Misplaced Pages

• Well, if you would like to trawl through the Nrswanson copyvios, you are welcome to help. He may have been blocked since April but his socks (of which I've blocked more today) are still churning out more, plus there are still some originals to be sifted. See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Opera and various subpages thereof.

• As to the rest, Nrswanson's copyvios are not really the issue. My point is simply that editors at DYK and elsewhere could perhaps have exercised a little less credulity when it came to this bucketload of copy/pasted articles, instead of simply fuelling his game-playing fetish by giving him award after award. Not an incident, not wikidrama, not a dig at anyone, just a general point I would like to see people take into account in the future. And since it's admins who ultimately put these things on the main page for everyone to look at, I thought the admin noticeboard might be an appropriate venue to raise such concerns. Moreschi (talk) 22:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm not trying to shut this down, just trying to get a handle on what you wanted to talk about. Protonk (talk) 01:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Some more details would be helpful if the people at DYK are to watch out for this sort of thing. What are the sock accounts, and what type of articles are these? It's very disturbing if such a large number of direct copy-paste articles were allowed on DYK as you say. ≈ Chamal  ¤ 01:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• For the sock accounts, see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Nrswanson, as well as Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Opera for the most recent ones. The articles are mostly classical music/opera related, as well as some drama-related ones. I can't be more specific than that because the cleanup effort has been mammoth: the work underway at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Opera/Subpage for organizing CopyVio Cleanup is just a taster of the rainforests still to sift: see old revisions of the sockmaster's userpage for how much he created even with his original accounts, let alone his socks.

• Any article that relates to opera or classical music that is presented for DYK by a newish user should probably be denied access to the main page until either myself, Folantin (talk · contribs), Voceditenore (talk · contribs), Antandrus (talk · contribs) or Moonriddengirl (talk · contribs) have had a look at the page and its creator. Moreschi (talk) 01:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• Just a note here with respect to the copyvio in these articles. On the whole, it tends to be only in certain sections. Of the 84 articles checked so far, only about 10% had such extensive copyvio that the article had to be stubbed or completely rewritten. But we're only at the start of this, there are probably close to 600 articles to check. We're prioritising the ones that were DYKs or are linked from Portal:Opera and those that appear to be significantly based on Grove Music Online or other Grove reference books. But detecting the copyvio isn't easy unless you have some experience. Much of it is close paraphrasing (as opposed to straight copy/paste), and Grove Music Online is subscription access only. So, Moreschi's suggestion that you run any DYKs from new users (or unusually prolific users) past the editors mentioned, or post the query at WikiProject Opera is a good one. Voceditenore (talk) 09:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Revisiting Milomedes

• Milomedes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

As some of you may recall, longtime editor Milomedes was blocked indefinitely in August after making some unfortunate remarks at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jack Merridew/Blood and Roses, which were construed as legal threats. I stand by my belief that those statements, while not direct legal threats, were an inappropriate attempt to intimidate other editors via fear of legal action -- a position which seems to have enjoyed the support of consensus -- but still, I'm not sure that anyone involved ever intended for Milomedes to be blocked forever.

Some helpful reading:

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive560#Legal threats by Milomedes
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive561#Lambiam and Milomedes
• Declined request for arbitration on the matter

I'll shortly be notifying important players of this thread. In the meantime, are there any additional thoughts or remarks on this matter, now that some time has passed? I'd like to be sure that the right thing was done, here. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

In the course of notifying previously interested parties, I found that one user who strongly favored blocking, Erik9 (talk · contribs), has since been blocked as a sockpuppet of John254 (talk · contribs). Not sure how important that is, in the grand scheme, but it seems worth noting. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

When the case was brought before the ArbCom, I wrote that I have no strong objections to unblocking Milomedes, and I continue to stand by that. However, other users who posted on the RFAr noted further problems, and that this was a pattern of intimidatory editing, and not a simple one-off incident. I did find his behavior of responding to one of my posts with a facepalm image to be very rude and condescending, and if that attitude doesn't change, he is not going to be too popular around here. My take on it is that Milomedes would be unblocked if he withdrew the statement that got him blocked in the first place. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As before, if he posts a statement saying he withdraws any threat of legal action he may have made on Misplaced Pages, then there's nothing in the way of unblocking him. Stifle (talk) 10:42, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, Luna. I find myself in concurrence with what everyone else said here so far. Even discounting the views of Erik9/John254, consensus seems clear enough that there are inappropriate behaviors that need not to continue. But if some commitment was made (mandatory: no legal threats, where what a threat is... is not determined by Milo but by others perception of it. highly desirable: a commitment to be more collegial in interactions, no more intimidating, no more face palms as replies, and so forth) why then yes, an unblock seems warranted. But not before. This thread is good background but the request itself (and the commitments that need to come before) needs to come from Milo. ++Lar: t/c 10:54, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

As the blocking administrator, my position on the matter is the same as it always has been. When and if Milomedes makes an unambiguous, unequivocal statement that

1. he has no personal intent to sue Misplaced Pages and
2. he will make no attempt to advise others to sue Misplaced Pages and
3. he will not again attempt to sway any discussion or editing at Misplaced Pages by using the possibility of legal action to encourage or discourage any course of action,

I would support an unblock. Heck, if he makes such a statement, I will personally unblock him. So far, however, he has not yet done so. That has always been my position since the moment I blocked him, and that will continue to be my position. He makes it clear he will no longer use intimidation in the way he did, he gets unblocked. --Jayron32 13:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's it, the big IF. Too often I've seen unblocks done without a commitment from the editor to do anything. Without that commitment, he needs to stay blocked. →Baseball Bugs carrots 13:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• Milomedes has not requested an unblock, so why are we visiting this issue? — The Hand That Feeds You: 15:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose unblocking Milomedes (in the absence of a direct request from him) per Bugs, HandThatFeeds and Jayron32. Unblocking him would only make sense if his attitude has changed. Until Milomedes files an unblock request that makes this change of his position clear, I don't see the need for WP:AN to take the matter further. EdJohnston (talk) 15:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The people above are entirely correct that (a) there is normally no reason to unblock a blocked user who does not request an unblock and (b) legal threat blocks are only lifted after all real or perceived threats are withdrawn. That means there's nothing to do until we have an unblock request in which all threats are withdrawn as described by Jayron32.  Sandstein  20:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I support an unblock. I don't think there was any real legal threat in any of what was said. Larry refers to some other issues that were mentioned at RFAR by ... someone ... and I don't know about that stuff; never looked. I think Jayron's 3 point are plenty strong. nb: his point 2 could refer to me: I have had no contact with Milo other than the MfD and a few notes on his talk page; i.e. he did not advise me to sue the foundation (and I have no such intent;). I'd be fine with a statement from Milo that no legal threat was intended in the Blood and Roses discussion. If the other issues are of further concern, there are DR steps to be taken. Being blocked isn't right, here. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This is the dodgiest block I've ever seen. In order to make a legal threat, it is a basic prerequisite that you have standing. "I'll sue you" is a legal threat. "You've libelled me and I could sue you if I wanted to" might reasonably be construed as one. "You've libelled that other guy and he could sue you if he wanted." is not a legal threat, and cannot reasonably be construed as one. Someone fucked up bigtime here. Hesperian 05:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for bringing this up Luna. My own view is similar to Hesperian's. Milo made it clear that none of what he was saying constituted legal advice or a legal threat when he clearly noted that it was legal academic/theoretical discussion, so on those grounds, the block was frivolous. That said, an RfC/U would've been useful here - not only to make out a claim of intimidation, but so that he was also given an opportunity to understand that Misplaced Pages is probably not the venue to be having legal academic/theoretical discussion. Frankly, it just looks like people got afraid from the mere words "libel" and "legal problem" and so an extremely dodgy block was made for so-called legal threats; imo, it shouldn't have been imposed, and therefore, should be lifted (even without an unblock request). Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC) That said, let me be clear that clarification in the way others desire obviously reduces a lot of drama, as would an unblock request in a similar fashion. But the rest of my comment stands in general. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, Ncmvocalist, if you look at the chronology of events, he never once attempted to explain himself or clarify his comments, even though numerous people asked him to do so. The ANI thread that led to his block was open for several days, with Milomedes commenting at the thread several times, and he refused to redact or explain his comments in a way that set anyones mind at rest. He clearly stated in his statement "If you do not do this.... someone can drag Misplaced Pages into court and force them to reveal your usernames". That his statements were not in the form of an "I" statement, but a "someone" statement does not change the fact that it was the use of potential legal proceedings to force other editors to bend to his will. If that was not his intent, he certainly, to my knowledge, made NO attempt to explain his intent in such a way that it set other editors mind to rest. He had a long time to do so, and never did. The ArbCom case (rejected) covers this in detail. The only defense of his actions has come from OTHER editors who have said "maybe, I could possibly read his comments in a way that wouldn't be a legal threat." Fine, but the only person who knows what Milomedes has meant is Milomedes, and we have not yet heard from him. If he requests an unblock, and makes a reasonable statement that lets other editors know he isn't going to intimidate people in this manner, he gets to come back. --Jayron32 15:46, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Beyond my little addition above, my view hasn't changed very significantly Jayron32 - and yes, I had read the MFDs and ANIs, and now I've read the "details" covered in the arb-request. The mere fact that there is dissent here on this, both now and even at the time (for an NLT concept!), suggests that this should have been discussed at more length in a more formal venue than these noticeboards or the noisy requests page where the case was almost certainly going to be declined. The urgency to block him as opposed to going through RfC/U for even a couple of weeks really did not exist; see also my previous comment on what RfC/U should've attempted to achieve.

In effect, I disagree/disagreed with Newyorkbrad who made an extended comment about this and suggested RfC/U could happen after the fact - to the contrary, it should've happened well before-hand. Hesperian has brought up the issue that there was no legal standing for there to be a legal threat - this is absolutely correct, and although Nyb briefly touched on this point in his comment, he managed to forget that this fundamental principle is what holds together the perceived legal threats provision. This provision therefore is not applicable in its true sense here. It's the only way that the limit is drawn so that the mere use of the word "libel" (where permissible) should not result in unreasonable perceptions of "omg, you're making a legal threat" in the same way that the word "fuck" (when used in permissible circumstances) should not result in "omg, you're being uncivil" (obviously, what should happen, what happens and what did happen are/were very different things). In any case, Nyb then drifts off onto a principle from an ancient case that nobody has read, thereby making it relatively useless for the matter at hand (the principle did not, and still has not, made it into policy, suggesting that perhaps it is somewhat flawed, like the original formulation of perceived legal threats before it was entered into policy).

Finally, other than the case of intimidation that someone tried to make out at the request, Nyb rests his case upon the likelihood that Milo's advice would not be useful or acted on at any time. He contends that "Milomedes should have been at pains to clarify his meaning immediately" upon hearing concerns of it violating NLT, yet, I see something like this as sufficient evidence to suggest he was beginning to do just that; I don't agree he was given ample time to respond to community feedback in the way that dispute resolution would've allowed, had he been taken to RfC/U rather than blocked and subsequently to ArbCom. Frankly, if the chance of the action occurring (as outlined in Milo's legal warnings/advice/discussion) was "so exceedingly slight, indeed non-existent, that no reasonable editor would have been seriously concerned by the reference to it" as Nyb thinks, then the urgency to impose a block is even less of a priority, while the need to go through RfC/U is far greater to resolve issues and hear all views on the topic. This was a matter for the community to clarify and resolve collectively, with the user concerned - unlike what Nyb asserted, NLT policy, prior decisions, and policy discussions, were clearly not sufficient to resolve the concerns raised, otherwise this would not be raised again here. The user should've been directed to RfC/U to begin with.

Nobody denies the fact that the ultimate outcome may have possibly or probably have been the same later on, after the RfC/U. Or that there weren't other conduct issues that may have warranted a block later on for a different rationale to that which you cited at the time of blocking - in such circumstances, I can't imagine Hesperian, myself, or anyone else finding the block to be one of the "dodgiest". However, that's not what happened, and that's why our interpretations and view are differing. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• Bring it back if he requests unblock, and tell us what he said in the request. Until then, he's blocked. No point wasting editor time on something he might not even want. Verbal chat 12:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
• If he asks to be unblocked, his request can be considered in the usual way. I don't see anything else that needs to be done here. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Milomedes could easily have not gotten himself blocked at the time by stepping back, but chose not to. In my experience with Milomedes, intimidation and brinkmanship of that sort was commonplace, and IMO he knew exactly what he was doing. The only different to the way things normally go on ANI is that for once the regular drama-mongers didn't intervene and start wheel warring over it, thus granting Milomedes the privilege of being immune to any future action. I don't trust that any of that would change with an unblock, especially a "hey, y'know, you probably shouldn't have had this in the first place" unblock. And on top of that he hasn't even asked, so I have no idea why it's even being brought up (has the "blocked users" table filled up or something?).Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Volunteer response team looking for voicemail respondents

Hi all,

The volunteer response team is looking for a number of English-speaking Wikimedia contributors to join their team to handle incoming voicemail enquiries. There has been a recent surge in queries left on the Wikimedia Foundation's voicemail service, which end up being forwarded to the volunteer response team for action. Unfortunately, the volunteer response team leaders have so far been unable to find sufficient cover to handle the increase in voicemail correspondence received.

If you would be interested in joining the volunteer response team to handle voicemail enquiries, and are comfortable volunteering your time to telephone people who have left voicemail enquiries, please leave the appropriate details at meta:OTRS/volunteering. Please make sure to mention in your nomination that you are interested in, and comfortable replying to, voicemail enquiries. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact one of the volunteer response team leaders listed at Misplaced Pages:Volunteer response team#List of volunteer response team leaders.

Regards,
Daniel (talk) 13:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Declining Gaunkars of Goa unblock request

• Gaunkars of Goa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The unblock request by GoG has been sitting open at CAT:RFU for some time. Since I'm the last admin who commented on his request, it is possible that others could be waiting for me to take action on it. He was indef blocked by Cirt on 2 October for Personal attacks or harassment: also disruption, soapboxing, using project as personal forum, etc, and WP:ANI. I intend to decline the request and protect the page, since I see no continuing interest by admins in the possibility of unblock, and the arguments that others have left on the page aren't persuasive. This is a 'last chance' message to see if admins have anything further to say. EdJohnston (talk) 15:14, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:AIV Backlog

There is a backlog at WP:AIV.--Zink Dawg -- 17:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

For those interested: Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)#Dealing with frequent_AIV backlogs Equazcion (talk) 18:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:AIV been backlog all day today. There been lots of vandalism.--Zink Dawg -- 20:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

How should we request rangeblocks?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The rangeblock issue is resolved, the user name issue is being discussed on ANI Thatcher 23:38, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I've been patrolling the Class B IP addresses assigned to our regional network (163.153.0.0/16). In addition to reverting mal-edits originating from just this Class B, I work with the school districts in this region to help them to insure that their students understand that such behavior is not acceptable. While all of the districts want to be good net-citizens, the actions taken vary district by district. Some request anonymous blocks by their assigned IPs. To date, when these requests come in I have posted them on Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism as seen at , , , among others. Today, after working with one district's administration, they decided that having their networks block for anonymous edits was how they wanted to proceed. Towards that end, I made a block request for their pair of Class C addresses on Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism. It was recommended that the request be taken to WP:ANI. While this request did wind up with the addresses blocked, it obviously struck some admins as being a concern. Where would be the best place to make such requests? I'm ok with following any procedure and want to do what is appropriate. Thanks --NERIC-Security (talk) 18:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

ANI would work, AIV is typically for simple requests. –xeno 18:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

ANI seems like the most appropriate place. I see rangeblock requests there often. I'm not sure who had a problem with you putting your request there, but I see no reason anyone should have such a problem. Equazcion (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I added the following suggestion to NERIC-Security's talk page. Perhaps other admins can comment if this would work.

I assume you can understand why we are sceptical about blocking IP ranges on demand without being able to verify the abusive use ourselves. To avoid such confusion in the future, may I suggest a couple of steps you can take:

• Can you verify your identity by emailing OTRS ?
• Can you also confirm the IP ranges you are responsible for and list them on your userpage ?

That way, you can simply add a link to the background note on your userpage in future AIV/ANI requests, and admins will know what to do.

Abecedare (talk) 18:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Moving the discussion with Abecedare here, this was my reply:

Hi. Both the IP range and the AN link are on my user page. I have exchanged e-mails with admins in the past, however, e-mailed submissions for blocks were not responded to and off-line discussions suggested that I use WP:AIV for requests. I've put a note in Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#How_should_we_request_rangeblocks.3F to see if there is consensus for how and where to post these requests. I'll be more than happy to follow up with whatever process is agreed upon. Thanks for all of your work as an admin. I know that patrolling just my corner is not easy, and appreciate everyone who works so hard at keeping Misplaced Pages running smoothly. Take care, --NERIC-Security (talk) 18:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with using WP:ANI. Is there any special format or information that I should include in the requests made there? Thanks. --NERIC-Security (talk) 18:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

A similar format to the one you used at AIV should be fine.

Can you chime in at the ongoing ANI thread, confirming or disconfirming that the NERIC-Security account is being used by more than one individual, and also comment as to whether another username would be amenable to you? Thanks, –xeno 18:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that you still identify yourself with OTRS to confirm that you are in an official position to make these requests, and have the OTRS certification posted on your user page. Then when you go to AIV to request an anon-block, you can point to the certification that you are an authorized representative to make the request. Thatcher 20:26, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion by Thatcher (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 20:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Xeno - Hi. I would not be amenable to a name change. I have been very careful to make sure that the only work that I do with this account relates to my job, and not to me personally. I am fairly active under my real name and do not want to have the two associated. The reason posted for the change has been cited as being to reduce future problems and since it is disruptive. My behavior with this account has been to:

1. Revert mal-edits made by anonymous users from the NERIC Class B IP range.
2. Place warnings on IP user pages form the NERIC Class B IP range in language where they are offered the opportunity for training on how to use Misplaced Pages.
3. Work with the school districts administration to educate them on Misplaced Pages.
4. When the students are tracked down, provide thanks and updates to editors who revert these mal-edits.

How is this disruptive?

Thatcher - Hi. I am not familiar with the OTRS process. I have sent an e-mail to the OTRS via issues@wikimedia.org (which has bounced back), and to info-en-o@wikimedia.org and info-en@wikipedia.org. Will this generate the information for inclusion on my user page?

Thanks all. --NERIC-Security (talk) 20:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Both Thatcher (talk · contribs) and Rlevse (talk · contribs) have suggested that a name change is best. I agree with them. Cirt (talk) 20:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

And others User_talk:NERIC-Security/Archive_1#Username feel that the name is fine. --NERIC-Security (talk) 21:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

No, one user there said it seemed fine, while several administrators have said not so much. Grsz 21:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

(undent) It looks fine from the OTRS end of things. It's ticket 2009101410052623, and I've tagged the userpage accordingly. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 21:19, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. --NERIC-Security (talk) 21:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:UAA broken?

It seems that the bot isn't removing the blocked users off WP:UAA. It still seems to be adding them though... some names have been blocked but have been left there 4 hours later. --Rschen7754 (T C) 04:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the name watcher bot. The names are cleared by the AIV Helper Bot series. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, well - the names aren't being cleared. So the helperbots are broken? --Rschen7754 (T C) 16:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

They do seem to be operating - see bot 5 and bot 7. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Why are all those contributions AIV and not UAA? --Rschen7754 (T C) 18:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay I see the problem - the names are being removed off WP:UAA bot not the bot subpage. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:55, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:RFD Backlog

Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion has had a large backlog for at least a week. It's always sorta been an area that's not always attended to immediately, but it's gotten pretty bad lately. Killiondude (talk) 05:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The backlog is down to four open entries, so I'm marking this as resolved. Jafeluv (talk) 09:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

New noticeboard

Earlier today, I had this great idea, That we need a place for users to report issues that need immediate attention? I'm thinking of creating Misplaced Pages:Wikipedians noticeboard. I'm not sure if this will work. But it sounds like a good idea. Tell me what you think about this idea. - - - Do you think we need a Wikipedians noticeboard. Welcoming any ideas and comments.--Zink Dawg -- 06:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Immediate attention from admins or everyone? ≈ Chamal  ¤ 06:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Everyone--Zink Dawg -- 06:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

So basically, a place where editors can seek the council of everyone on things that don't necessarily require admin intervention? There are a lot of places like that already, but a general go-to place might actually be a good idea. Equazcion (talk) 06:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Yea, They can post issues that don't necessarily require admin attention.--Zink Dawg -- 09:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Chamal: it may also work in reverse, i.e. a side-wide agregator of new threads no matter where they start (refdesk, VP, AN, XFD...). WP:CENT on steroids. If liquidthreads ever materialize they will take care of this; now too many things are off the radar screen. Then of course is the problem of sorting issues that need immediate attention from not-quite-so immediate ones. NVO (talk) 09:54, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This is basically the Misplaced Pages:Village pump, isn't it? Except that VP is broken into parts (policy/proposal/technical), and nobody wants to post in the other part, Misplaced Pages:Village pump (miscellaneous)... Rd232 10:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

We already have plenty of things like this. We also have announcement type boards- there's Misplaced Pages:Community portal, but I'm sure there's another one somewhere. J Milburn (talk) 14:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What sort of thing would need immediate attention anyway? Ceaseless vandalism? Edit warring? Problems on the main page? All require admins and all are already covered. For high priority announcements, we have Template:Cent and the little popup messages on the watchlist, etc. (and the immediacy of those is often debatable anyway). Wknight94 17:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

1. Strong Support, This new notice board would be a great place to deal with all issues. If it doesn't work out we can delete it.--Zink Dawg -- 17:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The last thing we need is another noticeboard with an unclear and overlapping purpose. Mr.Z-man 18:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

• What is really needed is Misplaced Pages:Noticeboard noticeboard, a noticeboard where new noticeboards can be proposed. RMHED 20:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Reject RMHED's proposal, as it was not brought up at the correct venue: Misplaced Pages:Noticeboard noticeboard. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
    • That's because the venue you wanted was the Misplaced Pages:Noticeboard noticeboard noticeboard, obviously. Guy (Help!) 21:47, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
      • Can you guys please take this to Misplaced Pages:Wikiproject Noticeboard Noticeboard. Thanks - Manning (talk) 00:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support - I've been back and forth on this. In the end I think it might be valuable. Attention seems spread rather thin at the dedicated-purpose venues already present, like WQA and 3O, whose purposes already overlap often. Having a general-purpose editors' noticeboard might instead get attention more in line with the kind ANI gets, and I think that's what editors need. I wouldn't really have a problem if venues like 3O and WQA get slowly replaced by the centralized noticeboard. Equazcion (talk) 20:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
• Well, if you guys really want bolded voting then count me in as a Strong oppose. There are already numerous noticeboards for dealing with myriad issues, and the point of this one escapes me utterly. In case you hadn't noticed, this idea is not being taken very seriously here because you have not presented anything concrete with a demonstrated purpose and a clear goal. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

WikiTweet

Yes we DO need a centralised noticeboard, but we also need strict rules to stop it becoming like every other noticeboard (ie. a morass of endless screed). I'm NOT in favour of another "general purpose" noticeboard because it will become unmanageable very quickly (which is why we created all the individual noticeboards in the first place.)

Essentially we need a "WikiTweet" (TM) page - a transcluded page that contained brief summaries of noticeboard items. This summary would contain a category (where it came from: ANI, AIV, VP-T, etc), a character limited summary (hence the Twitter comparison) and a link to the extended article. Of course this would need a template to be filled out which I'm sure some techie could design. (Ideally when people resolve items this template would reflect that and update the WikiTweet as well.) Manning (talk) 00:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Already exists see WP:CENT. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

No, WP:CENT isn't really like what I am proposing at all. Cent is for centralised discussions, generally ongoing and of broad scope. This WikiTweet idea is a centralised noticeboard for small items like AIV and ANI etc. Crucially, each listing is highly summarised and links back to the original noticeboard and section. Manning (talk) 00:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Multiple IP stalker

It appears I've got a secret admirer, who is desperately seeking my attention. He/She has used the following IPs- User:166.205.133.83, User:166.205.4.61, User:166.205.7.162, User:166.205.135.183 & likely more possible to come. He she tends to 'revert' my edits & most recently threatened me on my userpage with future disruptions. GoodDay (talk) 20:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

*Yawn* another Obama conspiracy theorist. Should be easy to spot. <>Multi-Xfer<> (talk) 23:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Importance or significance not asserted pages for speedy deletion has an immense backlog right now

about 85 articles currently nominated, need help cleaning it out Beeblebrox (talk) 22:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Now down to about 30 articles, thanks all for the assist! Beeblebrox (talk) 00:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages and nationalism - this is not getting any better

And so we are nearing the completion of the bitter and painful Eastern European mailing list arbitration case, the latest in a long line (if you see the second subpage listed above in the "see also"). Time, I think, for some soul-searching.

I've been an editor here for over 3 years now, and an admin for over two. Much of that 2 years has been dealing with nationalist flaming: it's been immensely educational, occasionally entertaining, and normally downright frustrating. It forced me into retirement and it brought me back again, largely because it's just bloody addictive and there was no one else to do the job. Plus I still had some more articles to write.

But I won't be around ever, though I plan on being around for a while yet. There was a time when I did literally every single bit of arbitration enforcement, certainly as it pertained to nationalism (see Newyorkbrad's comment here). That, let me remind you, encompasses a huge geographical sweep, from Eastern Europe to the Balkans to the Caucasus to Israel to India to the American culture wars. The paucity of other people taking an interest in this enormous workload is shown by the enforcement logs of WP:ARBMAC and WP:ARBAA2, where it's just the same names doing the same old shit over and over. When one of those names goes, everything gets a lot worse. I think I could have prevented the equally painful and bitter recent Macedonia 2 case had I been around, and certainly on a general level disruption on Balkans articles had massively increased in my absence. From literally the minute of my return I've been putting out fires at souliotes, orpheus, thracians etc, with a bunch more I haven't had the time to attend to. Thankfully things seem to be settling down a little now.

We can't prevent nationalist flaming. Even if I had carte blanche to block every single nationalist disruptive editor anywhere permanently, it would make no difference even if somehow the people I banned didn't sockpuppet their way back. They'd just be replaced by a crowd of new flamers within a week. This stuff is tied to socioeconomic and political factors that are completely outside our control. But we can control the flaming itself, if not the causes.

The regime of discretionary sanctions etc that arbcom (actually, maybe I should just make that Kirill Lokshin) instituted is the best tool yet for dealing with this stuff. You might think, from the massive log of WP:ARBMAC, that it had failed. Not at all. These fires will always happen. The massive log shows they are being successfully put out. And the rate of cases recently has slowed down from the peaks of 07/08, but those that do arrive at ArbCom now are bigger and nastier, for all that they happened less often.

But the current admin corps is inadequate to the task. For one thing there aren't enough of us to keep basic backlogs consistently clear, let alone do this highly technical and time-consuming work. But, putting it bluntly, too many admins are from the wrong background to accurately deal with the problem. RFA criteria have long been viciously skewed towards knowledge of internal wikipolitics and technical procedures, something that benefits editors from a technical background (computer science, mathematics, engineering) and disadvantages those from a humanities background. More specifically, nobody has really cared about promoting people with the ability to evaluate sources and backgrounds (Kirill's competence when arbitrating this stuff came from his ability to appreciate the backgrounds of the editors at hand: this gave him an insight into where they were coming from). The broad knowledge of geopolitics that is so vital - and that I have been forced to acquire - is generally completely lacking. Most of admins are drawn from the white male population of the USA, who, thanks to the culture wars, have learnt never to interfere in matters of ethnicity for fear of being accused of racism: more generally, there is a failure to recognise that just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a small-minded nasty jerk (makes it no more likely, of course). We lack imaginative realists - in fact, I could pay no greater compliment to Dbachmann (talk · contribs) than to call him the ultimate imaginative realist.

Here's what we need. We need someone who can look at a nationalist dispute, be tolerably familiar with the background of the dispute and of the editors, have the access to familiarise himself quickly with what he doesn't know, and make a judgment call based on academic consensus over roughly where the content needs to be. Then administer from there. This is what myself and Future Perfect have tried to do at WP:ARBMAC. And it's worked. We do not need people who think that "NPOV" means "six of one and half a dozen of the other". We do not need cognitive relativists. We do not need admins who dumbly count reverts and make their decisons based off that. Knowledge that such people can be easily fooled by gang editing masquerading as consensus is what in part fuelled the creation of the EE mailing list, I am sure. Your job as admins, people, is the maintence of encyclopedicity. Everything else is secondary to that. Paraphrasing Dieter: admins lazily reviewing "evidence" presented by filibustering trolls without bothering to look at the underlying content dispute do more harm than good. That applies to arbcom as well. These people who can fix the problems are rare. But they are out there. Go and find them.

And if you doubt the seriousness of my post, take a look at my list of nationalist-related arbcom-cases, and the enforcement logs of some of the more recent ones. It might be quite a surprise.

Yours,

Moreschi (talk) 23:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I understand your frustration, but where do you find such people "who can look at a nationalist dispute, be tolerably familiar with the background of the dispute and of the editors, have the access to familiarise himself quickly with what he doesn't know, and make a judgment call based on academic consensus over roughly where the content needs to be", we are but mere mortals. Rather than rely upon the personal qualities of members of this super-squad to duke it out heroically with these nationalists, perhaps a better way would be to design a process that could channel these conflicting forces into a positive direction. Rather than alienate all the natives, such a process could filter the radicals from the moderates, and thus make your job easier. The problem with the take-no-prisoners approach is the risk of being gamed by the radicals who target the moderates to drive them off the project. Piotr's approach is workable. --Martintg (talk) 00:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Martin, "radicals" and "moderates" cannot be so easily separated (see here for the reason why. I am not going with "take no prisoners", but you have to realise that these problems have no lasting solution, because even if all becomes sweetness and light with the current crop of participants in that EE mailing list case, the next generation of flamers remain unaccounted for. We can't cure the plague. We can only contain. The political realities of various parts of the world mean that most (though not all) of the problematic contributors become irretrievably radicalized before they get here, and we can't change that. Moreschi (talk) 00:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Call me naive but I think many editors can be deradicalized. Not everyone, no. Those who come here to push a holy agenda of "one and only truth" are beyond hope, but most others can be reined in, with the right amount of carrots and sticks. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Much of interest here Moreschi, and I hope this discussion will maintain a distanced perspective and not spur knee-jerk reactions to your observations. As well as the cultural backgrounds you mention, I'd postulate that RfA selects against editors who involve themselves in NPOV disputes, and prefers clean candidates those willing to get their hands dirty. Question: how do we entice or encourage editors to get into this line of work? One thing that might help would be an admin-orientated version of your essay that focused on approaching the problem and reflect the institutional wisdom of the few effective admins in this area. Respect,  Skomorokh, barbarian  00:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that's part of the problem, Skomorokh, but another reason is watching what happens when a previously uninvolved admin does step in. I won't be dealing with any of the Balkan articles after going through the Kafkaesque horror of ARBMAC2. My total sum of edits to Macedonia-related articles is fewer than three article edits, participation in a couple of threads at Talk:Greece, protecting that article three times because of edit-warring on the talk page, and participating in the arbitration case (I was briefly a party to the case, but was removed when my lack of involvement became clear). However, I can guarantee you that any admin action I take will be loudly contested, and efforts to pin the ArbCom down on whether I could be considered involved were mostly ignored. Rlevse implied that I wasn't, but there was no other input, and repeated specific questions were not answered. The Scientology arbitration case (settled shortly before) made it clear that there was no "expiration date" on edits (the Arbcom pulled edits from two years previous to establish involvement in an article, so I wanted some concrete answers to establish what level of engagement constitutes involvement. Absent that, I won't return, and the other nationalist hotspots (A/A, EE, ARBPIA, and K/J) are either areas in which I am unfamiliar or unlikely to be able to function impartially. Reading through the ARBMAC2 post-mortem, it is apparent that I am not the only one who felt that way. Horologium (talk) 01:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Moreschi, not surprisingly, nails the problem pretty square on the mark. I could expand on some details, but instead I'll just directed interested readers to my very recent analysis of the Eastern Europe battlefield (also contains my proposed solution). I have analyzed the failure of an average admin to deal with such issues here, here and here. Moreschi is right that we need a special breed of admins to deal with this - ones who are knowledgable about given content, and even more importantly, understand why we are here (and no, this is not why). Please note that what is needed is a group of volunteers, from admin ranks but not only (mediators would have a good background) to create a taskforce (wikiproject?) that could mediate, mentor and when necessary, restrict and ban editors active in a wide ranging set of articles. It is crucial to undermine the foundations of nationalist battlegrounds by reforming editors (and banning those that won't be reformed), but it takes more than an average effort to distinguish who needs mentorship/mediation and who needs the good ol' banhammer in such cases. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Any editor can step in and analyze who is right and who is wrong in these disputes. An admin must push the button, but it can be extraordinarily helpful for any objective editor to participate in arbitration enforcement by reading the evidence and giving a credible opinion. Jehochman 01:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Easy in theory, but given the criticism leveled at Sandstein, one of the most competent admins patrolling AE, not in practice. --Martintg (talk) 01:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree mostly, Moreschi. The current admin community is useless for anything but vandal-fighting and drama-bathing, and any nationalist group with some organization and experience will eat most dopey admins for lunch. We don't enforce content policies over shallow behavioural policies (despite this being an encyclopedia), preferring crap like WP:Edit war over WP:Neutral point of view, because, quite frankly, our admins can't do it. The biggest source of bother is not the limitless hordes of nationalists stampeding out of the old Soviet block, but the pastureland we've set up here for them to feed on. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The reason admins prefer WP:Edit war over WP:Neutral point of view is because WP:Edit war is easy to understand and apply, whereas WP:Neutral point of view hard to understand and difficult to apply for many admins. If many admins are uncomfortable in applying WP:NPOV, what hope is the rest of us who look to admins to take the lead. Probably what is needed is some kind of WP:NPOV application master class for admins or something. --Martintg (talk) 01:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly why it is preferred. And there is no hope of anything better, because the community is not interested in promoting and empowering people based on expertise or recruiting better educated users, and that's mostly because the drama loving cabals of seasoned vandal fighters and IRC networkers are not interested in listening to anyone who is not a clone of themselves, right down to the vacuous herd-like sanctimony and moronic lack of vision for wiki. The founders made WP:NPOV a policy, but their successors have made it so that any admin who expresses what they think NPOV is, is WP:INVOLVED, and is told not to act, thus forcing anyone who does want to act successfully to play a rather strange game. We encourage a numbers game just so anyone who can count to four, which is most admins, can enforce policy. And they wonder why counter-cabals like your own emerge?! Oh my, how we will laugh in years to come ... Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I also want to wholeheartedly agree with Moreschi's analysis but would like to point out that the problem has deeper roots than just lack of successful enforcement of restrictions and the like. The same lack of background knowledge (as well as a deep seated desire to avoid controversy which may hurt one's "Wiki-career") basically short circuits the entire dispute resolution process right at the beginning. For example, if you ask for a 3O on a EE topic, chances are, you'll be waiting a very long time for one. And when it comes it will be something along the lines of "uh, you guys should compromise". And then when it leaves, oh, about a week afterward whichever party didn't get its way will go right back to trying to force through what they want. A similar situation occurs with RfC - there just isn't enough willing and capable uninvolved editors and admins out there to participate. So disputes fester and propagate rather than being solved. This means that editors who don't achieve their aims, or who really DO represent an UNDUE extremist fringe, can just "circle through" a set of articles - even if a 3O or RfC or just honest consensus keeps their POV out of one article they just move on to the next. And so on. As a result the only way to keep articles at least somewhat protected from repeated attempts to insert crazy stuff into them is to bring them up to GA or FA status - for some reason that still gets a bit of respect. But not every article in EE topics can be a GA or FA and its unrealistic to expect editors in this topic area to put forth that kind of labor effort. However, general EE topic drives for getting articles improved could help here.radek (talk) 01:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yup. This whole "wiki-career" nonsense is a real pain in the backside. Back in the summer of 2007 I was controversial to a certain extent - I'd voted delete in something like 100 Afds in a row or something - but there was still enough recognition of "he's basically a good egg" to get me through RFA. I'm sure I would never pass RFA now, being infinitely more controversial - there's a reason I'm not open to recall! The same problems applies to arbcom elections, there being an increasing tendency to elect the bland and safe purely because they are just that. Sometimes this is OK: sometimes it's totally disastrous, as we've already found out. RFA crowd: lighten up and look at what really matters. Moreschi (talk) 01:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I have to say I agree with the basic tenor of your comments. I might point out that religious content can be just as problematic, if not as often. What would be truly useful would be to have a body of admins (presumaably) who at least are generally objective and have reliable access to the most current documentation on any given subject. You, Dbachmann, and a few others are effectively doing the bulk of the heavy lifting here, and believe me when I say it is appreciated, but I can understand the burnout aspect really easily. I'm not sure what specific procedures might be available to create a competent corps of admins, and, even more problematic, how to keep them from falling victim to the temptation of power.

One thing Vassayana did in his recent attempt to improve content related to Falun Gong was to contact a number of editors regularly working with the broader areas it falls in and ask them to take part in the development of those articles. Something like that might work here as well, but I think finding the competent and willing people to take part in such a body might be difficult. If those problems could be addressed, though, that might be a solution. John Carter (talk) 02:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Religion and nationalism are more or less the same thing at a depth-psychological level: the urge to form combative groups to fight until the population pyramid is back in shape. This is best expressed in the national mysticism of Hindutva or Mother Russia, where passionate nationalism becomes inextricably intertwined with Russian Orthodoxy/Hinduism. Or just Israel/Palestine, where you can't separate the nationalist sentiments from the religious at all.

Speaking of Vassyana, who is one of our better arbs right now precisely because, I think, he did some really good work at FTN before becoming an arb: he knew what a fringe theory looks like, what a content dispute looks like, and what outright trolling looks like - there should be some advisory body of experienced dispute-resolution-competent admins who sporadically advise arbcom on nationalist cases. This would be part of arbcom's internal bureaucracy and should have no other role or connection with the community. It could also be used to figure out what the hell is going on with really arcane cases, like Franco-Mongol alliance. Current arbcom structure is not sustainable. The internal bureaucracy either needs massively expanding or arbcom needs to take far fewer cases (my personal preference), and become a much more minimalist institution dealing with wheel wars only, plus perhaps the odd exceptional case like this current mailing list trainwreck. But at the moment it's an insufficiently staffed yet cumbersome beast handing out pointless "admonishments" - god I hate that word - left, right, and centre, and taking many cases the sysop community, for all its faults, would handle far better. Moreschi (talk) 02:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I am willing to deal with issues like this, but only if I know for sure that I have the support of someone or something which I know has the ability to actually give me backup. The Arbitration Committee is probably the only body on this site that has the ability to truly bring this issue to a head. They can do so by (per Horologium above) making it abundantly clear that uninvolved administrators do not magically become involved simply as a result of a mere attempt to resolve an issue. Speaking figuratively, if I knew that I would have immunity from a lawsuit aimed at my basic attempt to resolve a dispute, I would be more inclined to do a repeat of what I linked above. As it stands now, the very act of attempting to resolve a dispute, completely absent of your behavior in the attempt, is enough to get the crosshairs pointed at you. J.delanoy_adds 02:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I avoid intervening in nationalist disputes simply isn't worth the grief, particularly given the lack of support which can be expected. In these disputes its not uncommon for groups of nationalist editors to gang up on the intervening admin and demand that their decision be overturned, their admin privileges be revoked, etc. The intervening admin rarely gets much support from other admins when an appeal is lodged, with many admins being seemingly willing to take accusations of racism, etc, made against the admin at face value rather than look into the matter. Nick-D (talk) 02:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a hangover of the US Culture Wars, where accusations of racism are always taken at face value rather than being laughed out of court like most of them should be. The result is a Misplaced Pages admin corps with no real clue as to how to deal with such things, and who accord ethnic squabbles a dignity they simply don't deserve. Moreschi (talk) 03:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Beta editing capability has gone away

As of October 16, 2009 at 03:12:00 am UTC (11:12:00 pm eastern time):

When you are using the beta to edit a page, it doesn't use the beta layout. It uses the old monobook layout instead.

Hope you can fix this soon!

- Samwb123 (talk) 03:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Edit filter permission

I requested this permission here, following the procedure stated on Misplaced Pages:Edit filter, on 10 September.

After answering questions, I did not receive any further response, so I started a thread on the issue, Misplaced Pages talk:Edit filter#Permissions for non-admins; discussion on 7 October seeking clarification about the procedure/policy on this. There are no responses.

I wasn't sure where to pursue this, but as it is granted by administrators, I'm hoping this noticeboard is appropriate.  Chzz  ►  03:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)