Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive23

Anti-Wikipedia memo at a political e-zine

I found this alarming: [1].
I'm not sure yet whether to be relieved or disappointed that my name wasn't mentioned. Hopefully won't escalate to the level of Brandt v. WP. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 11:18, Jan. 2, 2006

• It seems like an Ashida Kim-esque ploy to try and get a keep vote on the related articles about themselves, since Wikipedians on average don't respond well to threats, particularly from fringe groups. karmafist 22:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

BOSS

Found a really sick rumor concerning The Boss. How do I ask this w/o ME getting reprimanded in any way,shape,etc. ? Martial Law 00:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I need help quashing this sick rumor. Martial Law 00:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Uhh, could you be more specific, please? And do you mean Bruce Springsteen or Jimbo Wales? android79 00:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Before you get specific, did you talk to the The Boss, first? Awolf002 00:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this anything to do with your "Jimbo is dead" remark on your userpage? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 00:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is the link I've seen on my way to this site:

British paper says Jimbo Wales Shot to death

I really hope this is a really sick rumor. If link is malfunctioning, go offsite. Martial Law 00:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I really hope that this is a sick rumor. Already quashed one concerning the Wonder Woman character. Martial Law 01:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Have him to contact me. I HATE these kinds of rumors. Hope he is OK. Martial Law 01:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• That article is satire. Nothing to see here, move along, folks. android79 01:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Lets clear this intersection people, so that things can get back to normal. Really appreciate the assisstance. Wikipedia should get a barnstar for quashing another rumor. Martial Law 02:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Did'nt mean to do that, trying to express my thanks. Martial Law 02:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Martial Law, that "article" was dated December 17. Jimmy has very clearly been spotted posting (alive, one would presume) since then. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Boy am I relieved. Give the boss my regards. Martial Law 04:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Awards

Who accepts awards for all of the Wikipedians, and how do I present them ? Wanted to present Wikipedia one earlier for assissting me in quashing one rumor. Can this be moved to my User page ? Martial Law 02:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• There was never any "rumor" that needed to be "quashed". I don't think you need to present Wikipedia with an award for quickly and correctly determining that Jimbo is, in fact, alive. android79 03:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Appreciate the assisstance. Martial Law 03:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Martial Law, do you know User:Maoririder? User:Zoe|^(talk) 04:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

No. I do not know this user at all. Anything I should know ? Martial Law 04:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Just saw a disturbing matter, and duly reported it. Cheers. :)

Again, I really do appreciate your help Wikipedians. Martial Law 04:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Bumpusmills1

He seems to be angry and have added his view points rant style onto various discussion pages. I removed them under WP:NOT, which appears to have been a mistake, and he's rather... angry. I'm going to hand this off before I mess it up worse. Also if someone feels I deserve reprimand, go ahead and say so.--Tznkai 05:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

See this diff and the resulting conversation for more about this user's beliefs about Wiki. He has some other attack-ish edits, telling users to shut their mouths and not to tell him what to do cuz they aren't half the man he is. (currently searching for 2nd diff). Threatens others that they best "BACK OFF"constantly. Other admins and users have tried to convince him of WP:NOT but he insists that this is a form of censorship. For full disclosure, I interacted with him at Talk:War on Christmas. -Scm83x 12:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

User seems to have apologized (sort of). --cesarb 13:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

User has been doing this for weeks, berating those who disagree with him and then claiming persecution when pointed to the rules on no personal attacks. -- Jbamb 15:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on Union City, New Jersey Article

Hi. The user Inmytown has been vandalizing the Union City, New Jersey page for some time now, and ignores all attempts at compromise, or even polite discussion, both on that article's Talk page and on his own Talk page. Please intervene. Thanks. Nightscream 21:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this type of thing is better put on WP:AIV. I could be wrong, but whenever I use that, things get done :-). JHMM13 (T | C) 21:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted: CFD

I'm just dropping a notice here that the two main people (yeah, sadly only two) that were taking care of WP:CFD are now both on a Wikibreak. I don't know what the deal is here, but CFD has virtually no one working on it now (ie closing discussions etc). I don't have the time and effort to babysit this again on a daily basis (as I and Rick Block did in December), nor does Rick apparently. Right now it has about 4 or 5 days of discussions to close, not counting the grunt work of renaming and deleting to be done from previous closed discussions. Any help from other admins would be much appreciated. K1Bond007 18:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I can help out but I don't know the nuts and bolts of the renaming process, contact me on my talk page or e-mail -- Samuel Wantman 11:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Potential sockpuppet: Phantasmo

Phantasmo (talk • contribs) - It's very likely that this user is a sockpuppet. The first two edits were to an AfD. Overall, the edits are relatively innocuous, but the instant familiarity with Wikipedia processes has my sockpuppet sensors running haywire. --Deathphoenix 21:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. Phantasmo's left a reasonable explanation on my talk page. I'm going to follow WP:AGF for now. --Deathphoenix 22:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion -- 12/23/05

There are a couple of AfDs still running from the 23rd, including one for Mahabone I voted on. Anybody in a closing mood at the moment? :-)--SarekOfVulcan 22:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'll do it now. Harro5 22:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Gracias. I hate loose ends...--SarekOfVulcan 22:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Finished. No more Art Vandelay :( Harro5 23:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

User:JesseW and no source

Recently JesseW reverted my adding of no source to Image:Jainism logo.png. Now, I am not exactly sure of his reasoning other than thinking that the interwiki was the source (it is in fact not, as they got it from EN) so I reverted. It has no source only an assertion of it being a logo. Reading over his contributions I see that he has been doing it to a bunch of other seals/logos. I just want this clarified since another wheel war will not serve this place too well. The same basic idea on this image. Images, just because they are logos, does not mean they are sourced... does it? Thanks. gren グレン 08:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

(Note that he sourced the image and then I changed it. My issue was the idea as a whole. It may be moot since he seemed to relinquish claims and gave a source when I contested) gren グレン 08:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Content dispute, resolve through article talk. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 09:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Suspected open proxies

The following IPs from which edits have recently occured are suspected of being open proxies based on their inclusion in one or more dnsbls - please verify before blocking

• 24.34.187.92
• 60.48.204.145
• 61.95.146.74
• 62.254.189.225
• 67.79.197.194
• 67.98.183.77
• 81.118.248.170
• 156.17.130.10
• 195.210.215.120
• 195.229.241.180
• 195.229.241.181
• 200.27.3.25
• 203.197.126.115
• 203.197.126.115
• 210.213.230.15
• 211.28.238.209
• 220.247.240.132

Triona 14:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

List of Netflix distribution centers

List of Netflix distribution centers has been up for deletion since the 23rd (so I guess the voting should be ended anyway) but thanks to a few links from Netflix fan sites, the page has experienced an influx of un-logged in users and brand new accounts that are voting 'Do Not Delete' as per instructions from the sites. I'm not sure if there's a consensus to delete because of all the invalid votes. Is there any precident for semi-protecting an AfD? If this gets renominated, I think it could use it.. -Vastango 08:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I have closed the debate as a no consensus keep.--Sean|Black 08:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Wait a sec? So a bunch of sockpuppets can get articles closed as no consensus-keep now? FCYTravis 21:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I count 15 delete votes and 6 keep votes. If I don't get an objection, I'm going to delete the article. Sockpuppets do not equal consensus. FCYTravis 21:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

so wait, you're counting 6 keep votes? I see 8 by people with actual handles and edit histories, plus at least two by IPs with edit histories. I'm fully aware that sock/new IP votes aren't regarded as highly as established Wikipedian votes, but certainly we're not counting 15/borderline 10 as a clear consensus for deletion. At the very most, the second AfD should have been allowed to run its course, but certainly this is more than a little hasty in your counting. --badlydrawnjeff 03:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? Please don't do that: Those 6 keep votes are borderline, I'll admit, but it's enough- if you want it deleted, feel free to re-nominate it and I won't go comment, but please don't just go over my head like that.--Sean|Black 21:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

You're letting sockpuppets win the vote, and that's bad for Wikipedia. If you're going to close deletion debates full of meatpuppetry, don't just look at a bunch of meatpuppet DO NOT DELETES obviously farmed in from a forum and go "oh there must be no consensus." Take the time to count real Wikipedians. 15 to 6 is not no-consensus, that's a delete. It's not "going over your head," it's complying with deletion policy and being WP:BOLD. FCYTravis 21:44, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

If only there were some method of reviewing contested AFD closures... Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 22:39, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT a bureaucracy and I refuse to make this process any more stupidly lengthy than it has to be. FCYTravis 22:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a ridiculous close. Take it to DRV if you really must, but there is clear provision there for the closing admin to simply correct their mistake. -Splash^talk 22:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I am beginning to believe that it is soon going to be impossible to delete any list at all, however obviously unencyclopaedic. Look at list of SWIFT codes - there are over 17,000 potential entries to that list, of which just over 300 are listed - which is rather less than my quick count of the number that changed in the December update published on the BIC website. There is an authoritative online lookup tool linked in SWIFT code, and people still said "keep, useful list" for this randomly selected list of under 2% of codes, with absolutely no guarantee of accuracy. I have not the words. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 22:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, in my view, the way it is set up now is that what the consensus (and rather if there is not a consensus to delete) of people deem useful stays. Note the emphasis on useful - as it may not be one's definition of encyclopedic - of course, everyone's definition of the word seems slightly different. That's why I'm slightly surprised List of Netflix distribution centers was actually deleted (or should have been, but that's another story). WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 23:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

FYI, I renominated it. Hopefully the bloggers won't link to the new discussion now. -Vastango 01:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. I wish people would leave a message on my talk page if you disagreed, instead of just posting that it's "ridiculous" here. I don't care, do whatever you want. It doesn't matter to me.--Sean|Black 00:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, it's deleted, because I was wrong the first time. I still would have appreciated a message on my talk page instead of all this, but the matter is settled.--Sean|Black 01:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

For the record, although I linked to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Netflix distribution centers, I did NOT give instructions how to vote. If you check, you'll see that I registered with Wikipedia and voted to delete, so I feel mischaracterized by your comments regarding "sockpuppets." Please be nice by avoiding ad hominem attacks in future discussions, in keeping with Don't Bite the Newbies. RosieCotton 15:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Anon autoblocked

While in the CVU's IRC channel, a user inserted a link to an anon user's talk page User talk:68.48.82.180 who is claiming to be autoblocked, here is the block log for this IP. I went back through the block logs and I can not find where this IP is blocked. Any help will be most welcome. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 01:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

User's IP addresses, for privacy, are not displayed in the block log when they are autoblocked. Looking in Special:Ipblocklist, I found this entry: "00:04, January 4, 2006, Pathoschild blocked #76283 (expires 00:04, January 5, 2006) (Unblock) (Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Vipsta". The reason given for Vipsta's block is: "vandalism-only account".)", and unblocked it. Hopefully this will clear it up. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help Knowledge Seeker! I should tell him that we are not related though. lol :-D KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 02:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Deleting (not merely blanking) one's own user page

As some of you may already know Mikkalai appears to have quit Wikipedia, mostly related to some conflicts (most of which he seems not to want to characterize as conflicts) with several Romanian contributors. It is not clear yet whether his departure is permanent.

On his "way out the door" he deleted the entire history of his user page. For the moment, in this case, I think it is best left that way: from remarks he's made on his talk page, I think that leaving things lie for a while is the most likely course for him to possibly come back. However, this got me wondering: in general, is it acceptable for an admin to remove the history of their user page? I'm a little concerned about the precedent; especially if he does come back, I would hope that would be restored. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally support deleting userpages, since it's a helpful sign on comments when the name comes in as a redlink that something has changed in the user's status. I oppose deleting talk pages. Phil Sandifer 04:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

What Phil said. Admins can delete others' talk pages, but only on request, and only if they judge there's nothing potentially relevant/needed there. An admin probably isn't in a position to make that judgement about his/her own talk page, but could make the request of another admin with {{d}}. -- SCZenz 04:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree; I think that it is acceptable for an administrator to delete his own user page, as he should be the only substantial contributor to it. Talk pages may be blanked but should not be deleted; neither by the administrator nor by a colleague, in my opinion, unless some consensus to make an exception is reached here (or some similar process). — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Talk pages contain valuable information and important discussions. I suppose one could take it to WP:MFD if they feel strongly, however.--Sean|Black 05:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Knowledge Seeker here. User pages aren't a big deal; talk pages are. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

A regular user can't delete their user page/talk page to show that they are pissed, admins shouldn't do it either. And slapping a {{d}} on it would only be ok if no one else had ever edited that page. Blanking should be good enough. - brenneman^(t)(c) 05:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously there are only certain users who are respected and trusted enough byt the community to be able to delete their own user pages! :-) Dmcdevit·t 05:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

See WP:CSD#User pages.--Sean|Black 05:23, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'd actually looked at that, but the use of "subpage" threw me and I hadn't hovered over it to see it didn't actually refer to a subpage. That words (but not the link) appear to apply to User:Foo/Some other thing but not to User:Foo. In any event, the over-arching "General" would seem to override this little section, no? - brenneman^(t)(c) 05:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It says that the main userpage can be deleted, too. And why would the general section override it?--Sean|Black 05:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I think it's a childish attention-grabber. But there's no sense in making a rule against it. Mikkalai is not, by the way, a precedent. Off the top of my head, RickK did it I believe, as well as Mav, Seth Ilys, and (yesterday even) Snowspinner, and plenty more I'm sure. Dmcdevit·t 05:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Grunt, Essjay (although both are back) and several others as well.--Sean|Black 05:37, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Years ago a user did it and was de-adminned for it. Deleting talk pages is a big no no in my view. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 09:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Moving a talk page can have almost the same effect as deleting it. Doing so turns the unarchived pagelink red again, effectively clears the apparent edit history, and makes the moved talk page hard to find unless it's clearly linked somewhere. Yet I believe that moving talk pages to archive them is an accepted practice. -Will Beback 18:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, since moving creates a redirect, it's not that big of a problem. If one deletes the redirect, then you can still find it in the move log or, if you're an admin, looking at the page's history/revisions in Special:Undelete. Blackcap (talk) 19:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but those are not steps that one would ordinarily engage in when placing a warning on a user talk page. Unless someone already knew that there was a previous talk page there'd be no reason to suspect that it had been moved. -Will Beback 00:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, that's true. When I'm placing warnings (i.e. {{test}}, {{test2}}, {{test3}}, etc.) on a userpage, I almost always check the history to see if anything funny's been happening. Usually it's nothing, but occasionally old messages will have been messed with or removed entirely. No real way around that one, sadly (I don't think, anyway). Blackcap (talk) 15:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:User browser:Firefox

Can an admin please lock this page, I do not care what version it is. I am sick of the ongoing revert war and moves creating triple/quadruple redirects etc. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 11:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Protected until the lame edit war is resolved on talk. --Doc ^ask? 16:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Request to remove threatening use of personal info from page history

User:Bumpusmills1 is a new user whom I have worked with in an attempt to teach him Wikipedia guidelines, manners, and so on. To his credit he is trying to learn. Unfortunately, he was a bit abrasive at first and stirred up some vandals and such, including anonymous editors User:68.45.146.191, User:199.216.98.66 and User:216.13.219.229 who placed User:Bumpusmills1's personal contact info on User:Bumpusmills1's user page and threatened him. (Examples of these threats are [2] and [3], although there are more examples in the history.) It appears these anonymous users are sock puppets.

To cut to the chase, User:Bumpusmills1 e-mailed me and asked me to remove this info b/c he fears for his safety and the safety of his family. As a temporary measure I deleted his user page then recreating it, thus making the history with the contact info only available to admins. I have also blocked thse anonymous users for one month because of this threat. Is there a way to remove the deleted history pages with User:Bumpusmills1's personal information on it so no one can view it? Also, can anyone help me figure out if these anonymous users are a Wikipedia editor (which is highly likely) and identify them? Thanks. --Alabamaboy 16:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Only a developer can completely wipe an edit, and they don't normally do so. -Splash^talk 16:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding checking the users to see whether they are a wikipedia editor, you can ask any member in the Arbcom committee for them to do a checkuser with the ip. --Eliezer | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 16:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that's not true. An admin can delete the entire article, then restore only selected edits, thus keeping the contested edits out of the history. But if there are a lot of edits, a very labor-intensive operation. User:Zoe|^(talk) 22:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think what Splash means is that only a dev can completely remove an edit, i.e. wipe it from the database, gone from both the eyes of regular editors and sysops, which is true. Blackcap (talk) 15:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm good for undeleting only Bumpusmills1's contributions to his user page (prolly easiest to avoid the personal info edits), as there is precedent for that...but per Splash and you, an admin could still go and look at the unrecovered edit summaries. So treat this note as a vote towards consensus for restoring the page without the bad edits in the history if you want to do that. --Syrthiss 17:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone. I'll probably just do as Syrthiss says. Best,--Alabamaboy 17:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Return of persistent anon vandal

User:69.12.152.174 (=User:scharf.steven, or Steven M Scharf, or SMS) has no edit history other than reversion to a POV version of Bicycle lighting by a former small-scale manufacturer of rechargeable lights who styles himself "one of Earth's leading experts on bicycle lighting". Note timing of vandalism on the article and timing of this Usenet post to a thread in which Scharf is active: [4].

A 48-hour block was put in place last time, I believe this is a static IP and it's certainly got no other edit history, so what are the chances of a permanent block as damage-limitation? Last time the vandal carried of for a week or more, using various dynamic IPs as well, which I and others will have to watch for and revert, but this one at least should be fixable. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 20:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thinking about it, semi-protection would also work. - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] AfD? 21:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this OK?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sunfazer - on my userpage I have created forks which are linked from my userpage for creation of template designs?

Is this allowed within userspace on Wikipedia? --Sunfazer 22:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see what the problem could be. Generally, if no one complains, it's OK, and if it's helping you write the encyclopedia, it's a good idea. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 22:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I created http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User:Sunfazer/FictitiousUsers_for_testing_templates - is that permitted in userspace? --Sunfazer 23:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so, as that's no longer in your userspace. See how the link doesn't begin with User, instead beginning with Category? That means that it's in the category space, and isn't part of your user area anymore. Why don't you just create that as a subpage, such as User:Sunfazer/FictitiousUsers for testing templates? That would be fine. Blackcap (talk) 15:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Threats from a blocked user

Anybody have any suggestions on how to stop constant death threats and insults posted to my talk page over the last few weeks from banned Dacodava (talk · contribs)? He has threatened me a number of times, and shows no signs of stopping: [5], [6], [7], from various anonymous IPs (85.186.186.5, 82.77.7.133, 82.77.7.161). I banned Dacodava originally, and then blocked each IP temporarily, but I don't know how to stop this. His behavior is extremely unpleasant, and discouraging, and is a good argument about people using their real identities on Wikipedia. Can anyone help me solve this problem? --Goodoldpolonius2 00:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Addresses 82.77.7.0 - 82.77.7.255 are assigned to Imagine Cablu Onesti, Bacau / Romania. Maybe you can contact their abuse line:

| ABUSE CONTACT: abuse@rdsnet.ro IN CASE OF HACK ATTACKS, |

| ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, VIOLATION, SCANS, PROBES, SPAM, ETC. |

Give them the date and time of the attacks and links to the edits. User:Zoe|^(talk) 00:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Worth a try, but I can't recall them ever caring even when they have whole /16 netblocks hijacked by spammers. --GraemeL ^(talk) 01:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

85.186.186.5 is also a Romanian address, Astral Telecom in Cluj-Napoca, abuse address abuse@astral.ro -- Arwel (talk) 02:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Minor edit text

Is it just me or is the minor edit text appearing as "This is a [[Wikipedia:Minor edit|minor edit]]"? enochlau (talk) 04:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That's my fault for not checking sufficiently before making changes (and for those who attempted in the past not leaving appropriate experimental results). You'll find that you sometimes get this, and sometimes don't and it probably depends on server caches not being up-to-date. See my talk page and MediaWiki talk:minoredit for more info on what was attempted and what happened. jnothman ^talk 04:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:1911

The text of this template is grammatically incorrect; a better phrasing would be something like...

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.

That way, it's a correct use of an appositive and not a incorrect use of a comma separating a prepositional phrase from the rest of its sentence.

~Topaz^♪♫∆ 11:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have changed it per your suggestion. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 11:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Im back

This is User:Hollow Wilerding back again. --Hollows Wilerding 11:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked this account for ten million months. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Namr.

Looks like a freeper has decided to make him/herself known, and a nusiance. The contributions [8] are less than promising Please keep an eye out.--Tznkai 08:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You might want to add Siegenthaler2 (talk · contribs) to your Freeper Watch list. Yes, it's early, but he's showing potential. --Calton | Talk 14:23, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Calton, I suggest you back down [9] lets give him a chance to apologize. If he doesn't, I'll ask an admin to ban him for making legal threats.--Tznkai 18:51, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't back down from thugs, bullies, and fanatics -- unless they're heavily armed thugs, bullies, and fanatics -- and I'm not about to start. --Calton | Talk 09:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I meant you had no reason to get further involved, as he was about to dig himself into a hole anyway, and give him the thirty seconds he deserves to jump out and apologize.--Tznkai 17:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a general reminder to classify the Freeper's as newbiews with strong positions, not conservative vandals. The ones who are willing to jump through the same hoops the rest of us got here (following policy) deserve to stay.

The vandals, lets go ahead and slap em down, but keep it clear that its their violations of civility conduct, not because we disagree (if we do) with their opinions. (The chinese word for crisis, contains the symbol for opportunity after all)--Tznkai 18:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

On the other hand, Siegenthaler2 would be a violation of the username policy as it assumes the name of a well-known figure in the news (unless it's actually Siegenthaler). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone beat you too it.--Tznkai 19:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Libsmasher (talk · contribs) Seems we have another--172.172.197.68 18:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

This one is old, and probably not a Freeper--Tznkai 18:30, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Bogdanov Affair

Me, Igor and Grichka are satisfied with the Wikipedia article and want it unprotected. Igor wishes to come back with a new account so he can edit Wikipedia! Thank you for your time. --MatthewBogdanov 13:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't look possible at this time...[10]--MONGO 13:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, Igor has promised to become a Wikipedia contributor and he is satisfied with the article so unprotect it. --MatthewBogdanov 13:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Uh, logical contradiction there: if he's satisfied with the article, why does he want it unprotected? --Calton | Talk 15:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The page is not going to be unprotected. If you want it unprotected, ask User:Fred Bauder. He semi protected it and he's a member of the arbcom, who made the decision to block users involved in the Bogdanov affair. Ask him. I don't see an admin overruling Fred anytime soon. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 17:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

And btw, try again. For one thing, Igor is more than welcome to start an account and edit Wikipedia. The problem is that he only edits the Bogdanov Affair article, which he cannot do according to the arbcom decision on this case. He has not been banned for life. The protection of BA does not stop him from starting an account and becoming a real Wikipedia editor. So in other words, we don't have to unprotect BA in order for him to get an account and edit Wikipedia as a real contributor. So this request is a naked attempt for him to get access to the article again. That ain't going to happen until the arbcom changes it's mind. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 18:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Need help

I have found a User who has been criminally attacked. How do I help this User w/o being reprimanded in ANY shape, form, etc. ? He has been criminally attacked repeatedly by a racist group on Wikipedia itself. Martial Law 20:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean physically attacked? Is this in reference to the message you just left on my talk page? If so, please forward details (and even if its not, please also send details). E-mail info if needed.--Alabamaboy 20:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The polite version is this:" Until you leave Wikipedia, We will continue to harrass you.", then these people left their contact info. Martial Law 20:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I was only responding to a Wikipedian who had need of assisstance. Appreciate the help. Martial Law 21:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It appears to me that the harrasser didn't post their own contact information, but rather User:Bumpusmills1's parents contact info. Now according to Bumpusmills1 his parents have received at least one piece of harrassing mail. At this point, it seems appropriate to me to try to track down the harrassers via their ISP(s), if possible. This type of harassment is way out of line. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I asked several users with Checkuser rights to compare the ISP numbers of these anonymous users. However, obviously this new info jacks up the seriousness of all of this. The ISPs of the people (or person) doing this are 68.45.146.191 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 199.216.98.66 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and 216.13.219.229 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Any admin who has checkuser rights--please run a check and see if this is a Wikipedia editor doing this. Thanks.--Alabamaboy 00:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Ask anyone on the Arbcom: the ones that spring to mind are Fred Bauder, Raul654, Mindspillage, Neutrality, Jdforrester, and Jayjg. Blackcap (talk) 01:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The last two have no edits or contributions (I don't see how you got them) but 68.45.146.191 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is probably GNAA_Staos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who did this edit [11] earlier. Fred Bauder 01:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for the help. Do you think this warrants blocking the user for a time (or is the evidence not strong enough)? I believe so but I'd prefer to have other opinions on this, especially for how long a block?--Alabamaboy 01:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Do him for a month like the socks then see whether he can still get in Fred Bauder 01:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks again.--Alabamaboy 01:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked for one month GNAA_Staos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), the user who has been using the 68.45.146.191 IP, for harassment and gross vandalism; in addition to the harassment of User:Bumpusmills1, he's responsible for some pretty dastardly vandalism of other articles. The reason why no edits appear for the other two IPs is that all of their edits were deleted when Alabamaboy deleted Bumpusmills1's user page. Unfortunately, there's no way to know if GNAA Staos was using those IPs, although I doubt it as his IPs are on the US East Coast and the other two are both located in or around Vancouver, BC. Kelly Martin (talk) 01:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The edits of the other ISPs were on Bumpusmill1's user page. Admins can access the deleted edits here [12] if they want to check the edits out. All of the ISPs, though, made the same vandalism and threat so they're likely one person. BTW, I deleted and recreated Bumpusmill1's user page at his request so regular users wouldn't have access to his personal contact info. Best,--Alabamaboy 02:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that deleting the edits removes the IP edit history (meaning we can't find the underlying IP from which a logged in editor made the edit). I don't know if the IPs are restored when the edits are undeleted; perhaps a developer can answer that. (As an aside: it would be really nice if CheckUser searched deleted edits, too.) Kelly Martin (talk) 02:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Didn't know that. Thanks for the info. The user was frantic about removing his personal info and that was the only way to do it short of bring a developer into the game (which seemed unlikely). Just for future reference, should I have deleted the old page to remove the personal info? Seemed like there was no good choice. Best,--Alabamaboy 14:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Short block is inappropriate, extended to indefinite Fred Bauder 02:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

No argument from me. Kelly Martin (talk) 02:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Ditto.--Alabamaboy 02:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Markup bugs

The source codes of {{Did you know}} and {{In the news}} are missing final </div> tags. Please an administrator fix this (just add <div> to the end of the source codes of each template), since this is causing problems when I am trying to switch Wikipedia:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page/Draft to use a div-based layout instead of a table-based layout. Infinity0 ^talk 21:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. :) Always glad to help make Wiki's HTML more compliant. --Golbez 22:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Acct creation throttle hit

I, with help from Mark, changed the text on MediaWiki:Acct creation throttle hit to be more friendly and easy to read. I left a note on the talk page, which had not been acted upon for some time, so I went ahead and was bold, but I'm not sure if I'm correct in this. I said that a sysop could temporarily raise the number of accounts allowed per IP, but I'm not sure this is correct. Are Bureaucrats/Stewards allowed? Are admins? Is anyone (besides, I'm guessing, devs) allowed to change the number? Any help would be greatly appreciated. -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 02:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I certainly don't have a button to do that. -Splash^talk 02:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Neither do I... which is why I'm concerned. I saw Rdsmith4 reverted it, but it would be nice to have something like this, but oh well, Bugzilla is swamped as-is, sadly... -Mysekurity^{(have you seen this?)} 03:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Template:Welcome

(moved to Template talk:Welcome —Cryptic (talk) 09:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC))

3RR violation at John Kerry

Gamaliel violated the 3RR rule at John Kerry today. Here are the diffs:

1. 05:19, 5 January 2006 - [13]
2. 05:23, 5 January 2006 - [14]
3. 09:03, 5 January 2006 - [15]
4. 02:54, 6 January 2006 - [16]
5. 08:18, 6 January 2006 - [17]

He's an admin so I don't want to tangle with him, but something should be done. If you study the reverts he made, they were clearly made against non-vandal edits. For this reason, Gamaliel should not be allowed to flaunt the 3RR simply because he's pushing his own preferred text instead.

Requests like these belong at our special 3 revert rule noticeboard, not here. Thanks. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 11:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

North Carolina vandal

After a quiet period, this extremely persistent vandal ("Remington and the Rattlesnakes", "Regara", Luxembourg, etc etc etc) has become active again and completely unmanageable. He mechanically creates dozens of socks one after another, switches to a different article whenever his current target is sprotected, and so forth.

The only solution is a long-term block of the 63.19.128.0/17 address range, which I have now applied. Unfortunately, there is at least one other user, User:ElAmericano who is affected by this.

The only other possible solution is to contact his ISP and get them to do something.

The published contact information for abuse reports for this IP range is:

Phone: +1-800-900-0241

E-mail: abuse-mail@mci.com

The IP and timestamp information we can provide to them is:

IP address: 63.19.219.212

Timestamp: 19:48 EST (United States Eastern Standard Time), 31 December 2005

IP address: 63.19.143.3

Timestamp: 19:43 EST (United States Eastern Standard Time), 31 December 2005

Note this is the same person, and these are just the latest two of thousands of other examples over many months.

This person simply will not quit. I had a conversation with him back in September [18] in which he seemingly promised to stop (and in fact he did go quiet for a while), but obviously it hasn't worked.

Meanwhile, our fundraising proudly boasts that we are now a "top 30" website, but what use is this? If all this means is an ever-increasing server bill, then it's simply a liability. Apparently it doesn't translate into any kind of clout when it comes to dealing with ISPs and getting them to rein in their problem users. If frequent range blocks are the only answer, then so be it.

-- Curps 23:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, blocking is a no no if we lose even one good editor as a result of an IP ban. If not policy, thats certainly my advice--Tznkai 23:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Please describe another way of dealing with this vandal. Be specific. And while you're at it, please pick up the phone and call the abuse contact number and give them the two pieces of IP+timestamp information (there are literally hundreds if not thousands of other examples, but these two should be enough for them to identify the person). -- Curps 23:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Curps, look at your talk page! Something unexpected has happened.... --69.57.177.138 01:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

-- User:G4sxe Curps has blocked me and I do not know why. I cannot find any way to email him. G4sxe 16:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)G4sxe

I see no block of your username. If it's for the North Carolina vandal range, it's now unblocked (Did you contact the ISP abuse number and e-mail listed above? They should listen to their own customer). -- Curps 16:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I am new to Wikipedia, as you probably know. I do not even know what an ISP number is. Anyway, if Iam not blocked then fine. Thanks for your reply.G4sxe 16:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)G4sxe

-- User:G4sxe I am still blocked. It says that my IP address is 195.93.21.72 and that I should include this along with my user name, in any queries. It says you can email Curps, but I can not find a way to do this. G4sxe 17:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)g4sxe It also says that myIP address has been recently used by Calcfc77 who is bocked for vandalism. Perhaps that is the problem?G4sxe 17:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)G4sxe

That's an AOL IP address, it has nothing to do with the North Carolina vandal (this section). When a registered username is blocked, the underlying IP address is autoblocked. The blocking admin has no way of knowing what that IP address or ISP is, for privacy reasons... we have no way of knowing if a registered username like User:Calcfc77 is an AOL address or not, and it shouldn't make a difference anyway. Indefinite autoblocking of underlying AOL IP addresses is a misfeature of the Mediawiki software... you can try complaining to the developers, but there's nothing that admins can do about it (and there's no way for us to even know about it). -- Curps 17:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am with AOL. I will have to accept that I will be blocked from time to time. Sorry for barging into the North Carolina thing, but there was no other way I could find you. Thanks for your help. Regards. G4sxe 17:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)G4sxe

We need some way to recognize and mark "users in good standing" who would not be affected by blocks of underlying IPs (this would require a software change). However, this would need to be done manually, not automatically by mere passage of time... that would be a bit labor intensive to be sure, but everything else here is labor intensive (RC patrol, replying to people who get hit by collateral damage). Just like bureaucrats can set a flag to make a user an admin, admins should have the ability to set a flag to make a registered user a "user in good standing" who would not be affected by underlying IP autoblocks.

Failing that, the Mediawiki software should internally recognize when an underlying IP address is an AOL address and adjust the autoblock length accordingly. Only the software can do that, admins can't and as mentioned earlier have no way of even knowing. -- Curps 17:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

This is something I've wanted for a long time- the ability to log into an account even when your IP is banned. I would greatly like to edit through Tor or a similar anonymizing network, but I can't even so much as log in and edit, which seems rather pointless and unfair. --maru (talk) Contribs 18:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to plug bugzilla:3706, which would do exactly what you just asked for (to be able to mark some users as exempt from IP blocks). --cesarb 19:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I have just looked at the list of currently blocked IP addresses and User names. It says that at 16.02 Curps blocked Calcfc77 (infinite).

Does that mean that I will never be able to edit again. I cannot even edit my own user page. So how come I can edit this page?G4sxe 19:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)G4sxe

AOL's proxies are weird. They use different IP addresses when you are editing different pages. If you post here the information on the message that shows when you get a blocked error (we need at least the IP address and the complete block reason), we can unblock the IP address. --cesarb 20:41, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Image:Stop hand.png looks damaged

Can someone restore the transparent version of this image? It seems to have damaged the following templates:

• {{NPOV}}

• {{POV-check}}

• {{Totallydisputed}}

Can someone look into this for me?

(Note: These templates are not directed at this article! They are examples!!) --Sunfazer 14:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. They're all using the new SVG image at Image:Stop hand.svg. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Locke, the PNG version looked better on them - when it was the transparent version. --Sunfazer 14:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It may be your web browser is the problem: I suspect Wikipedia is converting the SVG into a 24-bit transparent PNG. On Internet Explorer, 24-bit transparent PNG's aren't fully supported, and are usually drawn with a neutral background (instead of being blended correctly). I'd suggest getting Mozilla Firefox, or Internet Explorer 7 when it's released (if it's released for pre-Vista users, anyways). —Locke Cole • t • c 14:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The "IE is broken, get Firefox" defense is correct in theory-- but when 85% of the internet is using IE, it's just not practical. Coffee 19:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

A good way to deal with it would be to add a new "background" parameter to the image transclusion syntax. If it's present, create a non-transparent image with that color as the background; if it's not present, create a transparent image as is currently done. --cesarb 21:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

If that is the case, then all of the templates that use the stophand need to be the same color, so nothing funky will happen when I upload the new copy. But feel free to revert the changes I have done to the image. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 23:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

No, the idea is to specify the background when including the image, for instance [[Image:Stop hand.svg|background=#ffffff]]. --cesarb 00:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I did not know about that trick at all. Thanks for telling me. Zach ^{(Smack Back) Fair use policy} 09:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a simple hack to fix PNG transparency in IE:

<public:component lightWeight="true">
<public:attach event="onpropertychange" onevent="propertyChanged()" />
<public:attach event="onbeforeprint" onevent="beforePrint()" for="window"/>
<public:attach event="onafterprint" onevent="afterPrint()" for="window"/>
<script>

/*
 * PNG Behavior
 *
 * This script was created by Erik Arvidsson (http://webfx.eae.net/contact.html#erik)
 * for WebFX (http://webfx.eae.net)
 * Copyright 2002-2004
 *
 * For usage see license at http://webfx.eae.net/license.html
 *
 * Version: 1.02
 * Created: 2001-??-??	First working version
 * Updated: 2002-03-28	Fixed issue when starting with a non png image and
 *                      switching between non png images
 *          2003-01-06	Fixed RegExp to correctly work with IE 5.0x
 *          2004-05-09  When printing revert to original
 *
 */

var supported = /MSIE ((5\.5)|[6789])/.test(navigator.userAgent) &&
				navigator.platform == "Win32";

var realSrc;
var blankSrc = "IMAGES/blank.gif";
var isPrinting = false;

if (supported) fixImage();

function propertyChanged() {
	if (!supported || isPrinting) return;

	var pName = event.propertyName;
	if (pName != "src") return;
	// if not set to blank
	if (!new RegExp(blankSrc).test(src))
		fixImage();
};

function fixImage() {
	// get src
	var src = element.src;

	// check for real change
	if (src == realSrc && /\.png$/i.test(src)) {
		element.src = blankSrc;
		return;
	}

	if ( ! new RegExp(blankSrc).test(src)) {
		// backup old src
		realSrc = src;
	}

	// test for png
	if (/\.png$/i.test(realSrc)) {
		// set blank image
		element.src = blankSrc;
		// set filter
		element.runtimeStyle.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft." +
					"AlphaImageLoader(src='" + src + "',sizingMethod='scale')";
	}
	else {
		// remove filter
		element.runtimeStyle.filter = "";
	}
}

function beforePrint() {
	isPrinting = true;
	element.src = realSrc;
	element.runtimeStyle.filter = "";
	realSrc = null;
}

function afterPrint() {
	isPrinting = false;
	fixImage();
}

</script>
</public:component>

Thought i'd bring this to your attention.  ALKIVAR™ 15:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Jim16 re: User talk:66.17.116.148

This user Jim16 (talk · contribs) informed me I owed 66.17.116.148 (talk · contribs) an apology. I reviewed the situation and found such a request to be in bad faith... and that Jim16 has made a significant number of user talk edits recently; specifically pretending they were not aware of the vandalism they caused. It may be necessary to conduct a CheckUser in this situation. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

This and this edits (among other) suggest it's the same person. -- KTC 03:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Pitchka and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia

Pitchka (talk · contribs) has recently removed certain comments made by himself/herself from Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia [19]. I reverted the removal with an admittedly testy edit summary [20]. Pitchka then came back and re-removed the same comments [21]. I reverted the removal once again and protected the page.

On the one hand, Pitchka is simply removing comments that brush pretty heavily up against WP:NPA.

On the other hand, the discussion was closed over a week ago, and the text "Please do not modify it" is written in bold, red text at both the top and the bottom of the archive, which is why I have reverted his/her edits and protected the page.

My fellow admins are cordially invited to review my actions, and revert them if sufficient cause is found.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 00:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

My view is that you're right, if it's a closed debate no changes should be made. If those comments violate NPA the user should never have made them in the first place. NSLE _(T+C) 00:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Gulzarres

... has decided to go around replacing people's talk pages or user pages with the "defban" template, saying "you have been blocked for posting potentially defamatory..." etc. etc. Michael Hardy 00:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Ditto Gui Redfor (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log). FreplySpang (talk) 01:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Add Guizaldo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) to that list. I asked Kelly Martin for a checkuser on them. I'll ask her to reply here. --GraemeL ^(talk) 01:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Just keep on blocking 'em. Wonder where they're getting the user names? Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:20, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism from 212.159.56.225

All user: 212.159.56.225 contributions seem to involve changing the figures any sega or nintendo articles to bias sega.

For example: Editing links to nintendo sales figure into POV sites.

Subtly changing numbers in dreamcast and sega to make it appear to sell more.

Subtly changing numbers in nintendo products to make it appear to sell less well.

FlyHigh 16:57, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing blocked

I've blocked Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefinitely. His bad edit to good edit ratio is far too high to help the project. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 22:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Np with me. --Doc ^ask? 22:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Note also the current motion to ban him for a year (WP:RFAr#Motion to ban User:Pigsonthewing). Just noting, I'm not disputing this block.--Sean|Black 22:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the reason for the block was mostly that arbcom was sitting on their hands with it, and not rejecting or accepting it. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 23:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Which are totally unacceptable grounds for a life ban. Secretlondon 01:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

If forced to guess I'd put his 'bad edit to good edit ratio' at about 1 bad to 3 good (out of 19,000+ edits). (Clarification added subsequently - 1 to 3 assuming that every revert and extra edit due to not using preview is counted as 'bad'). If that's 'far too high to help the project' then I think you need to indefinitely block about half the people who have ever contributed here.
There is nothing in blocking policy which sanctions such a block. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 22:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not talking about in the past, i'm talking about in the present. How many good edits has he made post-rfar? One or two that I saw. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)}

That at least is true. But still doesn't change the fact that there is no sanction for such an action. If you want the policy to be 'any admin can indefinitely block a user with thousands of good contributions if the admin feels they are not productive' then make such a proposal and get the policy changed. If you can do it without changing the policy then the policies are basically meaningless. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 23:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

From WP:BP, section 1.3 - Bans, "Community consensus that the user should be banned (for example, the quickpoll process briefly used in the first half of 2004)". There appears to be a small consensus here that he should be banned. If you'd like to formalize this, we could always hold a poll (elsewhere, perhaps as a subpage of his RFAr). —Locke Cole • t • c 23:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, he's blocked and the block was posted publicly. If none of the around 700 admins unblock him, that sounds like a consensus. --GraemeL ^(talk) 23:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Last time I did that, the person I shortened the duration of the ban of was reblocked and I was accused of violating the blocking policy. See my comments below. Talrias (t | e | c) 00:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That's for a ban though. If you got enough publicity, we could ban him that way, but I don't really see much point. Anyway, he's currently blocked. The difference is that with a ban, you may not use sockpuppets to evade it. With a block, you can just make a new account and edit from it, in a constructive manner. Bans lead to the fun of constantly getting checkusers on people you suspect of being socks. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 23:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd bet that at least half of those 19,000+ edits are reverts. —Locke Cole • t • c 23:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I dislike the concept of indefinite bans for cases such as these, coming from admins outside the Arbitration Committee. I have seen myself some of Pigsonthewing's personal attacks - and he is quite unrepentant in making them, but he might have matured in 6 months; a year; 5 years. I would prefer, if we're going to block him, that we block him for 6 months, if he's still acting in the same fashion, just block him for another 6 months. See my RfC where a similar thing is being discussed. Talrias (t | e | c) 23:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point, but I'm just not sure. My opinion on indefinite is that if they would like to appeal it after a lengthy time, then letting them back in should be strongly considered. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 23:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Talrias; POTW has probably earned a lengthy block, but what's wrong with 6 or 12 months? Unless there's any probability that ArbCom would have banned him longer than a year, we're making a "community patience" ban more powerful than ArbCom (which involves so much more evidence and discussion of wrongdoing and appropriate sanction). That seems clearly wrong to me. Rd232 ^talk 00:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

ArbCom can only ban for up to one year. And this is a block, not a ban. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 01:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Defacto they are the same thing. You've just decided that you should be the arbcom. Secretlondon 01:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

No, I decided I was sick of dealing with him. Indefinite blocks are nothing new. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 02:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

So... those two edits ([22] [23]) he made since the last time you blocked him (for removing content from his own talk page) necessitated an indefinite block? I'm sorry, but I think it is a terrible thing that admins can punitively block people outside of policy for complaining about punitive blocks outside of policy. It basically says, 'if an admin blocks you for reverting their article edit do not complain... that rule which says they cannot do that isn't really true'. It's just wrong. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 02:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

These are the most constructive and encyclopedic edits I've ever seen. I don't know, maybe he could leave karmafist the fuck alone? We're here to write an encyclopedia, not to wage nuclear wars. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 03:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

And Pigsonthewing was one of the most constructive encyclopedia builders on this place until a group of admins and their friends decided to harass him and make a series of punitive (and often specious) blocks after he dared to complain about abuse of admin privileges. It is absolutely true that he is no longer acting as a productive user. It is equally true that this was brought about by admins thinking they can block people just because they were "sick of dealing with" them. Admins deciding that they can run roughshod over users they don't like in violation of policies on blocking, civility, and personal attacks turns good contributors into people who hate the entire project. So when you complain about Pigsonthewing not contributing - remember who it was that made him that way. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 12:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd disagree with that. While the fall-off of his useful contributions is definitely a recent thing, his incivility and intransigence is not. He was, in my opinion, problematic from the beginning. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 10:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm sorry for being incivil earlier. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 15:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you and no problem. I'm sure my stubborness on this point can be annoying, but civility is always a good thing. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 16:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Where does it say this? Just interested, Talrias (t | e | c) 01:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I just checked his contributions and was appalled. I know I have defended him in the past but now I've just had enough. He used to make many good contributions, but he's obviously no longer interested in that and just wants to stir up trouble. Good call Phroziac, he's had enough chances already. the wub "?!" 23:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

He's been around a real long time, since October of 2003 basically [24]. Looks like he's definitely contributed to WP, but looks like he's been causing trouble for a while now too. [25] --Interiot 23:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Ever since he was blocked over a content dispute, which is the only thing other than 'enforced vacation' which admins are specifically prohibitted from blocking for, and nobody would do anything about it. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 23:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The Bill obsessive

Someone obsessed with The Bill keeps adding misinformation to many articles, claiming various people to be actors from the series, frequently changing the Glenn Quagmire entry too. I think the IPs begin 210.54, 210.55 and 203 in all cases - a range which is far too great to block. I've decided not to semi-protect Glenn Quagmire because when the edit happens on that article I know to go and revert most of the other edits that IP has made... and it's always an IP with no previous edits. The general pattern is for the same person to add two or three correct(?) entries (usually involving cricket) and then get on with the silliness. This has been going on for well over a month now. How can we stop it? violet/riga (t) 11:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's been going on since May [26] - though he's been much more insistent lately, to the best of my knowledge. It's also been discussed on the village pump, and there's a section for him on the long-term alerts of the Vandalism in Progress page. I've no idea what to do, to be honest; he's been told too many times that we don't like what he's doing, he's been reverted too many times to count, so you'd think that he would just give up. The best solution is to have a look at Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:Stephen_Turner/CricketersTalk or maybe the history of Quagmire, because his newest edits and hence new IP incarnation usually appear there. Sam Vimes 14:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I doubt whether he can be stopped. He also makes talk pages with tiny stubs. Sometimes the IPs are used, again but it's a wide range. The cricket and rugby entries are usually correct and sometimes there are real additions and cleanups of pages as well. The cricket people have decided to let the stubs exists because he'll just recreate them anyhow and at least the basic info is correct.

As far as the vandalism goes, it is widespread. The Simpsons, The Bill and Andre 3000 and random vegan statements is the main vandalism, but there is more like very complex name exchanges, songs dedicated to people and mentioned on their grave, feet amputated to be in wheelchairs and much more weird entries often involving multiple people to make the comments consistent when you try to check it by following the wikilinks. Also entries like categorizing politicians as Roman Catholics are done in a random manner.

I checked most pages changed by him (at least the ones I could find), most had already been reverted, but some were left. As far as stopping him, it'll be very hard because it's 10 edits and 10 hours later he returns under a different IP. Semi-protect will not work, because the Recent links and pages like List of Vegans are the best way to check where he has been. I recommend tagging the IP talk page so we at least know that the contributions have been checked and reverted. KittenKlub 00:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Viktors Devglas

Someone called Viktors Devglas has appeared today (6th Jan) and made a large number of contributions. From a brief survey, he seems to see WP as his personal soap-box. I don't want to shoot him down in flames (be kind to the newbies), but some of his work is rather questionable, IMHO. For example, a large essay in the Buddhism article. See 141.153.252.227.

Camillus^talk 12:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The essay the user inserted in Buddhism was a copyright violation of [[27]]. Since the essay has been removed, I pointed this out on the user's talk page.--Alabamaboy 01:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It appears I may have been too kind to this newby. Perhaps an admin could have a look at the other contributions he made, which appear to me to be quite random, for example, adding wikify tags to articles that are clearly already wikified etc. Camillus (talk) 02:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Move of page to existing redirect (following requested moves)

• User:Ciaran_H/Middle_man → Middle man

It seems the general consensus (support on both this page and requested move page) is for this page move to go ahead. Since this obviously requires an admin, I'm requesting here! Thank you, Lox (t,c) 13:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 15:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! --Lox (t,c) 09:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

MARMOT

I've reblocked MARMOT (talk · contribs) because some of his recent edits are suggestive of a return to vandalism. Particularly note this last edit: [28] (creating User:Linuxbeak/Vandalism technology with edit summary "developing new innovations"), as well as announcing that the new user User:Frinelli walker is him [29]; this latter account made a series of rapidfire edits to User:Linuxbeak/Sandbox, possibly as a test of some bot tool. He also added himself to Phroziac's list of vandals [30]. Perhaps I'm overreacting? Anyone know what's going on? -- Curps 19:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I can explain somewhat. I gave him permission to toy with my sandbox. I told him not to vandalize anything. Linuxbeak (drop me a line) 19:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. Can you ask him what his "Frinelli walker" bot is for? -- Curps 19:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd hazard that a playing around with his own sandbox would have been the wiser course of action. -Splash^talk 19:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It's his "developing new innovations [in vandalism technology]" comment along with the apparent use of a bot that's kind of the issue... -- Curps 19:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of reforming vandals, so I'm sure you'll excuse my asking whether he's actually done anything productive since his "pardon"? — Dan | talk 19:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

And now a bunch of alphanumeric-soup usernames have been created, some of which have edited User:Linuxbeak/Vandalism technology, creating garbage text. How did these brand new accounts know about this brand-new page, which MARMOT only created 15-30 minutes earlier, unless they're him? The alphanumeric-soup accounts have now been blocked (see Special:Log/block). -- Curps 20:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that last night MARMOT was on #wikipedia on IRC, saying he's going to vandalize every page from a 100mbit line. *shrug*. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 15:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Linuxbeak brought him into #wikimedia so he could talk to brion about something he was doing; I never really could figure out what he was trying to tell us. Perhaps Linuxbeak could offer more clarity about exactly what it is that MARMOT was developing, and how exactly it is of benefit to us. -- Essjay · Talk 21:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

User:VMORO, User:Peter Isotalo, Bulgarian lexis, and Bulgarian vocabulary

It occasionally happens that well-meaning admins, through inattention or misjudgement, allow themselves to be drawn into conflicts they should probably avoid. As Wile E. Coyote once said, "Even super-geniuses can have an off day."

Well, I have apparently had an off day.

I'll spare you an excrutiatingly detailed exegesis, and simply provide the following timeline:

• User:VMORO created the article Bulgarian lexis on February 24, 2005.
• Bulgarian lexis resided at that article title until December 26, 2005, when it was moved to Bulgarian vocabulary by User:Peter Isotalo.
• A brief edit/move war ensued, featuring a cut-and-paste recreation of Bulgarian lexis.
• The issue was brought to my attention by User:Peter Isotalo. I came in, saw that Bulgarian vocabulary was indeed consistent with other, similar article titles covering similar subjects (Spanish vocabulary, Turkish vocabulary, Portuguese vocabulary), and incorrectly assumed that Bulgarian vocabulary had been the original title of the article and had been moved to Bulgarian lexis by User:VMORO.
• I protected Bulgarian vocabulary from further editing and nominated Bulgarian lexis for AFD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bulgarian lexis) as being an exact duplicate of Bulgarian vocabulary.

The long and short of it is: I fucked up. As near as I can determine, the page was moved by Peter Isotalo without prior discussion. While I agree that there's probably a strong argument for having the page at Bulgarian vocabulary vs. Bulgarian lexis, these arguments were not made prior to the move, and support for the move is obviously not universal.

Consequently, I will be unprotecting Bulgarian vocabulary immediately upon posting this notification, and notifying the involved parties of my actions.

This leaves the rather thorny problem of the AFD. I am going to close the AFD, with a pointer to this post in the closing notes. This is a somewhat non-standard approach to an AFD closure, so I wanted to make sure my reasons for so doing were outlined in full, lest there be any misunderstandings. Anyone who feels that I should not close the AFD discussion is cordially invited to re-open it.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 15:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

They have been edit-warring over style at Macedonian (disambiguation) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as well. Izehar 15:30, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I see. There is de-facto consensus and common sense argumentation in favor for "vocabulary", but since one user who regularly abuses other editors (particularly in edit summaries), ignores discussion and mocks any sources not approved by him personally questions it, we have to seek a new consensus. This is going to be quite the boon to Bulgarian-related articles.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Undoing other admins' blocks

Discussion going on at Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard#Undoing_other_admins.27_blocks. Please comment if you have a view so we can determine what the consensus is. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Jimmy Wales → User:Jimbo Wales

How about redirecting User:Jimmy Wales to User:Jimbo Wales? The block notice could go on the talk page if it's really important to keep it (even though the imposter can't come back) - Ease for the press/sponsors finding him for comment is a Good Thing --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 12:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Um, that would be alright, apart from the fact that there are edits in the history that appear to be made by Jimbo, and it would confuse someone who got to the userpage via the history of an article to see Jimbo apparently having made vandalism. I'll add a disambiguation-style notice. [[Sam Korn]] 12:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah yeah didn't think of that. Good idea.

It used to be redirect before the fake/imposter account was made, looks like --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 12:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Numismatics inexpert moves

There are a couple of page moves for numismatic articles that were handled improperly, and we need an administrator to sort things out:

• Gulden (historical denomination) was split to South German gulden and Austro-Hungarian gulden by cut-and-paste. The split was proper, but the manner was not. And once that's handled, Austro-Hungarian gulden needs to be merged with Austrian florin -- I'm not sure if admin help is needed for that part.
• Aruban gulden was moved properly to Aruban florin, but its talk page was not moved (at least I'm guessing that's why the talk page for Aruban florin is talk:Aruban gulden).
• Czechoslovak crown was moved to Czechoslovak koruna by cut-and-paste, and I don't think anything's been done about it (there is history on both pages from before the move -- there has been active discussion at the Numismatics project about where pages belong, and some pages have been moved multiple times. We're currently discussing it (to death) and are not moving articles anymore until it's resolved, but we can still cleanup).

If you need more info, you can ask at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics, or contact me and I'll be happy to help however I can. Ingrid 02:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I did the (easy) second one. Jkelly 03:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I did the other easy one. Czechoslovak crown has been history merged with Czechoslovak koruna. As for South German and Austro-Hungarian gulden, I'm not sure what can be done there. The edit history is not cut-and-dried, and one of the two split pages would end up with the short end of the GFDL stick, edit-history wise. I'd just turn Gulden (historical denomination) into a disambig page, which would be useful and would preserve contribution history. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 20:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. I'll update Gulden (historical denomination). I didn't realize that that was okay. It's definitely much easier. Ingrid 22:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

That box needs to go away

The box at the top thanking people for their participation in the fundraiser has been there for a while and now should leave. It was there for three weeks as the drive was going on, and I think it's been cluttering up Wikipedia for quite long enough. What's the ETA on removal? Cookiecaper 10:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

. . . .

Have you looked at the budget information?

Compare this ($321,200 USD for costs for one quarter) to this, $243,930 actually raised... Wikipedia could still do with a lot more funding.. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 11:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Then I suggest that Wikimedia conducts solicitation of donations in a less asinine way. It'll end up better for them I'm sure. The drive was tolerable but now it's over, and that box needn't gaud up Wikipedia anymore. Cookiecaper 11:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

As I was told, you can code the banner out if you don't like it. Donations increased significantly with the addition of the sitenotice, so those of us who object should just CSS it out of the way. Just add this to your monobook.css:

/* Remove Unneeded Notices */

#siteNotice { display: none; }

That will quickly remove it, and you'll never be bothered again. If you are concerned about missing important notices, add Mediawiki:Sitenotice to your watchlist. -- Essjay · Talk 12:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is to be removed as of 10 January. [[Sam Korn]] 12:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It should stay for longer. And people should stop whining about it, you wouldn't be editing here if not for donations. --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 13:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Then you'll be pleased to know that there are plans for a permanent (less prominent) header. [[Sam Korn]] 14:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't object to it, as long as there is an option (as I described above) for those of us who load thousands of pages a day to not be distracted by it. CSS it out and be done with it. -- Essjay · Talk 14:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe there are better lines to add to your user CSS which makes invisible only the colorful notice but will not make invisible the normal sitenotice content. For instance you could use #pabanner and #fundraising. --cesarb 21:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Wiki brah blocked

I removed an arbitration request filed by User:Wiki brah because on carefully examining it I came to the conclusion that its intent was to attack a Wikipedia user, having the form of a request to be excused for mentioning incidents in that individual's outside life. I have blocked the user for one week because he appears to be intentionally disrupting Wikipedia, and I have informed him that if he intends to continue in this vein I think an indefinite block would be in order.

I invite review of this administrator action, but I would appreciate it if the review itself were to focus on the conduct of the blocked user (and of course my own conduct in editing WP:RFAR and blocking him) and not the target of his arbitration request. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

If anyone does choose to overturn this action (and I'm not advocating that) please note that I blocked Wiki brah earlier today for a separate NPA violation, and would appreciate that block being left in place unless both my block and Tony's are to be reversed. -- Essjay · Talk 12:51, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I regret that I neglected to check the block log before blocking and I didn't pick up on this. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with Tony's actions as Wiki brah's actions were a roundabout personal attack. This is not a statement, however, on past admin actions in regards to wb. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not aware of having taken any past actions with respect to that editor in the past. Presumably you're talking about other administrators. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sorry. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 13:04, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

ADDENDUM: on reviewing that editor's recent contributions I see that he has made a personal attack on Kelly Martin: "She's a pig of a woman". He seems to have returned to Wikipedia for the sole purpose of denigrating arbitrators that he doesn't like, some of whom are term-expired and up for re-election: "I'm voting...against User:Kelly_Martin, User:Fred_Bauder and User:Theresa_knott (who is just about as bad as Kelly M."[31]. To discourage this kind of dirty campaigning, I'm minded to increase his block period right now so as to take him out of the arbitrator election period. No action taken on this yet. Comments welcome. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

On reviewing this user's recent contributions to the main article namespace, of which there are very few, it appears the encyclopaedia is getting very few benefits from having this user, but increasing disruption. We don't need to preserve the accounts of users who are not here to help improve the encyclopaedia. An indefinite block would be in order, jguk 13:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Good luck on getting it to stick; I can't tell you how many times we've indef blocked only to be overruled by a well meaning admin who believes Wiki brah's stories about being innocent. I'm beginning to think nothing short of a direct ban from Jimbo will stick. -- Essjay · Talk 14:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC) I just want to make it clear that I wasn't referring to Lucky when I said this, but rather to a very long discussion that was held on the mailing list. It occurred to me on re-read that with the comments below, it looked like I was referencing him. -- Essjay · Talk 11:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, so can't block myself - but it's clear to me that this user is no longer editing in order to improve the encyclopaedia. I have, and I think we all should have, a very low tolerance level of disruption by such editors before making an indefinite block (or long - eg one year) block, jguk 14:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Whatever happens, it would be best to take it up with Lucky 6.9 (talk · contribs) first.--Sean|Black 20:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel a little contrite myself, because I was an administrator who, although I never unblocked, was in favor of giving this chap the benefit of the doubt.

On the above, I agree that with his past history there is no reason to retain him any longer. I'm blocking him indefinitely. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• It's the right thing to do. I kinda think he's not even a real person, but rather a persona designed as an irritant. (He's occasionally made errors that could be interpreted as slipping out of character.) Either that, or he is a real person, who is clearly both unable and unwilling to improve Wikipedia. If the former, well, I imagine the creator of the persona has several running at once. If the latter, Wikipedia is not therapy; nor is it a chat room or a playground. He shoulda been out of here months ago; I'm embarassed that at first I thought he had some potential. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 04:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Lord knows we all tried. Sean just let me know what happened. Heck, I personally put a permanent block on him at one time. That attack on Fred just wasn't right. I certainly won't revert the block. Sean, thanks for the heads-up. - Lucky 6.9 07:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. If anybody should know, it's you.--Sean|Black 07:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm late to the party, but bravo. I'm just sad it took so long. -Ashley Pomeroy 00:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Suckers wanted

We are still looking for a couple more people to overlook/run the Arbitration Committee elections. Idealy people who have been around for a while and are completely immune to attacks of all kinds.Geni

Run the arbitration committee? Isn't that what this election is for? *grin* Talrias (t | e | c) 21:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

People can't add their names now anyway, the election has already been closed to new candidates. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 21:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess that was a bad joke, Geni was referring to overlooking the elections, as shown by the wikilink, but he didn't write that in the text. Ah well. Talrias (t | e | c) 21:08, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

correct I have corrected the error.Geni 21:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No legal threats

I just deleted and restored Wikipedia:No legal threats and it's talk page. I was closing the discussion at WP:MFD and it's late and I'm tired and I didn't notice I was redirected and I appreciate it is entirely my fault, so I'd just like to apologise. That said, I'm off to bed now so could someone tidy up WP:MFD? Apoloigies once again, and if I could beg a favour, I'd ask that people close discussions when they delete pages, it'd be a big help. Good night. Hiding talk 00:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I sorted it out myself. Thanks for the help. Hiding talk 12:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous formatting

A mistaken attempt at reverting vandalism has left the RD looking very odd. Just wondering if there is an easy way to revert to the version prior to this, then incorporate the new changes? TIA, pfctdayelise 03:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It's possible to delete and then restore only selected edits. For this case, I think just replacing the section with an earler version would be a whole lot easier. If no one else suggests a better alternative in the next 10 minutes, I'll do this. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It's possible for admins only, correct? (Thanks for fixing it.) pfctdayelise 05:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Deletion problem

Is anyone else having a problem with deletion? It's throwing this error for me:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: pagecond() in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Article.php on line 1728

enochlau (talk) 03:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Working OK for me Brookie :) - a collector of little round things! ^(Talk!) 09:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeh seemed to be a transient problem. OK now. enochlau (talk) 09:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Possible vote statcking

(merged into WP:ANI#Kelly Martin's RFC/ArbCom vote —Cryptic (talk) 09:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC))

Whatlinkshere broken?

Has anyone else noticed something wrong with Whatlinkshere, and possibly the "File links" section for images? I first noticed it with Template:Infobox Philippine city, which is only included on 13 articles according to its whatlinkshere-- and I personally know it's used on more pages than that, such as Marikina City and Pasig City. Also, I added Image:Silliman_hall.jpg to the articles for Dumaguete City and Silliman University, but those articles aren't showing up in the "File links" section on the image description page. Coffee 12:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

It could be caching on the server's side... enochlau (talk) 12:51, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

There was something on wikitech-l about template whatlinksheres being broken at the moment and the devs being aware of it. -Splash^talk 14:22, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Revert warring by a user not actually using template in question

[32]

Not sure how to handle this but this is clearly inappropriate as the user doesn't even use the template: Everyone using the template obviously likes it as it is already, since they have it on their page, but this user seems to want to "standardize" all templates whether the people using them on their pages want to or not.

seems determined to impose his version of the template on everyone even though he doesn't use it

Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:User Aspie --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 22:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I've put a warning on the talk page that several people are already in violation of WP:3RR. As I believe in giving people the chance to change their behavior, I have not blocked anyone. But I suggest that if anyone continues to revert they be blocked. I'm going off-line, so I hope someone else can keep an eye on the page. -- Samuel Wantman 23:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• As I count at least five reverts by both User:Mistress Selina Kyle and User:Ec5618 each on Template:User Aspie, I have blocked both for twenty-four hours for a violation of WP:3RR and protected the template until all parties come to an agreement on the talk page. Mistress Selina Kyle definitely knows about the 3RR (she's been blocked for that several times over), so simply warning the users was not appropriate. Bratsche^{talk | Esperanza} 23:13, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• I suspect an entry on WP:LAME may well be appropriate in this case. --Stormie 02:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh. At least the person who kept trying to change the header to ASP knocked it off; we're not vipers, you know. :p Rogue 9 23:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Farassoo

Kaskou (talk • contribs) was warned not to recreate this material, but apparently did not pay heed.
brenneman^(t)(c) 11:12, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Back when this started, I'd heard from this fellow via e-mail after I deleted the copyvio. He's apparently an employee of the company and is trying to do an article, but he's definitely not a native English speaker. I did a non-copyvio version of the article and explained what I was doing, but he couldn't seem to leave well enough alone. It's certainly a large enough corporation to warrant inclusion, but should a non-copyvio version be reposted and protected? It's a weird idea, I know. But, weird situations often call for weird solutions. If anyone has an idea or two, please drop me an e-mail. Later! - Lucky 6.9 05:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Role accounts

Are role accounts permitted? I have a sockpuppet called User:Marleyknowe used for editing Northumberland-related articles. Is this allowed on Wikipedia?? --Sunfazer 21:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• It depends what you mean by "role accounts" If you want to have one account for editing Northumberland-related articels, and another for making other kinds of edits, that is fine, provided that you don't chime in on discussuions to support yourself, vote more than once on polls, etc. Unless privicy is an issue, i would suggest a note on the user page of each account pointing to the other -- but no policy requires this that I know of. Shared accounts are not approved (that is, accounts used for editing by more than one person), and neither are accounts whose names imply a lelvel of authority that they don't have on wikipedia. DES ^(talk) 22:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, "role" accouncts assigned to the current holder of an office or position in some organization outside wikipedia are at least discouraged, if not forbidden. DES ^(talk) 22:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
• I'm not using it for multiple votes in polls etc or to support myself on discussions etc.. If you see the userpage of User:Marleyknowe you will see exactly what I mean. It's only used by me, and no-one else.

"Role" account means an account used for a certain purpose - and these are the only uses that I am using them for. --Sunfazer 22:17, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, role accounts refer accounts like User:Administrator or User:Arbitrator that suggest the user holds the position referenced in the name. You may have differing definitions for the term, but that is the accepted use here. They are not permitted. — Essjay · Talk 22:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I was asking about sockpuppets and got confused! --Sunfazer 00:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I can see no problem with openly declared sockpuppets. --Doc ^ask? 00:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It is acceptable to have more than one account to edit various areas?? I'm just checking, don't want to get them blocked by mistake (I've got 1 so far but intend to have 2 more!) --Sunfazer 01:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppets#Multiple accounts. --cesarb 01:21, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ferguson TE20 (tractor)

The above named article contains the substantive article text, and Ferguson TE20 where imho the article belongs is a one-edit redirect. The obvious thing to do would be to delete the redirect and move Ferguson TE20 (tractor) to Ferguson TE20, which would create a new redirect. However, I don't have admin powers and I don't know if that the would be the right way of doing things. All I want to achieve is to have Ferguson TE20 as the article. Assistance or advice please. --kingboyk 13:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The move seems uncontroversial, so I've gone ahead and done it. You could have done it yourself, though, using the 'move' function, since Ferguson TE20 was just a redirect to Ferguson TE20 (tractor) with no edit history. For future reference, the place to go for getting complicated moves done is Wikipedia:Requested moves. --Nick Boalch ^?!? 13:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for help and advice, all noted. --kingboyk 14:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

New template for deleted pages

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

Request permission to clean up typos in the Alito article

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

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

Thanks for your consideration.

Rousse 20:22, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edit Counter

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

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

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

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

User:Ultracoolxxx blocked

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

restore edit history

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

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

қазақша

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

Vandalism on Jeffrey Vernon Merkey, legal threats

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

User 68.159.20.189

User 68.159.20.189 has devoted the majority of their edit history to placing external spam links harassing and reverting users who try to stop them. They have made up to 7 reverts in a row, and 10 reverts in total of commercial spam. This has been posted on the Administrators' 3RR noticeboard. The user has a history of insulting me personally, calling me a "latino hater"[33] and falsely claims I have made "derogatory statements about latinos"[34] because I have reverted his spam. They have reverted spam warnings on their user page[35], so they are clearly aware of the rules. Please give this user a block, they have been warned at least 10 times on talk pages and user pages. Thank you.--Urthogie 08:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Instantnood and Huaiwei

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

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

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

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

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

I have to agree. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 17:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clear-cut sockpuppetry. See [36] for CheckUser request and discussion. I recommend blocks of all of:

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

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

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

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

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

Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/All (and possibly elsewhere)

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

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

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

Bot generated AFD summaries

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

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

USER:64.90.240.50

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

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

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

Remington and the Rattlesnakes unbanning request

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

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

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

It's the NCV, making more sockpuppets to claim some of his other sockpuppets are innocent, etc. etc. This is characteristic behavior for this kid. See the message he left on my talk page from a similar two-edit sockpuppet [37]. I'm surprised he's not in school today; normally he doesn't edit 8-4 EST. Antandrus (talk) 19:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

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

User:Marvelvsdc

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

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

threats to hurt one's self

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ArbCom Elections notice on Special:Watchlist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

User:152.163.100.130

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

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

Template:Main

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

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

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

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

Remington and the Rattlesnakes and the Socks

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

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

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

Appearant Vandalisim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Community Panel proposal - Wikipedia:Community Panel

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

Cartoons depicting sexual abuse of children

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

Update: interlocutor says that relevant statute criminalizes cartoon depiction of "sexually explicit conduct" with minors, rather than "sexual abuse", and that this is enumerated on page 75 of relevant statute, here [38]. Just thought I should throw this one to the crowd. Babajobu 05:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

You are going to be in for a battle if you want that image removed as several users appear to want it kept. I'll be honest I was slightly surprised by it too but there has been various edit wars over that and basically the majority of the talk page is discussion relating to that one image. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 06:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

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

I'm pretty sure this part was already overturned at least once by the Supreme Court... do you people actually look to see what court document your reading and google it? The PROTECT Act "virtual child pornography" section was overturned by the Supreme Court as Unconstitutional in its previous rendition as the COPA "Child Online Protection Act. [39] I've no doubt this would also hold in court now. I suggest you approach the WikiProject Law about it.  ALKIVAR™ 08:25, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

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

Even if the picture is legal in some jurisdictions, we may still decide to delete it. All articles do not need to be illustrated. The last IfD, a month ago, did not have a strong consensus.[[40]]. -Will Beback 09:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Restraint when using humor and sarcasm

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