know that New Zealand has also had success in Tennis,i wanted people to know about this in the summary of Tony Wilding,but a user called as User:Wolbo has been editing this article,i wanted to give him a notice about this in my edit summary,but he paid no attention,and after few days he calls my edits as disruptive and threatens me that i will lose my editing privileges if i continue to do this,i have done no wrong and he is putting false claims on me,i request that please block this user for vandalizing me,a wikipedia user and a editor.

With Regards Adarsh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.242.191.126 (talk • contribs) 16:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I took a look, it looks like Wolbo and the IP are in dispute because Wolbo is choosing to footnote a section on the | Tony Wilding article, as shown here . Wolbo's edit summary is definetly off target, the IP's not vandalizing the article at all. Not sure what the footnoting is about, however, he seems to have contacted the IP on his talk page asking him not to continue until a consensus is reached, however, on neither of their pages, nor on the talk page of Tony Wilding is there any sort of discussion that would be needed to build consensus. Since Wolbo's got a lot (

• Kosh, I appreciate your mediation, but did you see this edit summary? The edit warring over this goes back quite some time--here's 11 February, and this may be when it all started, a series of edits in which this information was inserted, full of punctuation errors and grammatical awkwardness--and without an edit summary. I suppose in the many subsequent edits Wolbo cleaned this up, keeping the information but placing it in the note, which our IP editor obviously didn't look kindly upon--hence that odd attempt at an insult. No, I can't really fault Wolbo here: they wrote most of the article and kept it clean. They warned the IP, at User talk:103.242.189.126, but the problem with hopping is obviously that it's difficult to communicate. I suppose Wolbo should have started User talk:103.242.188.38--but keeping up with IPs and what appear to be good-faith but nonetheless unhelpful edits is a chore. Drmies (talk) 17:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Drmies, I did see the edit summary, and it struck me as not being at all in proportion to what was being done. I was more focused on seeing if what Adash claimed was really happening, but thank you for pointing out that that needs to be included as it's relevant information! KoshVorlon 16:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Respected Administrator Sir/Madam.

Should i edit the Tony Wilding Page and give some good history in Tennis for the people of New Zealand,or should i leave that page,you please tell what to do and i will exactly do that. With Regards Adarsh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.242.191.126 (talk) 08:40, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Fungus Guy

Fungus Guy has created many unreferenced articles (see his recent article creations). Because of this, the autopatrol right should be removed from that user. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 03:14, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi there! I hope you don't think that I'm creating extraneous pages on Wiki. Our coverage of Canadian First Nations is, to be blunt, woefully inadequate, and I'm only trying to fill in some of the gaps where I can.

I would like to point out that these articles have external links to Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and the Canada Lands Survey System. I did not believe it to be a big deal to leave the references there, un-cited, as (for example) most Canadian federal electoral district pages rely solely on one un-cited external link to the Library of Parliament to justify their existence (see this example and this page I have not yet edited to see what I mean).

That being said, I have gone through and created inline citations for the pages in question, and will dig deeper into my contributions list to see if you missed any.

Please feel free to bring any future concerns about my edits directly to me first. I welcome constructive criticism, and see it as a learning opportunity. Happy editing! FUNgus guy (talk) 04:44, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Gonna be honest, I read the title of this thread and thought it was about Ted Cruz for a second. Jtrainor (talk) 19:43, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

IPBE - IP block exemption removals

This post is to inform the community that an audit of IP block exemption permission holders occurred over the course of the past month. Of the 269 users who held the right, only a small amount of the users demonstrate a need to continuing editing with IPBE. The remaining users had the IPBE right removed with the overwhelming reason being the user was affected by a hard block that has since expired. Other reasons for removal include extended inactivity (which can be restored if they return and demonstrate a need for IPBE), the original reason for issuing IPBE was insufficient, and in one instance, for abuse of the IPBE privilege.

After reviewing the permission log, I believe it would be beneficial to improve the documentation provided when issuing IPBE. A handful of requests only cited “per user request”. It would be helpful to include a link to the request to discern why it was granted. I also highly encourage admins to provide further documentation on the IP block exemption page.

It’s important to remember that issuing IPBE because the individual is a “trusted user” is not sufficient. It should only be granted in situations where the the user is unintentionally affected by a hard IP block or in exceptional circumstances needs to edit via anonymous means. Exceptional circumstances have usually included situations where there is a credible concern for one’s safety or if the editor lives in a location where Misplaced Pages is censored by the government. Requests for IBPE for general privacy reasons (e.g. “I wish to hide my IP address for personal reasons.”) have been declined by the functionary team in the past.

Before issuing IPBE, it’s usually a good idea to consult a checkuser. If it’s for a range block, we can privately make note of when it will expire and how long it may be needed. If it’s for editing through anonymous means, the functionary team should be contacted to discuss the reason for editing though an anonymous method and to verify the need.

Best regards, Mike V • Talk 05:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

• Having participated in one or two similar audits over the years, I want to thank Mike V for his work on this. Something that is worth noting is that, as our project becomes ever more integrated with other Wikimedia projects (in particular Commons and Wikidata), IPBE on just our project may no longer really be the best solution for those users who have legitimate use for it. It may be time for us to consider routinely recommending that users apply for global IPBE if they edit any other Wikimedia site. Given that even in a busy year there aren't that many requests, this could be worthwhile.

  As an aside, when discussing the use of IPBE with some other administrators recently, I was asked what "bad" reasons I'd been given when requesting IPBE. The worst I've personally experienced is "I'm going to Cuba and want to use Tor to watch movies while I'm there." I've also been asked for IPBE by users whose usual VPN was soft-blocked; they'd become alarmed when seeing the message that the IP was blocked and missed the part about being able to log in. They didn't need IPBE, they needed to log in, and they would have had no problems - but if the user wasn't willing to reveal their IP to an administrator, the admin would have no way to verify the nature of the IP block (global, local, hard block, soft block, etc.). Administrators might want to keep this in mind, and consider reviewing with a checkuser before granting IPBE. Risker (talk) 06:08, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

  It might be worth mentioning a bit about the global flag on the IPBE page; that would be the best route for individuals who are blocked under global blocks and edit multiple projects. To make matters difficult, the global flag will not exempt users from local blocks, so in some cases both might need to be granted. On the policy side, I'll see if that can be changed, though I imagine that the original reason (don't let global rights override local restrictions) will stand and the potential for abuse would be much higher otherwise. As a note for the future, I'm not sure if global blocks were checked as part of this audit, but it would be worth doing. Especially in the past, users have been directed back to a project if they edit mainly on just one, even if they are trying to get exemption from a global block. It is one more list to check though, and I understand that this is an arduous process as-is. Ajraddatz (Talk) 09:07, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

• In future, it would be helpful if admins removing user rights would actually tell the users directly, with an explanation, instead of hoping vaguely that they will find a thread that uses an obscure abbreviation in its header, on a message board that most editors do not watch or visit. DuncanHill (talk) 10:50, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, while I have no problem with this change, this explanation should have been posted beforehand, and the affected users pointed to it, rather than making us hunt around for it. – Smyth\ 12:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

• Possibly an ignorant question, but don't all admins have IPBE because it's part of the admin bundle? If so, why is "trusted user" not a sufficient reason to grant this right? And why is there a need to remove it from productive editors who aren't actively using it? We don't do that for any other userright that I know of. Jenks24 (talk) 11:55, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I think Misplaced Pages talk:IP block exemption is a more appropriate venue for that discussion. – Smyth\ 12:02, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

If memory serves me, IPBE allows users to edit using Tor. An admin editing through Tor will still be subject to the block, even when logged in. Elockid  12:43, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Bots and Administrators are ipblock-exempt, however tor blocks require an additional override torunblocked that is only on IPBE. — xaosflux 14:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. I realise this isn't the place to formally propose a change, but it seems to me that splitting the IPBE userright into two separate rights (one for editing via Tor and the other for general editing around a hardblock) could save a fair bit of effort in future. Jenks24 (talk) 14:43, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Jenks24: We do have certain rights that are removed if they are not being used. The account creator right is only granted to active users in the education program or in the account creation process. Users who are no longer active in these roles may have the permission removed. The checkuser and oversight right must be used at least 5 times every 3 months to retain the permissions. A number of our editing rights are also subject to activity requirements. The bureaucrat, admin, and template editor rights are removed from editors who have been inactive for a year. Specifically for the bureaucrat role, they must meet the minimum level of bureaucrat activity in addition to the inactivity policy. Mike V • Talk 19:23, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

@Mike V: At least with removal of admin or bureaucrat rights, people get advance notice and personal messages telling them about it. You did not bother to do either. DuncanHill (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree with people saying you should be warned about removal - this is meant to be a tempory right to get you round a block, not a long-term one. I think this sort of audit should be done every 6 months or so, with the right being removed without warning. Mdann52 (talk) 08:11, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

When it comes with warning, there should be a clear message left when the right is granted indicated that all grants of IPBE are audited regularly and removed without notice if they are found to no longer be useful to the user. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:12, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually, we do have that message. The IPBE template says Appropriate usage and compliance with the policy may be checked (through the use of CheckUser) periodically, due to the nature of block exemption, and block exemption will be removed when no longer needed (for example, when the block it is related to expires). Perhaps we can encourage other admins to use it more often or pass on the important bits if leaving a more informal message. Mike V • Talk 02:57, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like Mike cares whether it remains useful to the user. While Mike himself could continue to edit using a VPN/proxy if he desired, evidently he won't allow others to do so unless they confess a dire need to him through direct e-mail. I think that is ridiculous and yet one more example of bureaucracy for its own sake run amok. I suppose I won't be editing again unless I happen to be traveling as I am now. I've made only a small number of edits over the last couple of years and I'm sure Mike considers that to be a solid tradeoff against the serious risk posed by my account having IPBE. Nathan 04:00, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Nathan, I've restored it. Mike, you need to explain now why you totally ignored the statement in the policy page, However in all cases, removal should be preventative and not punitive. How are your actions preventive? Kindly heed policy instead of imposing your contrary interpretations of it. Nyttend (talk) 16:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

User:G'day mates! (who is possibly the same user as User:Rounder1)

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

Both (if not the same) users are indeffed, but the former could stand the revocation of talk page access as well due to this...which may not seem too critical on its own, but this thread leads to a cause for concern—btw, I wonder if JzG should consider WP:EMERGENCY. Erpert 04:25, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate your concern, but this is much less scary than the time I had to go to court to get a Norwich Pharmacal order - I do not consider these threats especially credible, and if I did then I would be in contact with the local constabulary. Please do revoke TPA though. Guy (Help!) 09:01, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Extra eyes on Dr. Luke and its talk page

Dr. Luke (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Requesting extra eyes on Dr. Luke and the talk page. The page was recently protected due to BLP violations, but there's been spillover into the talk page. Dr. Luke is currently involved in a lawsuit with Kesha and there are allegations of rape and sexual assault against him. Due to news today about the lawsuit, there seems to be an increase in editors making comments that violate BLP. Extra eyes would be appreciated. I've reported a few edits from Talk:Dr. Luke to OS already. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:34, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Realskeptic

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

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

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from the subject of vaccinations and autism concerning Realskeptic imposed

here, logged here, archived discussion is here.

Administrator imposing the sanction

NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

diff

Statement by Realskeptic

I was blocked by an admin who said my edits should disqualify me from editing Misplaced Pages. I was only seeking to correct unproven criminal accusations of fraudulent research against a living person while improving the overall neutrality of the article with reliable sources. Realskeptic (talk) 05:02, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I reject your allegation that I was disruptively editing to POV-push when I was topic banned. I have consistently stayed within the top three tiers of Graham's hierarchy of disagreement. The same cannot at all be said of the editors who have gotten me topic banned. Guy is a perfect example. If you compared his below statement to my talk page edit that he linked to, you would see that nothing he said actually contradicts my edit. The rest of his statement fits squarely within the bottom tier. The bottom tier also describes the editor who said I should be disqualified from editing Misplaced Pages for trying to make a supposed BLP more like an actual BLP as opposed to the attack page that it is in its current form. Realskeptic (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I was editing productively at Talk:Trace Amounts and elsewhere to share my concerns with other editors. The problem is not me, the problem is them. The bottom line is that they are a faction of editors hijacking Misplaced Pages to push their POV that vaccinations are not associated with autism, as they've succeeded in doing for years. I understand they have an agenda, but that agenda is not one that's in line with building an encyclopedia. Try as they like, there is nothing in any of my edits that can be described as pseudoscientific. Their pretense for stifling my edits, however, is pseudoscientific because it is based on reports that do not adhere to the scientific method while relying on weak statistical evidence as I've consistently shown. Their defense of their agenda-driven edits consistently falls in the lower tier of the disagreement hierarchy with their name-calling and ad hominem attacks. That all said, I realize I have probably killed any chance of having my topic ban overturned. I don't have high hopes for that anyway. I do hope, however, that someone who is not part of this gang and who is in a better position to make some badly needed changes will take my concerns into consideration and hopefully follow up on them in the not-too-distant future. Realskeptic (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

"@Realskeptic: You most certainly were not 'editing productively'. Guy (Help!) 21:18, 20 February 2016 (UTC)" -See, this just further proves my point about the editors here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Realskeptic (talk • contribs)

Statement by NuclearWarfare

Statement by JzG

Realskeptic is unable to tell the difference between truth and fiction. For example, he stated that the GMC findings against Andrew Wakefield were overturned on appeal. That is false. Wakefield remains disqualified from practising medicine, the appeal affected only John Walker-Smith. This discussion is rife with WP:CRYBLP and WP:IDHT from this user. Since the topic ban he has made absolutely no attempt to learn Misplaced Pages's ways by peacefully editing elsewhere. Realskeptic is here to Right Great Wrongs and a review of his editing history shows nothing other than tendentious editing, outbursts of wrongteous anger, and blatant antivax POV-pushing. This topic ban needs to remain in place at least until the heat death of the universe. Guy (Help!) 08:58, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Realskeptic: You most certainly were not "editing productively". Guy (Help!) 21:18, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Realskeptic

• I'm not entirely clear what the basis if this appeal is. Are you arguing that the original decision is wrong or that you think the passage of time means we can let you off the leash?. If its the latter, than I note you haven't edited at all since the ban and your comment above suggests your attitude to pushing your POV hasn't changed. Please can you explain how your behavior will be less disruptive this time if we lift the TBan? Spartaz 07:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • (I fixed the formatting and links on this request for you) Spartaz 07:01, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I'm totally unpersuaded that we can let an editor with such a fixed POV edit disruptively in a contentious area - especially when they clearly have made no effort to learn how to edit according to our accepted norms and standards. Spartaz 13:48, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
• Question Why has this been posted here, and not at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement? --Redrose64 (talk) 10:35, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • AE or AN are both valid venues for appeals. It tends to get more messy here. Spartaz 12:02, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
    • And as recently re-established on another appeal (which the appellant then moved to AE), unlike appeals at AE, appeals made at AN are decided by a consensus of all uninvolved editors not by admins alone. I have altered the text above to relfect this. BMK (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
• I am an uninvolved editor. In my opinion, the material at Talk:Trace Amounts alone is sufficient to demonstrate that the topic ban was needed and should not be lifted at this time. I would strongly suggest that the result of this appeal be written so as to make crystal clear that we really, really like to see a topic-banned editor show a history of editing productively in other areas in order to demonstrate that he is capable of following Misplaced Pages's behavioral standards before we consider an appeal to the topic ban. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:52, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
• I am also uninvolved, and on a review of User:Realskeptic's edits, I have to say that I feel the topic ban should stand. I could be charitable and say that rather than an attempt to sanitise Wakefield's biography, the user has simply completely misunderstood the sources as saying that he had been exonerated. Even then, such a lack of due care and attention should disqualify the user from working in this space. Lankiveil 02:26, 21 February 2016 (UTC).
• This is an attempt to overturn a topic ban because this editor believes they are right in their strong, fringe, POV. Not an attempt to prove they have learned to edit constructively, since they have not edited at all after their TB. This attempt not only shows the editor cannot edit productively in the area in which they are topic banned from, but that they will not be a productive editor in any fashion for the project. Not here to contribute to the project. Dave Dial (talk) 16:31, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Realskeptic

This section is to be edited only by the closing admin.

For the old-timers

In case you hadn't noticed, Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey. Happy memories of gentler days. Guy (Help!) 14:11, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Has there been controversy over the question? I've been here since 2006, so I suppose I qualify as an old-timer, but I'm still confused. Nyttend (talk) 16:37, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Heh. I suppose JzG is referring to the fact that Trenton, New Jersey is the proverbial location of the court where Wikipedians traditionally threaten to sue each other... . But don't ask me which blocked troll first brought that one up. Yeah, back in those days... Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:48, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Perennial request

WP:SPI is a bit backed up at the moment (shocker!); Vanjagenije is doing the lion's share of the Clerk work and we really could use some extra admin eyes there. The "CU completed" category likely holds the most low-hanging fruit - all of the grunt work is done, we just need an admin to take a look at the results and do any required blocking and tagging. The "Open" requests are ones where no checkuser is requested that may need more in depth analysis, though there are often several WP:DUCK cases as well. If you can spare a moment to review a case or two it would be appreciated. Cheers,--Jezebel's Ponyo 17:29, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ponyo: I am not working on the SPI because of some technical problems I have (see my comment here). Namely, my installed scripts have not been working since yesterday. I really don't want to waste time clerking SPI cases without the SPI helper script, and without the Mark-blocked script. I don't know what to do, seams like the problem is at Wikimedia servers. Vanjagenije (talk) 17:45, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

It makes a marked difference when you're not there. You need help...and a pay raise.--Jezebel's Ponyo 18:08, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I closed a bunch of them. Feel free to revert and trout me if I did something wrong. That SPI helper script is intensely satisfying. :-) Katie 19:26, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

The problem is fixed now. Seams that WP:Igloo was malfunctioning and preventing other scripts from working. I uninstalled it now. Vanjagenije (talk) 21:38, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Administrative backlog