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Rich Farmbrough's persistent disregard for community norms and (semi-)automated editing guidelines

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks)

SmackBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)

Earlier today, I advised Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) that I would request both he and his bot be blocked if he continued making trivial and unnecessary changes that have proved controversial without first obtaining consensus for these changes .

Rather than cease making the changes, he simply went on ahead with them on both his bot account ( - unnecessary capitalization changes), and his main account ( changes spacing around header for no reason; capitalizes template for no reason).

It is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that all templates should be ucfirst, it is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that headers should have no spacing around them. However, it is unreasonable to push these views on the community without first obtaining consensus for them. The edits today display a shocking disregard for the collaborative editing model and indicate that Rich feels that he does not have to operate within the consensus model.

This is unacceptable behaviour for a bot operator and administrator and I request he be blocked pending the decision of the proposed restriction below, which has been copied here from the ANI subpage for greater visibility. –xeno 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed editing restriction: Rich Farmbrough

This is an alternative proposal to more strict proposal here, which generated a fair amount of support for a complete ban on non-manual editing

Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from making cosmetic changes to wikicode that have no effect on the rendered page (excepting those changes that are built-in to stock AWB or those that have demonstrable consensus or BAG approval). This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done), changing the spacing around headers and ordered lists (except to make an aberration consistent with the rest of the page), and changing the capitalization of templates. Furthermore, prior to orphaning/emptying and deleting categories or templates, the appropriate processes (WP:CFD/WP:TFD) should be engaged.

Thoughts? –xeno 15:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What about emptying and deleting categories? This is what happened in the immediate incident. --Philosopher  15:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Added a sentence, though that is expected of any editor already. –xeno 15:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Unless a guideline directs such a change. There's always the potential for future guidelines on the matter. Otherwise, it seems a fine proposal to me. --Bsherr (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That's covered by 'demonstrable consensus'. –xeno 15:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Good enough. --Bsherr (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support --Bsherr (talk) 16:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I think this has become stale now, but I'll revisit if that seems to change. --Bsherr (talk) 19:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• I think this is agreeable, this has my support. Rich, I hope you will do an effort in checking the diffs before you save, and not save them if they are mere changes of capitalisation, etc. Real mistakes, well, we all make them (as do our bots), I do hope your fellow editors will treat them for what they are. --Dirk Beetstra 15:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• Now that's a whole lot better, being a lot less disruptive and punitive. But how about discussing with Rich about the categories' name changes and moving, instead of immediately reaching out for punishment? --Ohconfucius 15:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Discussion doesn't help if he ignores objections and continues full-steam ahead without stopping to gather consensus for his changes. –xeno 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. This proposal is more about setting a bot policy rather than addressing or remedying the allegations. Bot policy should be debated elsewhere. Glrx (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

  Policy already exists to prohibit these changes (WP:AWB#Rules of use #3/4), this is more of a compliance issue. –xeno 19:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• We're prohibiting him from something that's already prohibited (using a bot or script to make cosmetic changes) and telling him to use the processes that he's already supposed to be using (CFD/TFD). Is there any substantial difference here from doing nothing and hoping the problem resolves itself? Mr.Z-man 21:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I suppose there's also the prohibition of using even manual methods to make those cosmetic changes, and it looks like even if those cosmetic changes are made at the same time as another edit they would still be disallowed (without bot approval, which I suppose is already bot policy). To my mind this is just because it's difficult at times to tell if Rich is making manual, semi-automated or fully automated edits from his account (because, as you know, in violation of the bot policy he appears to make all three from his main account, without using proper edit summaries). Personally I think we should be stopping this problem there. With enforcing the bot policy and stopping him from making any bot like edits from his account, as proposed above. But would also support this alternative proposal after the original one. - Kingpin (talk) 21:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The restriction would make it clear that these changes lack consensus and he may be blocked if he continues making them prior to gathering consensus. –xeno 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Strong oppose We are all volunteers here and those who edit consistently and spent a lot of time working on here should be commended not restricted.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Commended for creating ultra-infra-microstubs like Sanapia, Franklin Lafayette Riley, Jr., Martha Lipton? He is basically just ripping this page to create these useless articles. If the full text of your article is "Azeline Hearne (1825-1890?), Slave.", then you should not be commended. Fram (talk) 06:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
• Notice that the result of such rapid (11 articles created in 4 minutes) and poor article creation is that you are bound to make mistakes (apart from not providing any useful information), because you don't have the time to check anything. The article Monroe C. Beardsley should not have been created, since we already have it in a useful form at Monroe Beardsley. Not really hard to find... Similarly, Morris Moe Foner is now redirected to the already existing Moe Foner. Fram (talk) 07:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

One of his ultra-infra-microstubs now looks like Sanapia. A good catch and highly interesting in my view. I'll be honest. I wish he did more article writing on here but he more than makes up for that with his auto generated editing which has gone to massive lengths to help clean up the site.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense

This is a storm in a teacup. No one cares about the bot capitalising clean-up templates, except that they think I am offending others by doing it. There are no others, except apparently xeno has moved to-day from neutral about it ("I don't care about the actual minor bits themselves") to opposed ("Me for one") and dePiep is saying the same in the next comment (about 20 minutes ago). Hardly anyone cares about any of them. Those that do have an opinion would almost certainly, by the figures, support capitalising of Infoboxes. I have explained that for technical reasons that I made a choice, some four years ago for Ucfirst rather than lcfirst - after much careful thought. the reason is to enable me to write regexes like:

• {{\s*(Cleanup|Attention+\(on+talk+page\)|Clean|Cu|CU|Tidy|Cleanup-quality|Cleanup-date|Attention+needed+\(article+page\)|Attn|Attention+see+talk|Attention|Attention+needed+\(talk+page\)|Clean+up|Cleanup-because|Clean-up|Cleanup-reason|Cleanup-since|Ugly|Cleanup-Pitt|Improve|Quality|Clu) *() => {{Cleanup$2

and then do the date manipulation on a much simpler regex - a sample of which still runs to maybe 4 or 5 k.

Here's my proposed solutions:

1. Forget it and go and write an enyclopedia.
2. Have an centralized discussion on the case of cleanup templates. Tell me the result. I will implement that.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC).

Your dismissive attitude ("No one cares..."; "Forget it and go and write an encyclopedia."; "There is no controversy here. Nothing to see, keep walking.") is a major part of the problem.

I don't know how many people care about this, but I can tell you that I do. When I consult diffs to evaluate the edits, your bot's inconsequential changes waste my time. I've gone to your talk page to raise the issue, only to be reminded by the existing complaints (and your responses thereto) that you routinely ignore/dismiss such criticisms. So I don't bother to add my voice to the futile chorus (and I assume that others act in kind). —David Levy 23:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Well not bothering hardly helps. Nor does the negative characterisation of my talk page. Nor yet quoting out of context.Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Well not bothering hardly helps.

Nor does wasting still more of my time by posting yet another comment for you to dismiss/ignore.

Nor does the negative characterisation of my talk page.

You mean my observation that you routinely dismiss/ignore these criticisms (just as you've done above)?

Nor yet quoting out of context.

How have I done so? Two of the quotations are taken from this very section, and I linked directly to the third's diff. —David Levy 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The diff is not the context. The context is an extensive conversation over several pages. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Please link to whatever threads/diffs you believe provide essential context. —David Levy 00:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally on the substantive point you raise, you can set your w/l to ignore bots. HTH. Rich Farmbrough, 00:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

And that would not be a reasonable solution. Sometimes people will still want to see bots. We shouldn't have to stop seeing other bots because yours is behaving badly. I will have to agree with the other people in that these edits cause more trouble than help. -DJSasso (talk) 00:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that. I don't want to ignore bots (which would cause me to overlook problematic mass changes, including those caused by malfunctions). I want to be able to monitor their edits without having to wade through the utterly pointless ones that your bot performs. —David Levy 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd add on that score that ignoring bots seems to cause another issue: if, say, an editor vandalises a page, (edit 1) then a bot goes past and makes a change, (edit 2), nothing turns up in your watchlist. As you are set to ignore bot edits, the watchlist code doesn't notify you of any edits, as it only checks to see if the most recent one warrants notification. Thus you are lead to assume that nothing has happened in the article. I found this to be a particular problem with SineBot, but generally that flag causes too many issues to use it. - Bilby (talk) 02:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Well as not a great user of watch-lists, I had seen that comment before, but not got round to investigating it. It seems like a suboptimal way for watch-lists to work. Rich Farmbrough, 18:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

"Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" should bypass that particular concern. –xeno 18:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Also vote for bug 9790. Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

• Regarding your explanation regex: AWB can do this with the stock engine now without having to change the case (WP:AWB/TR). This is why I asked you to update SmackBot to the latest SVN snapshot. And you're right, I said I don't care about the minor bits themselves - I do care about the unnecessary, disruptive, and distracting changes to the minor bits that lack consensus - I would similarly ask an editor who was going in the other direction to stop. –xeno 15:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  I have uploaded my redirect list, so that should help AWB. There are teething problems here, yet. For example trying to maintain ucfirst/lcfist across redirects has lead to imdb => iMDb name. But there are other problems with template names that are bigger than these minor quibbles. Rich Farmbrough, 02:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
  

Re: "imdb => iMDb name". If we can agree a convention whereby some templates are excluded from the 'keep existing case' rule (perhaps when first word of new template name is all uppercase?) then I can implement it in AWB

. Rjwilmsi 21:13, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

What actually needs to be done now: Need an uninvolved admin

I think, at this point, we've discussed this to death. What I think we need is an uninvolved admin who has maybe a couple of hours to read up on this, and then close the discussion and editing restriction proposals at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010. A number of different remedies have been offered there, and I think a closing admin can judge a suitable consensus on how best to proceed. I don't think it's worth our time talking about this all over again at this point. Especially when the previous discussion hasn't yet been closed. At this point I feel that the discussion and editing restriction proposals are ripe for closure, as that thread is no longer constructive (it appears to have degenerated to edit warring, repetition, and personal comments, rather than actually furthering discussion on the actual issue tat hand, despite this I think there is already enough content there to reach a consensus). If the solution provided by a closing administrator does not work after some time, then there are other venues, such as a RfC/U, which would be more appropriate, since it appears ANI is not helping this issue much. - Kingpin (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Fram (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we need an uninvolved admin to step in here. Subsequent to this thread being posted, Rich made nearly three thousand edits with SmackBot that 1) do not appear to have BAG approval (I found this, but perhaps it should be revisited - approval should not have been granted for spell-checking) and 2) appear to violate the bot policy on spell-checking (based on new information what happened was the operator had set it wrong, as opposed to the bot running amok) and 3) made obviously erroneous edits like this . We have policies and guidelines on automated and assisted editing for a reason, and flagrant disregard for those norms is unacceptable, especially when the result is editors having to manually review thousands of bot edits for errors. –xeno 14:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a bit of a rabbit out of a hat. "editors having to manually review thousands of bot edits for errors". Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Should I assume the one edit I picked out at random and found to be in error was 1 in 3000? Are you going to check the rest of the edits yourself? (I see you ran over the pages to fix World Series of Poker back to how it should be - Thanks for that). –xeno 17:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes I picked up a bunch of other WSOP errors too. Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

• He also made this edit which does nothing but capitalize a template while tweaking some whitespace. Making disputed edits while they're under discussion at a noticeboard strikes me as inflammatory. –xeno 14:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  Again human error, some small task I started nearly a week ago, and that item was already fixed - by an unassisted human. (I won't say why the task is taking so long - I will mention that it would have just happened in the good old days prior to 29 Spetember.) Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC).
  

  So you had it in auto-save mode? –xeno 19:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  Uh.. borrow my deerstalker and meerschaum xeno, they are freshly cleaned. One edit on it's own is very unlikely to be automatic. No I just flipped windows, scanned the diff for errors (which is as automatic for me as reading - look at a printed word and try not to read it) clicked "save" and uttered a choice expletive. Considered reverting myself, but that's a bit nutzoid on a practical level - creating an extra edit to show that you aren't deliberately creating extra edits. Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
  

Hmm .. indeed, that last one should not be there. I don't think that I saw any spelling-changes. Most decapitalisations seem OK and proper, but there are some decapitalisations in headers which should actually be capitalised (like the example you gave). Xeno, did you point Rich to these edits, and asked for explanations on the errors and .. useless edits? --Dirk Beetstra 14:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but because of obfuscation and handwaving, I've just about exhausted my patience for speaking directly with Rich. (Further reading: Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Capitalisation of section titles, Misplaced Pages talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Probably erroneous approval for a form of spell-checking (SmackBot)) –xeno 14:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Handwaving! I have supplied pretty much the only hard facts , the majority of the argument is fuzzy to an extreme. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Uninvolved admin would be good. But if they can get through it in a couple of hours I would be amazed. This debate has eaten hundreds of hours of my time, and every time we get close to closing it down there is a change of venue. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Funny enough, I do think that this edit contains two 'errors' .. one title which is probably correct in the current case was (half) converted to a lower case title, while the next section, which should have been converted, was neglected. Whatever the case, I don't think that this gets over 28 errors (i.e., less than 1%; I still refuse to see the capitalisation/whitespace change as an error, I do define it as 'useless'. And though I also think that of the fuss about it is equally useless: Rich, is there really no way of not doing that, it is certainly not necessary (run regexes on the wikitext with the 'i' parameter and it does not care whether it is upper or lowercase, so why uppercase them all), and it will stop the equally, if not more, unnecessary complaining about it?). I also don't think that this falls under a spelling correction, and I do think that it is important enough to be done by a bot - unfortunately it is too error prone (I would suggest to add the standard ones, and record all the rest with statistics, if there are other common ones which need conversion, add those to the list, but be careful with converting them all).

All these discussions are not worth this fuss, Smackbot makes by design on every task some errors, some inevitable and some avoidable - others should be repaired (and are generally repaired) before continuing. The errors are minimal, diverse, and IMHO Rich either explains that some errors can not be avoided (e.g. the subst problem), most errors don't break things (they annoy people), and for the rest, a lot of complaints are about useless edits. I understand that the regular errors do give a feeling of 'Smackbot makes a lot of errors', but overall I don't believe that there are really thàt many (and then, some are because the bot is fed a broken page to begin with; or other errors which can not be repaired, still get regurgitated over and over). I also think that many errors were resolved, but also still regurgitated. Now, if we take away the annoyances (I suggest that Rich tries to take most annoyances away, and the annoyed to stop complaining about these things that IMHO do not need this much complaining; it is not worth it), and that future errors are met with 'could you do this different, or ignore these terms' (which I then also expect Rich to follow), then it is now time to move on. --Dirk Beetstra 19:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually don't have a huge problem with honest-to-goodness errors; it's the fixing things that aren't broken that I take issue with. As best as I can tell, the main excuse (other than ILIKEIT) for the template capitalization changes is because it's easier to write a regex that results in capitalization changes. Well, that's not a good excuse, and regex can fairly easily be written to maintain the case (and I know Rich is a wizard when it comes to these things - he helped me with some code for Xenobot Mk V); and in fact, AWB now has built-in redirect bypassing at WP:AWB/TR that won't do the unnecessary capitalization changes. So if Rich just worked within that framework, we can be done with this. –xeno 19:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion

This Gordian knot clearly needs cutting, and I hereby cut it: the restriction proposed above is enacted. In essence, Rich is injuncted from making cosmetic changes which do not have demonstrable community support; this is recorded at Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Misplaced Pages community and as usual enforceable by escalating blocks. I will also clarify that there is no currently demonstrated community consensus on capitalising template calls. In addition, I will say to Rich that the community recognises and appreciates the work you do in using and maintaining a range of powerful tools, but that with power comes responsibility, and you do need to ensure that you err on the side of caution in ensuring that these powerful tools, and your use of them, has sufficiently strong community support. That is all. Rd232 09:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"This Gordian knot is quickly scissorable! ...." (You may fill in the next line yourselves.) Thank you for reviewing this ungodly mess. Rich Farmbrough, 10:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Further to this, Rd232 is hereby enjoined from inventing ugly new verbs by back-formation from nouns. --TS 10:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm just richifying the malleable English language. :P Rd232 11:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

More cite capitalisation, a few minutes ago? 195.27.52.146 (talk) 10:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot stopped for now, until Rich has a version running which won't do this. Of course, it's hard to tell what's built in AWB and what's not. But until we've got an explicit "SmackBot is okay to go" from Rich, it's stopped. - Kingpin (talk) 10:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

AWB does a number of changes to templates, replacing a redirect to a template with the actual template is done for this list: Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I have asked whether this, implemented about a month ago, actually has consensus, as it seems to go against regular practice of leaving redirects well alone. But anyway, the change of SmackBot (chanbing cite journal to Cite journal) is not included on the above list if template changes, i.e. "The redirects are first letter case insensitive e.g. and are treated as identical." and "The first-letter case of the redirect is kept in the new template name. The template name is first-letter case insensitive e.g. and are the same." If it is done by AWB regardless of this, then AWB needs to be changed. If it is a Smackbot rule, then Smackbot needs to be changed (also e.g. here, changing "dead link" to "Dead link"). This one changes template capitalisation (unreferenced to Unreferenced, Infobox Album to Infobox album) and adds an unwanted defaultsort. The only result of the defaultsort change here is that Republic of China referendum, 2004 now is sorted before Republic of Austria v. Altmann instead of the correct after in Category:2004 in international relations. Before SmackBots change, this sorting was correct. This problem has now been raised repeatedly, but no justification has been given or correction has been made. Fram (talk) 10:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"AWB does a number of changes to templates, replacing a redirect to a template with the actual template is done for this list: Misplaced Pages:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I have asked whether this, implemented about a month ago, actually has consensus, as it seems to go against regular practice of leaving redirects well alone.". Yes, That currently does have consensus and is allowed via BAG and the related bot policies BUT the edit must also contain other constructive edits as well (You can't just do solo edits for that content to replace the redirects). Peachey88 07:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Like I said there: "Where can I find the discussion that established that these kinds of chanegs have any sort of consensus?" No one has indicated that to me yet. Fram (talk) 08:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Album => Infobox album is not case changing rule it's a redirect removing rule.

Defaultsort fixed. Also fixed (which shows why DEFAULTSORT is used by the community):

• 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta
• 2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• 2004 Israel – New Zealand spy scandal
• 2004 Russia–Belarus gas dispute
• 2004 enlargement of the European Union
• 2004 world oil market chronology

to

• 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta
• 2004 enlargement of the European Union
• 2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• 2004 Israel – New Zealand spy scandal
• 2004 Russia–Belarus gas dispute
• 2004 world oil market chronology

All the best. Rich Farmbrough, 23:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Songs for the Road now sorts thus:

1. Something to Believe
2. Songs from the Road (Jeff Healey album)
3. Songs Inspired by Mulawin
4. Soul Donkey

Previously it would have been listed out of order. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC).

(I seem to have inadvertently deleted this section, thanks for restoring it Epeefleche). I have started a discussion regarding the sortkey issue at Misplaced Pages talk:Categorization#Sortkey. Your section above where you said you fixed five articles to the same five articles is a bit bizarre, I assume you mean that you added five defaultsorts to these articles, so that e.g. 2004 Russia-Belarus gas dispute now sorts correctly before, umm, no other article starts with the same three words, and only the fourth is capitalized, so a totally useless defaultsort is added... As I said on the discussion on the sortkey, in the limited number of cases where a sort for one category would be better with caps, such a sort can easily be added to the article on a case-by-case basis. Adding unnecessary and harmful (in the case of a move) defaultsorts to all articles, just to solve a few problems, is creating loads of collateral damage for little actual benefit. Fram (talk) 08:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Revive previous proposal

For some reason, the edit restriction proposal at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010#Edit restriction proposal for Rich Farmbrough, which generated a fair amount of support, was abandoned for xeno's proposal, which got hardly any comments. As could perhaps be predicted, the problems not adressed by this second proposal, but adressed in the first one, simply continue.

Rich Farmbrough is now testing a new bot on his main account, which again creates a lot of problems. I notified him at 11:36 yesterday that he created a number of redirects from the mainspace to his userspace. This included a group of 10 redirects created at 11:27 (together with ten more edits the same minute). However, at 21:12, 11 more of these redirects were created, from a total of 19 edits that minute. At 21:18 - 21:19 6 more redirects were created (or recreated). Some of them were deleted by Rich, a number were not though and had to be deleted by other admins.

He also created a number of pages in his user space, and edits them incorrectly at a very high speed. Between 01:28 and 01:30 this morning, he edited 28 articles, putting all 28 articles (biographies of long dead people in his user space) in the cats for living people. Apart from the fact that these cats were obviously wrong, they should also not be used on user space articles. Rich Farmbrough made a few edits afterwards, but apparently didn't notice the errors of his unapproved bot, so I cleaned this up this morning.

Any reason why we don't enact the previous proposal, seeing how he clearly is not interested in taking into account voluntary the points adressed in it, despite the many supports for it, and seeing how his current activities, with dozens of incorrect edits in minutes, are clearly a violation of the bot policy? Fram (talk) 07:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

And he just added tjose 28 articles to those categories again in two minutes time. Can someone please block this unauthorized bot (and yes, that means a block of Rich Farmbroough, tough luck, he violates the bot policy again and again on his main account...)? I am clearly involved so I can't block it... Fram (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: Rich seems to have subsequently responded to these concerns in user talk discussion (there seem to have been coding issues), notably using a separate account for bot edits, as bot policy does indeed require. Rd232 14:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: and he is back at his old tricks, or so it seems. He is now creating, with his main acount, in the mainspace, loads of redirects, some potentially useful, some utterly useless, but clearly this happens in some automated manner, even though there is no indication of this in his edit summaries. He e.g. created Communications in Brunei. as a redirect to itself at 08:48 today, deleted it at 08:53, and recreated it as a redirect to Telecommunications in Brunei at 09:24. I deleted it again, as redirects with extra punctuation are an endless list of useless redirects. I also deleted his redirect from Geometric mean, to Geometric mean as implausible, but he restored that one. I have left most of his other redirects alone, but she we really have semi-automated creation of redirects like Autpert Ambrose (Ambroise) to Autpert Ambrose? His rule seems to be that if whatever is bolded in an article is different from the actual title, then a redirect has to be created, no matter if it just a simple error like with Geometric mean,... So far, maily due to errors in his script, 21 of these redirects have had to be deleted the last hour.

Why do we let him continue running unauthorized bots and useless scripts, when time after time they are filled with errors? Do we really need a bot that creates redirect from Cook Island(s) to Cook Island? Do we really need the creation of more of his extremely short stubs, like Lenon Hoyte, which were kept at AfD because the topic merits an article, but were most uninvolved editors asked him to stop the creation of any more of these in this format? There is just no change of behaviour at all... Fram (talk) 09:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Some of those redirects are good, but many of them are so blatantly poor, the Geometric mean, and Cook Island(s) ones you point out for example, and some of them only seem to change the case, which the software sorts out automatically. I honestly think ArbCom might be the way to go from here. - Kingpin (talk) 10:16, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

In this pattern, I noted this at RF Talk: RF created Redirect pages like Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which is doubling the abbrev, and not a real alternative anyway. Redirect title is copied from the intro bold text. Seven pages thus. -DePiep (talk) 19:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I've asked Rich to comment on this error. --Dirk Beetstra 10:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

And his "response" to this thread, the deletion of a number of redirects, and the posts on his talk page from KingPin and Dirk Beetstra, is to simply recreate things like Transportation In Guatemala. and Communications in Brunei. This means that he has now created the same faulty redirect three times in one day. Fram (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, I know I'm no admin (and don't want to be one), but I think it's about time someone use a block as a way of hitting RF with a clue-by-four here. This is just getting ridiculous, and someone needs to get his attention. rdfox 76 (talk) 22:45, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Since I put much effort in the past to delete any redirects that contained punctuation, please inform me if they are any left. The same goes with redirect that contain the abbreviation. I strongly disagree with the creation of this kind of redirects and in the past many of them were deleted via RfD. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

From User talk:Rich Farmbrough#Redirects ending in punctuation

• Eusebius (Bruno) of Angers
• Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
• Biathlon World Championships (BWCH)
• On-base plus slugging (OPS)
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Ascending chain condition (ACC)
• Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) Classification System

and one other, created by the same author

• Industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) ‎

There may be others, I suppose. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Other problem edits since the last time include:

• Delinking March 707 here, even though it is not a date but a model of racecar...
• Recreating the faulty redirect Lucius Caelius to Lactantius, based on his automated script
• Adding a place of birth (or similar) to a Persondata which already has a PLACE of BIRTH, e.g. here, here
• And of course 60 or so of his Smackbot edits that he reverted because they changed "Refimprove" to "Religion Primary"...

These are just the ones I noticed on spotchecking and browsing the latest 100 edits he made. Fram (talk) 21:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Er, what exactly is your point here? There are occasional bot errors, and as far as I can see they get reported to Rich and he handles them. Please elaborate on what, if anything, you expect to happen on the basis of your report above. The recent issue that concerned me was mass creation of redirects, which per xeno's note on Rich's talk page should really have BRFA approval; as far as I can tell Rich has stopped that. Rd232 11:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that every day, he is doing bot stuff that is unauthorized and very buggy, only for other people to correct or even just control it. He is a prolific bot writer, but he doesn's check his contributions, leaving this to other people. An occasional problem, like the March 707 delinking, is in itself not a problem: the amount of problems, day after day after day, with often repeats of previous problems as well, is the issue. He is e.g., despite countless requests to stop this, still changing the capitalization of templates. He adds a "date of birth" in the Persondata (year only, for some reason) to an article that already had the DATE OF BIRTH field (empty, but now it has both an empty field, and a partially filled one). No idea why he added the wikify tag here. Fram (talk) 11:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I've left Rich a note about the capitalization issue. The persondata issue has already been identified as a bug. There seems to be some buggyness, but I'm not sure how much is normal or what can be done to improve that. Repeat problems and unauthorised bot stuff are not good, but various things have been pointed out and improvements made. Rd232 12:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Redirects noted above now nominated. However, those were supposedly reviewed edits; he states he's not going to do it again, but he would be in a better position to delete them than I. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

We all make mistakes, and we don't catch them all ourselves, that is only logical. But the amount of mistakes he makes, and the scale on which they happen, are far beyond those of other editors, and it looks as if most of them have to be found by others before he eventually corrects his scripts. Considering that not all of these scripts are acknowledged, tested, approved, ... it makes it even harder (e.g. his redirect script that caused a lot of trouble). He has tonight corrected some 400 Smackbot edits where the Persondata was incorrectly edited. It is good that he corrects it, but this is too late, and should have been caught and corrected earlier. And whether his "correction" really gives the desired result? here we now have two parameters in uppercase, and two in lower case: not really the preferred state... Before the Persondata, it was the incorrect Religion template, the redirects, ... His Smackbot edits regularly include, next to pointless edits like this, rather stupid mistakes, like changing (2007 - ) to (born 2007) in this one, where the 2007- actually represents a term for a member in the list Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He moves a long standing template template:Monthly clean up category to template:Monthly clean-up category with the edit summary "Hyphenate per user request.", and then makes a series of AWB edits to correct all the links to it. Rather pointless, and a direct violation of his editing restrictions: "This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done)": in edits like this one (24 in total) no "substantive edit" is done, only a bypass of a template redirect he created in the first place. Fram (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(od)The template rename is OK I think, it was a spelling correction and fixing the resulting redirect affected a small number of pages. The Smackbot DEFAULTSORT I've left him a note about. In terms of errors and checking, I don't know what to say; substantive changes should get approval and AFAIK that is happening. Perhaps someone more familiar with hands-on bot operation could say something about the viability of better testing. Rd232 09:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

How was it okay? How was it not a violation of the editing restrictions? The edits were purely cosmetic, the template works equally well as a redirect than it does directly. The editing restrictions were not about number of pages (this were in the proposal that was not accepted for some reason, while the much less supported current restrictions were). That a violation of editing restrictions in itself doesn't break anything has never been a reason to ignore them, just like e.g. a violation of a block or ban to make as such correct edits isn't acceptable either. Fram (talk) 09:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Note that he since has done 25 more of these edits... Fram (talk) 10:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Well I thought it was outside the spirit of the editing restriction in terms of reflecting a non-controversial template renaming; and besides it affects only Misplaced Pages maintenance category pages. However I also thought it was just a handful of pages but in fact it will be a lot, which makes it more of an issue. Rd232 11:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Running bots on your main account is a violation of the bot policy. Bots need to be run on specified bot accounts. This needs to stop. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 15:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought it had. Recently I see correctly identified AWB edits, which is surely OK. What prompted your post? Rd232 22:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Huge backlog of tagged unsourced biographies of living persons

Entire section has been moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Unsourced biographies of living persons to save space on the WP:AN page and to centralize discussion.Please do not timestamp until this reaches the top of the page. –MuZemike

Death by sub-paging

• Comment—I think that it should probably have been moved to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Death by sub-paging... :) ╟─TreasuryTag►pikuach nefesh─╢ 17:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Heh. Touché. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:51, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

HELP HELP i can not get wiki to work in a font that i can read please can any one help

Help undeleting Misplaced Pages:Sandbox/Word Association

I closed This DRV as overturn, but Misplaced Pages is not letting me undelete the revisions of Misplaced Pages:Sandbox/Word Association. Every time I try, my browser takes forever before I get an error message giving the default notice that the Wikimedia servers haven't responded or something like that. I suspected that this has something to do with the large number of deleted revisions, but I thought that only had to do with deleting (to prevent large, important articles from being deleted), and not from undeleting. Thanks, IronGargoyle (talk) 22:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, only 5000 revisions may be deleted at a time. Maybe this is also true for undeleting. Or maybe I'm just plain wrong. Maybe you could try undeleting a few revisions at a time? Otherwise, I think we have to ask a steward to do it. Airplaneman ✈ 22:07, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting the same error message when trying to load the deleted revisions (it took 5 minutes just to make that appear). Airplaneman ✈ 22:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it wouldn't let me get to the stage of selecting individual revisions either. IronGargoyle (talk) 22:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm suprised the deleting admin managed to delete it in the first place (unles a dev did it); that page had 37.753 revisions(!) Now, when you click 'Undelete', it has to enumerate all 37.753 revisions just to build the revision list... Defenitely need a dev for that. — Edokter • Talk • 22:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Look at the deletion summary: it was deleted by Mercy, a steward, after a request for steward help was made at Meta. Nyttend (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've filed a request for steward help. Nyttend (talk) 01:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The server is having problems in this case because it's trying to list all the deleted revisions and the resulting page is too long. I believe that Twinkle can deal with these cases, but I've just installed it and I can't figure out how to use it to undelete pages. Graham87 01:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive141#Grawp page move undo problem. I'll ping the users involved in that thread in a couple of minutes. Graham87 01:41, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

SQL has retired and Splarka is only semi-active. I've sent a message to Splarka and one to Misplaced Pages talk:Twinkle about this problem. If all else fails, we might need the help of a sysadmin. Graham87 01:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Computer says no. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Backlog at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations

We can use some help over at Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations in clearing up some of the cases there that are listed which have been sitting there for a while. Quite a few of them have already had a CheckUser look at them (if necessary, others do not) and need a regular admin to make a call as to what action is to be taken. The same goes with the other cases which do not need a CheckUser; admins need to go through and make those calls. If there are any questions, let an SPI clerk or a CheckUser (such as myself) know, and we can try and help whenever we can. –MuZemike 06:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Can you expand as to what is required of Administrators at that page and/or the closure procedures? Nakon 07:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Really, for anything not listed as requiring a checkuser (anything that says "Open" at the top), any uninvolved admin can come in and act upon the report. Simply make a decision based off the presented evidence regarding whether or not WP:SOCK is being violated, apply blocks as necessary, leave a note, and then mark the case as closed by changing {{SPI case status}} to {{SPI case status|closed}}. Don't really worry about screwing anything up; clerks are constantly monitoring those pages to make sure all the technical details are in order. Administrators really only need to worry about the "make decision, place block" part. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 07:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

 Doing... Nakon 07:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've taken care of the ones that have had a CU response. There are at least 18 reports open that require a CU. Nakon 07:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually the cases that just say open, those never need a CU (or if they do, the status changes), infact open means practically that admins need to deal with unless there is no reason to block. You can look to my caselist page which has a list of open cases and is updated every 15 min by a bot, and only the blue and yellow ones need a Checkuser or SPI clerk to deal with. That ugly brown/pink or what ever it is is the open ones which admins can handle easily. -- DQ (t) (e) 12:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's to clarify what the major SPI case statuses mean (since we did make a recent major change in which I think simplifies the process:

Status Template parameter in bold	What this means
Open	No CheckUser has been requested for the case. An administrator is expected to determine whether or not socking is occurring and take admin actions if needed. Keep in mind that anybody may request a CU to look at the case by adding |curequest to the {{SPI case status}} template on the top of the case page.
A user has requested CheckUser. (curequest)	Just as it says. One of our highly-trained monkeys SPI clerks will take a look and endorse or decline the request.
A clerk/CheckUser as declined a request for CheckUser (decline/cudecline)	An SPI clerk or CheckUser has declined the CU request for a reason that is explained at the bottom of the case page. It is then left to any administrator to take any additional admin action if needed and close.
A CheckUser completed a check... (checked)	A CheckUser has completed a check, and the results have been posted. It is then kicked back into the regular queue for an administrator to take any actions (if needed) and close.
This SPI case is closed and will shortly be archived... (close)	The SPI case has been marked for close and will await archival by an SPI clerk or CU. Note that any administrator can mark an SPI case they handle as closed.

Hopefully this helps a little bit. Keep in mind that it's the administrators out there (not just the SPI clerks or the CheckUsers) who need to take the lead and handle these cases, just as they are expected to handle edit warring cases and AIV reports. –MuZemike 21:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Administrators instructions is a handy guide for regular administrators to follow for SPI cases. –MuZemike 22:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Appeal by Triton Rocker

Appealing user

Triton Rocker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction being appealed

One year block

Editor who imposed or found consensus to impose the sanction

Looie496 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) / Looie496 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notification of that editor

The following was submitted as part of an unblock request at User talk:Triton Rocker#Ublock Request II. Because the block was made in application of community sanctions, WP:GS/BI, I am referring this request to the community as an appeal against community sanctions. This is a procedural referral and I have no opinion about the merits of the block or the request.  Sandstein  12:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"Therefore, my point remains, the non-involved editors of good faith saw the length of block for the perfectly civil single talk page edit I made as being excessive I believe they were correct and that Looie496's, a new admin with only a couple of week's experience, interpretation of my words was over-enthusiastic.

Please note that the length of this ban was determined by a previous one month block based again on a single edit to a talk page, here --- again, in itself, perfectly formal and polite enough.

Cailil construed a report is here: using prejudicial accusations relating to an outstanding checkuser report, here which was later overturned as "conclusively unrelated".

I requested that such discussion of Cailil accusation was delayed until the checkuser findings were delivered. That polite request was ignored. I was never given a fair chance to defend myself against it as I was blocked from editing even my talk page at the time. --Triton Rocker (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)"

• I checked TR's last post at BISE. In that post, TR comments on another editor (Bjmullan) & his editorial motives. The sanction TR was/is under forbade him to do so. Alleged political motives, conspiracies etc, are irrelevant & having a siege mentality approach is un-productive. Until TR recognizes that he got himself blocked? his appeals won't be successful. GoodDay (talk) 12:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with GoodDay. Regardless of Triton Rocker perceiving other editors' editing to be biased/problematic/whatever there are dispute resolution procedures in place for dealing with that. He hasn't attempted to use any of those, and just keeps going on about other editors. Multiple blocks haven't prevented that, and his appeal really doesn't address the reasons behind his block. There's a definite siege mentality with his refusal to listen to outside input, and unless he is willing to listen and agree specific unblock conditions there's no way I could support his unblock. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 14:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Question: Is Triton Rocker saying that the reasons for the present block were not valid? I'm not even sure I quite understand the appeal here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Comment TR's restrictions are in two parts. 1)Imposed by Black Kite - a topic ban from editting in the article space in relation to the British Isles naming topic. 2)Imposed by the community as proposed by me - civility parole.
  TR's sanctions were imposed and reviewed by the community on WP:ANI (twice) and on WP:AN. Users other than TR (LevenBoy and LemonMonday) who are single purpose accounts that edit in this area raised two of these re-reviews for TR. This matter has been discussed and has community approval.
  TR's way back is to accept site policy, his restriction, and start editting accordingly. I already cautioned LemonMonday about "asking the other parent" in this regard and I believe TR should be warned accordingly too--Cailil 14:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Furthermore, TR is still under a civility restriction even if blocked. This comments are a personal attack, they also cast aspersions about me and assume bad faith, thus I request an uninvolved sysop review this please--Cailil 14:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Triton Rocker continues to blame others for getting him into the position he finds himself. Even today he repeated (in bold) that I had gone against sanctions when I edited at BSkyB. I will repeat here again so that he may understand, I am under NO sanctions at BISE. In addition he considers that my edit was wrong even though it is supported by references. Triton Rocker seem only to see in one colour and concentrates on the supposed motives of others rather than looking at his own. Since the block was imposed he has done nothing that makes me believe he has changed ways or even to consider that what he did was wrong. Bjmullan (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• According to the blocking admin, "The direct cause of the block was the line 'It takes no degree of intelligence or integrity to surmise that...'". While not civil, I don't think it rises to the level of a year block even given this users previous history of incivility. I looked at some of the users other edits from coming off the 2 month block to the present block and they don't look particularly bad. I support the original block, but reduced to time served or up to about a month. -Atmoz (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• A year block seems rather long; normally it would be a choice between indef (giving up on the editor ever being productive) or something shorter (time out to get perspective). So I'd figure 2 or 3 months, given a prior 1 month block. Rd232 15:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Comment from blocking admin From my perspective, the fundamental problem is that TR has thus far (to the best of my knowledge) refused to even acknowledge that the comments in question were uncivil. If he can't recognize that, how can he possibly avoid being uncivil in the future? This block is purely preventative in intent. Viewed as punishment, it is overkill, but it is not intended as punishment. If I saw any reasonable prospect that TR wouldn't quickly repeat the same sort of behavior after being unblocked, I would be entirely open to an unblock. Looie496 (talk) 16:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
  • If that's your position, it should really be an indef block (emphasising indefinite, not permanent). Rd232 16:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
    • The Arbcom sanctions only allow blocks of up to a year. An indef block would have to be made using a different process. Looie496 (talk) 18:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
      • This statement is contradictory to this where you state that "this is a community sanction rather than an Arbitration sanction". -Atmoz (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Gah, you're right of course. Sorry for the confusion. Looie496 (talk) 20:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support block Discussion of shortening it should be predicated on the editor's ownership of his own role in the issue. If he won't, a year or an indef block is a problem we may need to deal with next year, but not worth stressing over now. Jclemens (talk) 18:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• A year is too long. Agree with 2 or 3 months. The remarks made, whilst not civil, would probably not have been blockable in themselves had he not been under restrictions. Also agree with unblock if there was any sign of understanding why he was blocked. Fainites scribs 22:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• Retain block for at least three months. Triton's been blocked enough times already and is showing no sign of learning anything, as his constant efforts to portray his block as the fault of others shows. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Agree - in fairness to TR we should review this after 3 months from date of original block. If he a) accepts site policy and b) his restriction and c) demonstartes he'll move on and edit accordingly then we should unblock--Cailil 14:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

6 Month old legal threat?

I've got a bit of an issue. Seeing a political edit reverted (correctly, involving the race of a politician), I checked the editor's talk page to see if there were other such edits, if their contribs had anything else that needed reverting, etc. Usual vandal check. I found that they had several images deleted in May, and responded (on their own talk page) by telling editors to get off their back and give them equal opportunity to post their work, and that editors should "Check into it before I sue." Now, this is a clear legal threat - block-worthy, in my opinion. Ideally, they'd retract it and they'd be unblocked and that'd be that. But it's 6 months old - so does it matter? Do we still block, even now? Or do we take it as an editor blowing off steam and presume that they cooled off in 6 months, and we leave it at that? Or do I just warn? "Hey, this was bad, don't do it again" sort of thing. Any insight is welcome - not sure what to do here. Thanks. UltraExactZZ ~ Did 18:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"Hey, this was bad, don't do it again" sounds like a plan. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I think a polite reminder sounds appropriate rather than specifically making a warning that fully focuses on something that was said/done 6 months earlier. "Please be aware of NLT policy. This is just a reminder that it is important to comply with this policy. Users who make edits like this usually tend to be blocked from editing for the reasons stated in that policy, so it's best to avoid making edits like that in the future. (add more niceness)" Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Admin needed to look at this

There has been a very long discussion here: , someone is needed to go through this entire discussion and see if there is consensus. Its important that you look at the arguments. I believe there is consensus for Proposal 2, and that the majority support it. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

If you're looking for an univolved admin to close a contentious discussion, it would be best to post a pointer to the discussion without a mention of your own conclusion regarding it, which somewhat muddies the waters. Not that I think that admins aren't capable of making up their own minds, it's more a matter of good form. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

GBC Asset Management - a division of Pembroke Management

I would like to start a page for GBC Asset Management - a division of Pembroke Management and would like the help of an administrator. The Firm is one of the oldest in Canada and I find it strange that a page has not already been created... I have tried, but my attempts have not been up to par.

I would appreciate your assistance...

Best regards, Jack

http://www.pml.ca/# —Preceding unsigned comment added by A341672 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You can try submitting an article to Articles for creation. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 12:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Tidy up at WP:RESTRICT

Moved from a misplaced discussion at ANI. --TS 23:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I was quickly looking through the Editing Restrictions, and came across these "expired" restrictions. If there are no objections within 24 hours, I will remove them - otherwise I will go by the community discussion here:

User:House1090

Discussion on this restriction:

• Note: House1090 has been notified of this discussion -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

User:MyMoloboaccount (formerly User:Molobo)

Discussion on this restriction:

• Note MyMoloboaccount has been notified of this discussion -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no need for discussion of expired restrictions. Just remove them. --TS 23:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

... or archive them, as appropriate, of course. Expiration based on time is automatic. Jclemens (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• (puts on best Yul Brynner voice): "So let it be written. So let it be done." -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 03:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Fiction noticeboard proposed marking as historical

A discussion that may be of interest to administrators may be found at Misplaced Pages talk:Fiction/Noticeboard. The issue is regarding the noticeboard and whether or not it should be marked historical. Yes, I am going through all the noticeboards to check them out Netalarm 02:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Saltshaker time

Fire It Up (EP) has been deleted via AFD in October 2008 here (albeit under a differently-punctuated title) and again only a week later here. The current revision seems no better than the last two, and all three versions had the same author. Might I suggest that this be deleted again and salted? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 02:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I deleted it as a recreation because there is no more indication of notability now than there was the last two times, but two recreations in two years doesn't seem enough to justify salting, so I've left the name unprotected. --RL0919 (talk) 02:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad you made the call. I was tempted to decline the G4 and recommend AFD and then I took a look at the creator's talk page and contributions. He's been here since 2006 and has never said anything on in any talk space, just uploaded copyvios. I have zero sympathy for anybody who won't discuss their edits. Sort of reminds me of Brexx but at least he attempted to communicate. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Request for Administrator resolution of Gavin.collins RFC/U and other issues

The following request was based on a consensus of editors as discussed here

User:Gavin.collins (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been the subject of three user RfCs, one in October 2007, one in December 2008, and a more recent one that began in September 2010. Each RfC cited complaints with his interaction style, with many attempts to warn and reform Gavin in between. The recent RfC/U has reached a consensus that he is disruptive; several users (including Hiding) stated they have limited or ended their participation on Misplaced Pages due to Gavin's actions. He has a long history at AN/I and other noticeboards, and as the third RfC/U progressed, another AN thread was started, during which the community discovered that most of Gavin's substantive contributions to the main namespace clearly and directly violated the copyright policy. As a result of that discussion, Kww volunteered to mentor Gavin, but his efforts had no effect on Gavin's behavior and Kww thus discontinued his mentorship. The discussion on his third RfC/U ultimately established that there is consensus that his disruptive behavior cannot be addressed with warnings or requests for improvement, and instead need more serious sanctions.

Gavin.collins refuses to compromise in the consensus-building process, resulting in disruptive editing and gaming the dispute-resolution system. It is, of course, acceptable to hold an opinion that is shared by no one else (or by a minority of the other participants). But for such a minority viewpoint (see his one-man crusades on "WP:FICTION", "links in infoboxes" 1 (and 2), "notability of lists" 1 (and 2), and his first and second demands to ban a user (with admins' response)) his comments dominate the discussion and discourage other editors from participating. In discussions, Gavin.collins' tendentiousness and repetition of arguments ad nauseum impede progress on the development of solutions where consensus does, in fact, exist. Even after his point of view is rejected by the community, he still will not cooperate with efforts to find middle ground. This damages the community by causing editors to leave in frustration, eliminating their valuable input, and allowing disputes to continue for years unresolved.

See the RfC itself for a list of examples. Please also note that after the RfC reached equilibrium, two other incidents have occurred despite multiple warnings and the generous mentorship of Kww.

1. Refusing to accept consensus for notability of lists: There was a contentious RfC on lists, but there were a few issues where there was consensus. Shooterwalker spearheaded an effort with the other participants to summarize the few areas where there is a consensus on lists. After one week, Shooterwalker made a request to an uninvolved admin to close the discussion, but Gavin accused him of operating in bad faith. Gavin was admonished by FT2. Rather than helping to find areas of agreement, he returned to the RFC to push his own point of view and prevent closure. When he did not gain any support for his viewpoint, he tried once again to accuse Shooterwalker of operating in bad faith. The remaining participants defended the summary as accurate, but wasted time and energy dealing with one editor who should have understood the community's consensus.
2. Refusing to accept consensus on WP:OR and WP:COPYVIO: Gavin has an interpretation of WP:OR that is far outside the consensus and apparently inhibits his ability to edit article content without violating copyright. He believes that to summarize a source in your own words has a high probability of injecting original research, and this interpretation has caused him to repeatedly engage in significant verbatim copying from sources that result in copyright violations. Editors have tried to explain to him that he is welcome to his opinion, but that he must avoid acting as though such opinions are policy if he wishes to avoid being blocked again. Gavin interpreted this advice as a personal attack. Around the same time, Kww decided that mentoring Gavin would not be "fruitful".

In summary, Gavin refuses to make constructive compromises when his ideas are rejected by the community, and instead uses argument ad nauseum to stonewall and filibuster issues where there is otherwise a consensus. He insists his viewpoint is in fact policy and blames other editors for violating his one-man rules. When other editors point out that it is against Misplaced Pages rules to ignore the consensus and enforce one's own view of policy, he accuses other editors of bad faith. The consensus of the most recent RfC/U is that there is no other recourse but administrative action, possibly including a ban, the details of which are to be determined here.

On behalf of the participants in the RFC/U on user:Gavin.collins --Mike Cline (talk) 15:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Needless to say, I really can't add much to what is already in the statement except to note that the first admin who dropped by to close the RfC got so fed up with Gavin that he walked away from it (a fully understandable response). The next editor subsequently stated that he seriously contemplated just making the proposal to the Community directly. Seriously, I can count the number of editors who don't think Gavin is disruptive using one finger. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Very interesting - I had read the exchange between Gavin and BWilkins on Gavin's talk page, but I had not yet read Ncmvocalist's comments on his own talk page. Thanks for that. BOZ (talk) 16:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Just as an FYI, Ncmvocalist is not an admin. → ROUX ₪ 16:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  This is tendentious editing so the question is this: is the problem limited to certain topics or does it just comes part and parcel with all of his contributions to Misplaced Pages? If that's too difficult to answer, alternatively: when have his contributions not included tendentious disruptive editing? Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  You'll have to look at the RfC/U for all the details, but the consensus there was that the problem extends across both articles (due to copyvio issues) and policies (due to tendentious editing etc.). --Tryptofish (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I endorse the idea that Gavin is disruption. He hasn't responded to warnings, and has been uncooperative with friendly editors, RFCs, and now even a mentor. I'd hate to use a full ban on someone who hasn't gone completely postal. But there has to be some kind of restriction that tells him that he has to be more collaborative and accept community decisions if he wants to stay here. Or at least stay out of the decision-making process. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• I also endorse this summary, and I particularly make note of the fact that the mentorship of Gavin by Kww, that grew out of the previous AN discussion, resulted in Kww giving up on the possibility that mentorship would be productive. At this point, I think that some sort of a ban (I'm not sure about the specifics, but, regardless of duration, it would probably have to be a site ban rather than a topic ban) may be the only option. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I am not sure that this is an appropriate venue to disucss these issues at length, so I limit myself to a few points, as all of the issues have been discussed elsewhere at length. My understanding of the situation is that:

1. My interaction with other editors is extensive, but clear, reasonable and for the most part based on courtesy and respect, although this has been disputed at the recent RFC;
2. Hiding's decision to limit his involvement with Misplaced Pages is his own decision and is out of my control, but I bear no ill will or bad feeling towards him;
3. I reject the idea that I have ever engaged in stonewalling, intimidation, misrepresentation of any sort;
4. The copyright violations which I have carried out have some mittigating circumstances due to a misunderstanding on my part regarding the use verbatim citations, which I have previously explained, applogised and undertaken to make amends for.
5. In fairness to me, I have provided clear and precise citations, and this will assist with cleanup, which should take no more than several weeks to correct, on my own if need be. The copyright violations themselves are numerous, but involve relatively small amounts of text from multiple sources, and should be easy to correct;
6. Kww decision to withdraw his mentorship is his own, but it not clear why he withdrew his offer so soon and and at such short notice. My request for further clarification and advice going forward has been unanswered;
7. I am not aware many accusions of disruptive behaviour by editors such as postdlf, but I do beleive these accusations to be of a mainly rhetorical kind, designed to undermine me as an editor rather address the subject matter of the discussions we were engaged in;
8. I am not oblidged to conform with any ideas deemed to be "consensus" if they are seriously disputed, that are little more than the beliefs of a few editors whose views differ from my own, particularly when those ideas conflict with existing policies and guidelines and my own are supported by them. In any case, a dissenting viewpoint should always be tolerated, if not accepted, and I see no fault for any editor to hold a dissenting view;
9. I am being asked to participate in the ANI equivalent of a trial by ordeal, in which my absence from the discussions, as well as my partipation (and the writing of these points) will be taken to be evidence of guilt, lying or proof that the accusations against me must be true. At this point, I request that good faith be assumed, rather than using this discussion as an opportunity for mudslinging;
10. Lastly, I think it only right that editors (inclduding myself) should be allowed to particiate in discussions about policies and guidelines in an atmosphere of mutual respect and courtesy without the personal attack which have been leveled against me. If I have harmed or annoyed any editor, I do appologise now, and if there is any instance of where I have offended any editor, I am happy to appoligise again if asked on my talk page.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist further with this discussion. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 17:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Gavin has not attempted to edit any article to incorporate new material since the copyvio issue. He has stated that his concern is that unless he quotes verbatim, he cannot prove that something is not original research; however, in discussion over the copyvio issue (apologies that it's a whole section, but you have to see the thought process) he was advised that ascribed quotes should on the whole be avoided.Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• It should be noted that Gavin has had plenty of opportunity to work with the community in the previous RFC/Us and the ANI to resolve the issues but instead refused to participate, taking these as personal attacks, or requesting a much smaller venue (his talk page) to resolve one-on-one editor conflicts. I do not know whether he will participate now, but it is important that we've never prevented him from speaking his mind about his behavior. (Obviously, I support any admin action that is reasonable for Gavin's disruption). --MASEM (t) 16:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Ban/indef-block proposal?

There are two ways that the most restrictive measure can be imposed for tendentious editing of this nature. The first way is to site ban him as a community (he'd need to appeal to the community or ArbCom to return). The second way is to impose an indef block (an admin can unblock if he can satisfy that admin that he's resolved his issues). Thoughts? Please please please state your level of involvement (if any) with the user when commenting. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI - Banning Policy vs Blocking Policy --Mike Cline (talk) 16:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support either as proposer. I didn't comment in the RfC/U itself, but I did deal with procedural matters of formatting, closing the RfC/U, etc. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support either per proposer.   — Jeff G.  ツ 16:50, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban. I commented in the third RFC after interacting with him in the recent list RFC. I also helped review some of his edits for the copyright infringement investigation. It's those copyright infringements that turn this situation from one requiring a topic ban into a complete site ban. There simply is no benefit to allowing him to edit any longer. postdlf (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support Restrict, Oppose Indef Block, Tolerate Ban Hate to sound wishy washy here. Disclosure: I agree with Gavin on third-party sources, but Gavin has accused me of bad faith for asking him to moderate his other radical views (or at least accept that he can't enforce his views without a consensus). I don't want to ban him, because he isn't completely unhinged. But I see an indef block as fruitless, since Gavin will have plenty of abstract platitudes at his disposal. He can say he's trying to enforce (his view of) policy, and argue that (his view of) policy is on his side, and that he wants to work with other editors to reach a shared understanding of (his view of) policy. My first choice is to restrict Gavin's privileges to a narrow part of Misplaced Pages, where he can hopefully prove that he's actually capable of good work. (Not just convincing an admin that he will do good work in theory.) But if he's not capable of good work, we should skip the indef block and go straight for the ban. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support site ban. I commented in the third RfC after interacting with him in an AfD and on some policy page talk pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:45, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I support a full site ban for Gavin.collins. My first interaction with him was slightly over three years ago; I co-authored his second RFC/U, so my history with him is well-documented there. I have had virtually no interaction with Gavin since his prior RFC/U, and I find it disturbing that not only has his tenditiousness and lack of ability to cooperate with other user has continued, but apparently gotten worse over time. I was highly disappointed to see that he was conditionally unblocked upon his agreement to help clean up the mess he made with the copyright violations, but then offered absolutely no help in the cleanup efforts whatsoever. If you remove the copyright violations, template tagging, and deletion nominations from his article space edits, you are left with virtually nothing. What is left of his contributions amounts to thousands of edits to Misplaced Pages-space talk pages, and it is that which brought about his third RFC/U. Like everyone else, I would like to see Gavin become a productive contributor to the community, but I have no hope of such a dream being realized, and thus I feel this community is better off without him. BOZ (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support long-term community ban from entire site. An indef block is my second choice. By "long-term", I mean a minimum of one year. I've already done "patiently explain", and "assume good faith", and "last chance", and "unblock with (broken) promises". The community needs this disruption and copyright violation to stop. IMO a ban is the only reliable method of stopping the disruption. I've moved on to WP:COMPETENT: Not every person belongs at Misplaced Pages, because some people are not sufficiently competent. Good faith is necessary, but not sufficient.
  For those who want to consider gentler remedies, please note that the documented problems are: (1) copyright violations, (2) radical incomprehension of NOR, (3) article titles, (4) notability, (5) article deletion, (6) disruption of talk pages and noticeboards, (7) anything consensus-driven, and (8) pointy abuse of tags. So if you want to keep Gavin as an editor permitted to do things that haven't been a problem, please tell me what Gavin could do that doesn't involve either articles, templates, or any sort of discussions. As far as I can tell, what's left is the null set, but I'm willing to listen to a rational argument if someone has found a tiny corner that he hasn't already disrupted. Just plan to be concrete and specific: "Surely there's something..." isn't going to convince me, any more than "Surely some sources exist..." convinces me to keep an article of distinctly dubious notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support either per proposer. I commented on the RfC and previous AN thread. I've previously had a particularly fruitless argument with Gavin over the issue of foreign language sources which is related to his understanding of WP:OR as well as his two ban proposals cited in the statement posted by Mike Cline. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 16:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Collapsibility of the top of Recent changes

Hi. The collapsibility of the top of Recent changes is currently being discussed at MediaWiki talk:Recentchangestext#Collapsibility. I would appreciate your input. Thank you.   — Jeff G.  ツ 16:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards