Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections/Archive 3

Number of municipalities

This user keeps adding a category [1] to category:West Flanders. There are exactly 64 municipalities in the province, and hence, also in the category. The user keeps adding a 65th municipality, which is a factual error. nl:West-Vlaanderen#Gemeenten... please protect things somehow against factual errors ! --LimoWreck 17:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I protected the page. This is not an endorsement of the current version. Please discuss the issue on the talk page before any other actions to that page. -- Bryan (talk to me) 17:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:West Flanders is a category for any item related to West Flanders, not only municipalies. Therefore, the count of subcategories doesn't matter. Ypres is the English name for Ieper, with a different first letter; so, if you remove Ypres from the list of the municipalies, you'll have very little chance to find it.

LimoWreck is excessively pernickety and had a very agressive attitude, he even call me blatant vandal in an edit summary. --Juiced lemon 18:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Juiced lemonbot

This account has been created today. The user page (with its talk page) redirects to User:Juiced lemon. I didn't created this account, and I don't know who did that. Therefore, I request a permanent block of the User:Juiced lemonbot account, and the reversion of all of his contributions. --Juiced lemon 15:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked the account, but don't have the time for reverting all the edits. Let me state that whether or not somebody agrees with Juiced Lemon and his edit style, creating an imposter is inappropriate. I'm going to request a checkuser on this. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the contributions. -- Editor at Large • talk 19:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Apparently, this user moved the contents of Category:Arc de Triomphe with a bot. So, I suspect another user who recently acts in much the same way. Tell me if you need the clue. --Juiced lemon 20:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Image:歹-seal.svg and Image:歺-oracle.svg

We have some technical problem that we cannot upload the image and we just redirect it. Preventing others to upload images with these name, I request the protection. Chanueting 13:33, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I will protect them, but what is the technical problem exactly? have you talked to the developers? pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think image redirection is a better choice, however, I don't know if it works. Chanueting 15:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia logo mosaic

This page appears to be FULLY protected from all non-admin edits(!) - which is a problem because the page has a bunch of very obvious problems that need fixing. Nobody has edited the page for a month - I have no clue how long it's been broken. I tried to fix it - but with the level of protection it has (why?), I can do nothing.

What possible justification can there be for FULL protection of such an unimportant page. sprotect would be fine.

SteveBaker 04:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

As to why it was fully protected, it was referenced in a press release, which had quite wide distribution, at the time of commons reaching 1M images. I think the full protection was justified at that time. It's now several months later and I agree that sprotection is a better approach. I changed the protection from full to sprotected shortly after I saw your message on the talk page. I am sorry you missed that reply of mine, but since you've brought it here, I welcome review of my change, should someone think I erred, please let me know. Note also that I left a list of the images that need replacing, and using that list, I left notes on the talk pages of the admins that deleted the images asking them if they would be so kind as to correct the image references. Hope that helps. Sorry you found this matter upsetting. ++Lar: t/c 04:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Sprotect seems good to me at this time. / Fred J 23:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

User:O, request for block

Please do block the user User:O. He systematically recovers apparent errors of categorazation. See for example here, he erased my proposal and the insertion into corresponding category. His contributions. --ŠJů 18:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we should have a discussion at the VP to discuss the category change, because the wiki is not all about one person's proposals. A community consensus needs to be reached before a large-scale proposal can be commenced. (→O - RLY?) 18:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

So an edit summary that pointed someone to a discussion would have been useful? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

@Herby: When looking over his edit summaries and diffs, the edit summaries were either non-existent or something he was going to do. (→O - RLY?) 19:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

O, you are not respecting the consensual established structure of category Category:Road signs and you are, without factual discussing with me, vandalised my labour. Erasing all of my proposals is not right way to consensus. --ŠJů 19:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

However, I don't see any consensus-building discussions anywhere about this. If you point me to one, then I will reconsider. (→O - RLY?) 19:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Suggestion Both of you take a break from this topic for a few days. No sense in getting too worked up over this. Editing here is suppose to be a pleasurable activity, right? :-) FloNight 19:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with FloNight. Instead of me going through this rather heated dispute, I should probably put my mind to more favourable things to think about. I still would like a prior discussion relating to this though. (→O - RLY?) 19:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The discussion about this controversy is continuing at user talk ŠJů. --ŠJů 20:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC) Category talk:Diagrams of road signs of the United States#Subcategories. --ŠJů 21:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:Renée Zellweger.jpg

Image:Renée Zellweger.jpg has been deleted twice and re-uploaded by the same user. It is a copyvio. (It also looks as though the uploader nominated the picture for deletion and when it was deleted, he re-uploaded?!) Perhaps delete image again & protect from re-uploading? Deadstar 11:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I sure with I could delete and protect the file, but in the meantime, I've tagged it as a copyvio and warned the user to stop uploading copyvios. If that doesn't stop and the user continues to contribute unconstructively then an indef block can be in order. (→O - RLY?) 15:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I have just sifted through another one of this user's contributions, which was tagged as no license. However, that image was a Mac OS 9 screenshot, in which the OS in question is copyrighted. It was depicting the startup screen, which is part of the OS. Following this, it looks like this user will continue to upload copyvios and contribute unconstructively, so an indef block is strongly suggested. (→O - RLY?) 15:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess it's possible that the user is just confused about where they're uploading the picture to (not that it would be acceptable even on English Wikipedia according to its fair use guidelines). For now, the workload caused by the user seems manageable, but I'll reconsider if it continues. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Deadstar 08:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

71.233.232.243

Image:Stop sign MUTCD.svg has been reverted over and over again by Yung6, DaMan, and 71.233.232.243, who are all the same person. And the thing is, this person always wants to revert images of mine. Then he even goes on my talk page and says that I may be blocked soon because I am vandalizing the page. This person was blocked for a month for vandalizing pages and now that month is over and now he's back to his same old tricks. So I am asking for a block for this IP. --Ltljltlj 23:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I've protected the stop sign again and will watch for activity by the IP (as I'm sure others will) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 06:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I've blocked the IP for three months because of trolling, harassment, and abuse of sockpuppets. Account creation is disabled and autoblock is on. I am also watching the IP's talk page for any unblock requests. (→O - RLY?) 17:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Juiced lemon

At this moment, user is single handedly messing up categories, against advice from different users, and, even worse: thereby even introducing factual errors, without any proper discussion, without any knowledge on the subject. Can't see any further solution than a block until he's cooled down, so no further harm is done for now. --LimoWreck 23:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You are misleading. You don't understand basic categorization principles and add insults in the summary (see Image:Bas-WarnetonLocation.svg). --Juiced lemon 23:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope, not an insult, just a plain fact. Oh, end of discussion here. For the rest of the discussion: Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#juiced_lemon_.28talk_.E2.80.A2_contribs.29 justifies this request further. (Oh, a small prediction: 99% chance a reply will appear here blow, by juicedlemon, complaining we're incorrect and complaining we're attacking him. Would just prove the pattern sketched on the noticeboard right ;-) Regards)--LimoWreck 23:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

An unsolicited piece of advice, LimoWreck... Even if you think you're in the right, try to do your best to keep your words mild, ok? "messing up" just seems so pejorative. Everything you can do to keep things calm is helpful. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 03:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Tinz-Wehrmachtfan

Found a deletion request on the userpage for User:Tinz-Wehrmachtfan by User:Tinz with a request for block too (and block user please, stalking account of de:Benutzer:Tinz, see also [2] --Tinz 01:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)). Can an admin have a look at this please? Thanks. Deadstar 10:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks suspicious to me and many thanks for spotting it. Could do with a de speaking admin to check the history off here I think please? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for moving this here. After I blocked a notorious troll on de:wp where I am admin [3], this user created defaming accounts on numerous others wikis (see checkusage link above). I only care for the accounts on wikis where I have an account like here, so please block this user. --Tinz 16:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Blocked. -- Bryan (talk to me) 16:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Goon

I suspect Goon (created 15 aug) is a new account of Gonnz (blocked 3 jun for 6 months [4] [5]). Not only the names are similar, but Image:Skylinecordobes111.jpg was a reupload of Gonnz's Image:Córdoba-Argentina.jpg and Image:Nvacbaaa111.jpg of Gonnz's Image:Nvacbaaire.jpg.

Platonides 20:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Likely you are correct and blocked. I'll dig some more later on, may link with some previous issues --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Socks

Info for those interested (some I think realise it anyway). User:A2 = User:FR3 = User:Antenne 2. Two are indef blocked with the remaining account (FR3) blocked till the 3rd September. I have blocked the associated IP so there should be no more account creation from there for a bit - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Copa do Mundo de 2010

The same image of Copa do Mundo de 2010 was uploaded to Image:Logotipo da Copa do Mundo de 2010.PNG & Image:2010 FIFA World Cup logo.png by Kilili, Hilifb, Daminhão, Chira, Hiji & Poster, in what seems to be single purpose sockpuppet accounts. I have blocked them. Platonides 22:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Plus a few more! Blocked but worth keeping an eye in a week's time - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Image:Ngc2244c.jpg

This page is currently protected from editing because it is transcluded in the following pages, which are protected with the "cascading" option enabled:

is the displayed message when you try to edit Image:Ngc2244c.jpg (poorly categorized page).

As the “following pages” are an empty list, the reason for the protection is unknown. So, I request the unprotection of this page? Thanks. --Juiced lemon 07:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any such warning now. Can you try again? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Now, the file is not protected anymore. Thanks. What was the cause of the warning? --Juiced lemon 13:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It was included in some page that had cascading protection turned on. OR, something was broken. Perhaps it was dis-included just before you went to look at it the first time and the change hadn't rippled yet?? That may be a developer question. ++Lar: t/c 10:57, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Commons used as a platform for cross wiki vandalism

I blocked Nóis (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user after he uploaded images only to vandalise pt and apparently also en Wikipedias. Judging from the name of his last upload, and taking into account the type of vandalism, I assume he's a sock puppet of Kid Bengala (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user. I am pretty sure I know who he is on pt Wikipedia and asked him there to stop this behaviour, but I'd appreciate if someone could report other accounts behaving the same way. PatríciaR ^msg 21:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Nothing exciting from a CU perspective - feel free to let me know if you see anything else, cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that we have a page for reporting suspected socks, COM:RFCU... ++Lar: t/c 10:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need a CU here :), I'm just asking to keep an eye open for similar future behaviour. If necessary, I'll ask CUs on all three wikis, of course. For now, en:WP:DUCK. PatríciaR ^msg 10:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

DUCK Indeed. And if this were en:wp I'd agree, but here, it might be worth tracking this on the RFCU page so we have a record, even if we decided it was obvious, everything gets archived. Also it looks like Herby already DID run a CU :) But not really too huge a deal either way... :) ++Lar: t/c 10:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Removing of only category from image -- protect category, or other solution?

This image has one actual category Image:Carolus -Private Collection - detail naaldkant.jpg (well, or none if the user keeps reverting). It's a picture of "lace", hence the category category:Lace. Somehow, user Carolus keeps removing it. User:Cicero had added the category before a few times, and now I try... but the user keeps removing the only category. Discussions about redundant categories would be normal, but I wonder how this image can be usefull to commons if even its only category is always removed; how could we find it then ?

I don't really know where to address to issue, ... my first idea was a page protection, but there are probably other solutions possible. All help is welcome ;-) Regards --LimoWreck 16:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I've fully protected it for a day to prevent wheel warring. Personally I think it should have the category on however a Dutch speaking Admin probably should establish just why Carolus thinks it should not be categorised I guess - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

It is my collection, i do not need anyone to tell me how to categorise my private colection whitout my permission. Heel laf van je limo! Carolus 00:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are under a misapprehension about your rights to stop others modifying 'your' images. Please see Commons:Ownership of pages and files. --MichaelMaggs 06:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Given that approach I've protected it for a week now. Obviously we need to work on some understanding here but as soon as it is done feel free to unprotect it anyone. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

At least they can ask something, no they are so rude and change it wiout even asking. behind my back. And then they expect you to upload more? get a life! Carolus 07:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

If you have been treated rudely that is quite wrong. However common practice and courtesy suggest that repeated changes should not be made to any file or page without some discussion and it would be good if you and others involved would do that please? As Michael has said the photos cease to be "yours" once licensed to Commons. I understand how you feel having uploaded some of "my" photographs but I have to acknowledge that they are no longer mine. Thanks for your input --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

All of the images in User:Carolus/Lace Collection also appear to need adding to Category:Lace. Without that, this is no more than a private collection under the personal control of the uploader, and Commons is not a free web host for such purposes. --MichaelMaggs 07:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I gave my collection for a educational purpose, but I take control how my collection is categorised. People don't know anything about the kinds of lace! I want to be sure that it is categorised on a correct, scientific way. Category lace is not apropried for my collection. Carolus 09:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear why you believe that category would be incorrect. Could you explain, please? If 'Lace' is too general, it would be an easy matter to add one or more sub-categories which would cover the specific types in your list. What do you think? Can you say what scientific categories would be appropriate? I'm more than happy to help if I can--MichaelMaggs 09:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Geachte Carolus, door uw afbeeldingen naar Wikimedia Commons te uploaden onder vrije licenties, hebt u expliciet toegestaan dat uw werk gewijzigd wordt door anderen. Wikimedia Commons is een publieke collectie, waarin iedereen vrij is verbeteringen aan te brengen. U kunt dus niet verbieden de afbeelding op een bepaalde manier te categorizeren, indien deze categorizatie de Commons regels voor categorizatie volgt. Kunt u aangeven waarom u bezwaar maakt tegen toevoeging aan Category:Lace? -- Bryan (talk to me) 10:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Het is mijn collectie, en ik wil niet dat er verkeerde informatie verspreid wordt en dat de stukken als collectie bewaard blijven. zoals vb de wallace collection.Carolus 11:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Carolus - as I understand it you wish to maintain a "private" collection of your own. In practice you cannot do that on Commons as the licensing that you gave when you uploaded the files prevents that. These are now public files not private and, because you licensed them, you must respect that I'm afraid (unless anyone telss me I'm wrong?) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:10, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I gave the images, so i decide how they should be categorised, do you know anything about lace?Carolus 19:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't, which is why I asked above if you could say what scientific categories would be appropriate? I can then help, if you need it, to set them up so that specialists in the field can find these images by searching using the proper nomenclature. This appears to be a very useful collection, but at the moment the images are essentially invisible to anyone who wants to research this area as they will not appear in searches. --MichaelMaggs 20:24, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

that's right. So for this week I'll be thinking how my rights can be merged with the sientific needs. I started my own category, in this way it is clear that we are talking about a collection. Carolus 21:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Dat lijkt mij ook de beste oplossing. -- Bryan (talk to me) 22:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

There has been no response from Carolus, and I think the note he has placed in Dutch on his talk pages means he has left the project. If so, I would like to categorize the lace images as discussed above.--MichaelMaggs 08:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

He created Category:Private Lace Collection of Carolus, which seems perfectly fine to me. The Dutch text is just a personal attack towards one of the admins. -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

This category is fine as long as it remains in the User structure. It doesn' fit in the Topics structure because Carolus is neither an encyclopedic subject, nor a valid criterion to sort a lot of pictures related to an encyclopedic subject. --Juiced lemon 09:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

This new category has been put up for discussion. Please continue this at Commons:Categories for discussion/Current requests/2007/09#Category:Private Lace Collection of Carolus. --MichaelMaggs 19:25, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

"Cookies disabled"

Although I have been logging in to Wikipedia for some time now, I am unable to login to Wikimedia Commons. Login error at commons.wikimedia says "Cookies disabled" but IE7 shows "Allow" for cookies from wikimedia.org. ZoneAlarm shows cookies allowed for commons.wikimedia.org. Any ideas?

Disable ZoneAlarm, can you log in? Try adding commons.wikimedia.org to the Allow list, can you log in? Be creative. You can also try using another browser. Platonides 17:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Creative Commons icons

Could the images in Category:Creative Commons icons be permanently (semi-)protected? They are used on tens of thousands of images across many Wikis, after all. —Zachary ^talk 21:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• I think that is a good idea. They are now semi-protected. Didn't think it through. Unregistered users cannot upload new versions, so semi-protected doesn't help. All unregistered users can do is edit the description page, and that would be quickly reverted. It would have to be full protection, and I don't know if that is a good idea or not. --Digon3 ^talk 00:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. Image:CC some rights reserved.svg might be used on millions of pages even. / Fred J 00:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I will full protect some of the more well known ones that seem the be the target of vandalism. --Digon3 ^talk 00:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

User:easyplex

Could someone with a little more experience (first day at work for me...) look into this, see Commons:Village_pump#Strange_filenames_and_licenses. Regards, Finn Rindahl 09:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think your block was justified. Good work!   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 19:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Gathering of eagles.jpg

The category for Image:Gathering of eagles.jpg keeps getting removed. Attempt to discuss it have been fruitless. // Liftarn —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 08:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC).

You were attempting to add an incorrect category. I have added a more correct category.   — Jeff G. (talk|contribs) 19:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I added a valid category (and your category didn't exist then anyway). PLease see the talk page. // Liftarn

Now restored to Jeff's latest version. Finn Rindahl 10:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

{{Description missing}}

Please, protect this super used template {{Description missing}}.Emijrp 08:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

 Done Protected by Bryan - Platonides 09:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I unprotected these templates

• Template:PD-German stamps
• Template:Idw
• Template:Cdw

Template:PD-German stamps is used around 250 times, not critical IMO. Template:Idw is meant to be substed so any modifications to the template will not affect many user pages in a critical way, IMO. Template:Cdw is also not used that much.

Fred J 11:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Block of User:Juiced lemon by User:SB Johnny for a week

Hi, I just noticed that Juiced lemon was blocked for a week just for simple revert edits. I'm not speaking here for JL, neither did JL contact me. It is just my impression that this block is not justified.

The category system at Commons is, from my point of view, of crucial importance to the project. In comparison to the Wikipedia projects we might come from, our category system seems to be far deeper and therefore far more complex. In addition to that, we have in comparison to other projects quite a heterogenous community whose members are in many cases used to different category systems or not savvy enough in English to find the correct categories or to organize their contributions in new categories. Given this situation, we can be quite fortunate to have some editors who invest a lot of time in cleaning up the category system and designing general policies and guidelines that help the casual user. JL is without question one of these ceaseless workers; currently JL has more than 30,000 edits dedicated to make Commons a better organized project. Such a tremendous work is not without conflicts as reorganizations affect category names and hierarchies which have been created by others. As far as I have seen, JL never hesitated to give his reasonings when contacted on his talk page. This also includes a case where I was in a minor conflict with JL.

On the other side, I noticed several cases where admins attempted to enforce policies on JL which, at least to my knowledge here in the Commons so far, were not backed up by any policy or general agreement. One previous case was this attempt to create guidelines that exclusively apply to JL and another case seems to be now the ruling of SB Johnny that, as I understand it from his statement, require that even minor maintenance edits require a prior discussion if it's a reverting edit -- even if this is the very first revert. Maybe, I have overlooked something, but this looks again to me like an invented policy which is far harsher than the 3RR rule on the English language edition of the Wikipedia. And this comes from an admin who until now has 30 category edits in total (see here), i.e. who most likely has no experience in our category system.

I would be grateful if other admins could take a look at that case. And, in general, I would appreciate if blocks in general are founded on a policy or consensus of the community. Thanks for your time, AFBorchert 13:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi,

JL's block must be considered in the context of dozens of complaints from other community members and a day-block just recently. It is normal that blocks escalate if behaviour doesn't improve. None of the admins I have talked to have disputed that JL does a great deal of useful and helpful work. However, that doesn't give anyone a free license to upset others as they like.

You don't need to edit categories themselves to understand how the system works, and you don't need to be an admin to recognise an edit war when you see one.

Nonetheless I expect more discussion about this block to take place on JL's talk page (so at least they can participate in the discussion). Indeed several admins are aware of it. --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 13:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi pfctdayelise, three points: Firstly, SB Johnny, in his reasoning, didn't claim that there was an edit war. He just blocked JL for simple reverting edits without previous conflicts -- as far as I understand his statement. Secondly, I simply ask that blocks are based on policies or general agreements. I fail to see these in this case. Maybe its time to define policies how such mass reorganizations have to be done. Possibly JL will help to contribute this process of finding a consensus. Thirdly, I think that the number of complaints must be seen against the 30,000 edits, JL has made so far. JL's work is of a nature which is more likely to raise conflicts than honours -- a well organized category system is taken for granted and even a simple reverting edit can be the begin of a conflict. --AFBorchert 13:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

AFBorchert: if you don't mind, I'd rather discuss this on Juiced lemon's talk page, where he has the opportunity to reply. Please chip in there if you have anything to add. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 15:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi SB Johnny, this is ok with me as far as it concerns the specific case of your block. However, I see also more general issues raised in this block which I would like to be discussed here or somewhere else where the community sees it. Regards, AFBorchert 15:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi AFBorchert, you seem to miss the point that these admins are trying to keep JL as an contributor by giving him EXTRA allowances. I've seen no indication that he is being singled out unfairly. In fact, I think just the opposite is true. Instead of giving him an indefinite block for disruption, these folks have truly tried to help him moderate his conduct so he can continue to contribute. If at the end of this process, JL ends up indef blocked; it will not be for one disruptive action but for his overall lack of clue. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi FloNight, thanks for your comments but I fail to see an "EXTRA allowance" in blocking JL for a simple reverting edit. And I still fail to see a punishable conduct in JL's case. Regards, AFBorchert 18:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The extra allowance was not blocking JL before, given the months or years of continually disruptive behavior that has earned JL the distinction of being the most-mentioned user at Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. --Itub 18:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ahem. I would appreciate it if someone would close this discussion, and let Juiced lemon and I discuss things. Calling someone cluless, leaving congratulatory messages on my talk, or sending me giddy emails is not at all appropriate. This is a serious atttempt to prevent further disruption by an otherwise valuable contributor. Anyone willing to help J.l. (or even me) should leave comments on his talk page (even blunt comments, so long as they're civil). If you're not interested in helping, please just shut your trap: there's no excuse for kicking someone when they're down. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 18:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

In case it is at all unclear, I support this block and I think AFBorchert is, at best, confused. Talking WITH JL about the specifics of the block is appropriate on his page. Talking about policy ramifications, if any, is OK here, in my view. We need to keep those separate. Some of the above belongs on JL's page but I will say this about policy, I don't really like to see people that don't have the context of what went before, of how hard we as a community have struggled to cope with JL's disruption (while honoring JL's hard work) turning up on blocked users pages arguing against their blocks. That's just divisive and it ought not to be done. ++Lar: t/c 00:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your assessment, Lar. Speaking about policies: I am asking for nothing more or less than that infinite blocks of users who have contributed significantly must be comprehensible by mere mortal community members like me. COM:BP states explicitly that controversal blocks are to be discussed here. Regards, AFBorchert 06:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

AFBorchert, if you read the Commons notice boards and other talk pages, you will see that JL's conduct has been discussed extensively. He has been counseled repeatedly to act in a more collaborative manner. While his lack of descriptive edit summaries might not seem like a big deal when taken in isolation, it is a pretty good example of his non-collaborative attitude. When asked about it, he responds that he feels that it takes too long to write one. And also does not feel he needs to leave a message on an users talk page explaining his changes. Folks have been trying to get JL to understand that all work done on Commons by its regular editors needs to be explained in a way that the new or infrequent user can understand. This is important because many contributors come here intermittently. Making them feel welcome so they will continue to submit here is an important consideration since we depend on their volunteers work. I hope you will understand that these admins are acting in the overall best interest of Commons. They want to find a way to keep JL and make other contributors feel welcome here also. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Seeking a workable, long-term solution

I've been giving some thought to how to keep J.l. as a contributor, while hopefully avoiding further eruptions. J.l.'s problems stem mostly from a failure to communicate (both in terms of expressing and listening), so it seems to me that the best way is to provide him with some firm rules about when communication is necessary, and ensuring that when conflicts come up in the future that these are vented on public fora where there are many listeners and speakers.

These rules will be along these lines:

1. If J.l. reverts more than one edit by a non-vandal contributor, he will stop reverting and leave a message on that user's talk page. I'm willing to create some few-keystroke template messages for him so it doesn't take too much time.
2. He will give that other user a certain amount of time (maybe 36 hours?) to either self-revert, tell J.l. to go ahead and revert, or start a discussion at COM:CFD
3. If he reverts 3 or more non-vandalism edits from any particular user, or accuses a clearly non-vandal user of vandalism, he will be blocked one month, with no option for unblocking.

The goal is to let him do his work, while at the same time preventing yet another blow-up from occurring that will require community and/or administrative intervention. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 18:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

JL has on his page stated that he will not accept a set of rules that are tailored to him, only rules that apply to all. Normally that's a good principle, but there is precedent for putting people under special rules on other wikis (en:wp arbcom for example uses 1 revert per week paroles, etc) and I see no reason why that would not hold here as well... I would also point out that the alternative here is, instead of us making yet another special allowance by introducing these rules and not blocking indefinitely, that we just give up and block indefinitely. Therefore I support the notion of special rules, precisely because I think JL is valuable enough to make special allowances for, and in particular, this set seems well thought out and has a better chance of working than other ones proposed in the past as the scope is narrow and the parameters well defined. ++Lar: t/c 22:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I've offered him a deal on his talk page that's slightly more nuanced than this one. If he accepts, I will unblock him. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 00:13, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently he's not accepting. His "counter-offer" is pretty much the same as he's been doing, so this will need to be more of an imposition than a contract. I had considered as an alternative just waiting until he gets brought up on the noticeboard again and then indefblocking him until he agrees with the above conditions (or perhaps even some that are more narrowly defined), but given the activity on his talk, I'd worry that he'd badly affect yet another new user who wouldn't know how to find the noticeboards.

Suggestions? --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 17:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that the major problem is that he does not understand why his actions cause anger and frustration. What is equally sad is that he does hundreds of edits without problem but seems to get suddenly excited by a few changes that put him in his revert mode. As if challinging/doubting his authority triggers his triggerfinger.

I tried to start a discussion about a scenario where he reverts a change without an explanation and this gets reverted by the original author. And what then? This discussion thread has been undersnowed by the other discussions. And personally, I fail to understand why documenting his own modifications (the what, not the why) is no problem, while documenting a revert is a problem. Maybe we should delve in his past conflicts to try to rebuild a scenario which really did happen. Unfortunately, I have little or no time this week. --Foroa 18:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Foroa, I don't think it's been snowed under, it's more that the moderation was making progress before, so everyone (wisely) laid off. My post this morning was more or less just to record that the moderation is no longer making progress (the reason (I suspect) is that he realized that there was not going to be any negotiating on my part). I've also had quite a bit of feedback via email, and the "gist" of those comments was that although the conditions I've set are a bit draconian, softer and gentler solutions proposed in the past have not resolved the issue.

I agree that he almost certainly doesn't understand why people get so upset with him, or perhaps even realize how genuinely upset they are. This is not our problem. Preventing further upset of the project is the only thing we should be concerning ourselves with... the intracacies of what it's like to be Juiced Lemon are frankly none of our business. To put it bluntly: if he can't figure out for himself how to avoid pissing people off, and he is unwilling to accept assistance in that regard, perhaps he's just not compatible with our community and we need to bid him farewell.

We don't need to go into histories to see the issue. It's all on his talk page now. His treatment of CarolSpears (talk · contribs) is what got him into this, and it seems to me that this is the sort of user we might want to have around the place. I'm not sure if she is watching this page, but I'm also not sure JL would have even given her the time of day without the block. That's the issue that concerns me the most: keeping good contributors, and getting more of them. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 19:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that we all share the same ideas and priorities, but have other opinions of getting there. Personally, I am not a firm believer in blocking and would rather exhaust all other possibilities to improve the "community" aspect of the problem, especially if one sees what escalating terrorisme can be caused by blocked and frustrated users on other wiki's. On the other hand, I was slowly reaching the end of inspiration of my "soft" method. Wait and see I guess. --Foroa 09:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Details

Someone (who may feel free to self-identify) asked me to provide details on what triggered the block. For the record, here it is:

1. My attention was initially drawn by this edit (due to the thread title).

2. I checked his contribs, and saw the following:

06:40, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Category:Horse Mesa Dam‎ (Categories: Dams in Arizona | Salt River Project)
06:38, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Category:Horse Mesa Dam, Arizona‎ (category redirect)
06:29, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Horse Mesa Dam.jpg‎ (Category:Horse Mesa Dam, Arizona > Category:Horse Mesa Dam)
06:26, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Stewart Mountain Dam Arizona.jpg‎ (Category:Stewart Mountain Dam, Arizona > Category:Stewart Mountain Dam) (top) [rollback]
06:26, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Category:Stewart Mountain Dam, Arizona‎ (category redirect) (top) [rollback]
06:25, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Category:Stewart Mountain Dam‎ (Categories: Dams in Arizona | Maricopa County, Arizona; iw (en)) (top) [rollback]
06:20, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Stewart Mountain Dam Arizona-from airplane.jpg‎ (Category:Stewart Mountain Dam, Arizona > Category:Stewart Mountain Dam) (top) [rollback]
06:17, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Category:Roosevelt Dam, Arizona‎ (category redirect) (top) [rollback]
06:16, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Roosevelt dam 1911.jpg‎ (Undo revision 7747999 by CarolSpears (Talk)) (top) [rollback]
06:15, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Roosevelt Dam.jpg‎ (Undo revision 7748000 by CarolSpears (Talk)) (top) [rollback]
06:14, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Roosevelt Dam original masonry.jpg‎ (Undo revision 7748001 by CarolSpears (Talk)) (top) [rollback]
06:14, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Category:Roosevelt Dam‎ (rv to Revision as of 00:53, 24 September 2007) (top) [rollback]
06:13, 27 September 2007 (hist) (diff) Image:Roosevelt Dam - Project Gutenberg eText 16960.jpg‎ (Undo revision 7748002 by CarolSpears (Talk))

3. I followed up on this warning, and more specifically this further warning, which explicitly laid out the length of the next block.

That string of contribs might look innocuous, but this is how we keep coming back to the same problem over and over: J.l. sees an edit he doesn't agree with by a particular user, and then follows that user's conrtibs in a similar way that an administrator might rollback the contributions of Willy on Wheels, but the people he's treating in this manner are not vandals.

I'll happily clarify if need be (most of what anyone would want to know is on J.l.'s talk in any case). BTW, User:CarolSpears signs as "carol", and has since tried to engage J.l. in conversation on his talk. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 19:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Block of user:Grateful Dead for inappropriate username

out Admin O (talk · contribs) blocked Grateful_Dead (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user for having an inappropriate username. I think that "Grateful Dead" is not more inappropriate than "O" and would like to unblock. / Fred J 10:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree. User is just a big fan of the band. Deadstar (msg) 11:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not en:wp but there, I suspect the block would be sustained as the name is confusing. See Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames. While there are parts of that guideline that are in dispute I think the part about misleading names, and names that imply affiliation is pretty widely accepted. I think it's confusing here too... in fact I'd favour adopting all or part of that guideline after suitable modification to make it fit our needs. How about a compromise, let the user be renamed to "Grateful Dead Fan" or something similar? ++Lar: t/c 14:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Lar. However, the user is also en:User:Grateful Dead. I'm surprised this hasn't posed any problem on en: Jastrow (Λέγετε) 14:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

@Lar - I can't seem to get to the Inappropriate Usernames guideline you mentioned? And would you like me to rename myself too? (See: deadstar on en: wiki) Deadstar (msg) 15:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The correct link is Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames, and the relevant section is "Misleading usernames–Usernames that match the name of a well-known living or recently deceased person, unless you verifiably are that person, in which case please note this on your user page". The same reasoning can apply to bands or legal entities. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 15:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

first of all, the correct link is En:Wikipedia:Username#Inappropriate_usernames

The username policy is explicity about persons, not about band or legal entities. Would any of you really mistake user:Grateful Dead as representing the group itself?

Fred J 15:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems I made exactly the same mistake as Lar when quoting the link :-)

I don't think either that any of us would mistake a User:George W. Bush or a User:Britney Spears with the real ones... "The username policy is explicity about persons", true for the section I quote, but the "promotional usernames" section mentions "usernames that match the name of a company or group". Is it supposed to refer to music bands as well?

Finally, there is a en:User:Britney Spears. Apparently she (?) wasn't bothered with WP:IU except for one question on her user talk page. Is this policy really enforced on en:? Jastrow (Λέγετε) 15:50, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link :) I had the same question as Jastrow about the "promotional usernames"? Deadstar (msg) 15:53, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that in an international and multi-lingual context, we should not interprete limiting rules "wider" than they are. After all, in several cases, the names can even not be checked at all because we don't even have the slightest clue what the names mean locally. And if the user name is accepted by the English Wiki, why should we even invent even more limiting rules. (A good and simple commons rule could be: any user name that is accepted as name on another wikipedia) --Foroa 15:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the block of the username, I was only applying common sense when making the decision. Ordinarily by law, band names that have already been occupied cannot be reused for any purpose, unless if the person is/was part of the band or if he/she is a close sibling or relative of a band member. Any images uploaded under attribution would've been attributed to the band itself because of this confusing username. The band itself, however, is known worldwide, and Wikimedia is international, which bolsters this confusion. Jastrow hit the nail on the head: even though it only mentions well known people (letter), the spirit applies not only to people, but also to bands, groups, etc. (if the name has been copyrighted and/or trademarked) As for it existing on en.w, I was totally unaware of that. Finally, I apologize for any confusion and commotion this may have sparked. —O (说 • 喝) 00:27, 29 September 2007 (GMT)

On another note, the user ceased editing at least a week before I blocked it. —O (说 • 喝) 00:44, 29 September 2007 (GMT)

I should note that I unblocked the user, and he has made a couple of edits in the last days. If consensus is that the username is inappropriate then I suggest it should be renamed. Personally I agree with Foroa on this. Commons doesn't have to follow the username guidelines on English Wikipedia, for example because we don't have to worry about the NPOV issue. / Fred J 07:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No need for apology O. We are all in a learning phase and "re-use" too often the well etablished rules as used by the other wiki's without thinking on the actual commons context. And of course, if you do nothing, no mistakes can be attributed to you. Maybe the most important side effect of this case is that it might lead to conclusions that find their way in the commons policy or rules. --Foroa 08:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

A simple note on the user's page (such as "I'm a big fan of the band") would be enough to dissipate any ambiguity. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 09:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No, I think there is significant potential confusion here, any uploads that are credited to "Grateful Dead" are likely to be a huge source of copyright confusion later, especially from those who are less experienced. Regardless of whether band names are allowed on other wikis or not, HERE they seem not a good idea. Famous ones are worse than obscure ones, so I'd want to see Grateful Dead changed well before I wanted to see Deadstar changed, but it too, is not the best name choice. That's my view only of course. ++Lar: t/c 10:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd think we could start by asking the user if they want to change their username. / Fred J 15:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. As with potential confusion, users of the work will not care about even looking at the userpage at all. I will ask the user to change the name. —O (说 • 喝) 22:34, 01 October 2007 (GMT)

I don't think we should be using en's rules on usernames, however: users with names that are "bannable" on en.wp will be rather annoyed after SUL comes into play, because they'll have to keep logging in and out if they want to edit there. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 09:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should ever adopt en's (or any other wiki's) rules on anything without first reviewing, understanding, and if necessary modifying them to fit our culture and conditions. One area where, for a long time, they were seriously deficient though, was the ban on non roman characters... with SUL, that just wasn't going to fly. That said, I think en's naming rules are a useful place to start considering the problem, and I think this userID ought to be changed for reasons I outlined. I should have just went and asked myself I guess instead of declaiming at length. :) ++Lar: t/c 10:42, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Globally, I agree with most arguments, but I strongly dislike rules which are coupled to time and date. If Grateful Dead would have been 20 years younger or 20 years older, the outcome of the application of the rule would be quite different. If a rockgroup decides to take the name Lar, Fred or Jastrow and it becomes famous, does it mean that these users have to change their username ? Is a user called Shakespeare or Moses (and the many spelling variations) acceptable ? Is there a procedure to change recreate a user name that inherits the history of the original user ? What if a long standing user name appears to be an insult or blasphemy in another language ? We'd better be clear and use the least evil. --Foroa 11:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The principle is that of avoiding confusion. Would a user named Shakespeare be confused with William Shakespeare? I don't think so. He's very dead. So it would be allowed, I would think. You're right that it is an accident of timing that there is overlap... but that's precisely why I think the principle for confusion exists. Yes, ask the user to voluntarily change names, but also... Perhaps we need a more general username policy discussion. ++Lar: t/c 17:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Ongoing edit war...

... between User:Rex Germanus, User:Matthead and User:Postmann Michael over a nationalist POV issue regarding German language maps. Case of long-standing enmity from de-wiki and en-wiki; users have repeatedly been blocked on either or both. Can somebody please have a look and make them stop? Thanks, Future Perfect at Sunrise 14:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I have confronted Rex Germanus and Postmann Michael about the issue – they seem to be the main villains (or villain and a hero, I don't care). I have issued an ultimatum at both to not engage in any revert wars nor in any personal attacks. I have cleaned image histories of endless reverting and vandalism and I have also cleared one image talk history off rude personal attacks (ones that are probably illegal in many if not most countries).

What it all boils down to is this: If there are two versions of the same story, we in Commons have room for both. Naturally, images can't be based on "original research" but we don't judge whose research is the bost and most accurate. Which images will be shown on encyclopedic articles, must be decided in those projects which use images that Commons hosts. Samulili 19:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so here is the story. BTW, another user had created a IMHO better and less controversial version of the "Image:Historisches deutsches Sprachgebiet.PNG", but only uploaded it to en-Wiki. See my suggestion [6] --Matthead 19:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Make transparent pixel protected

Please fully protect this image. It is now displayed on the English Wikipedia for Internet Explorer 5.5 and 6 users on every page that uses a PNG or SVG image. It is part of a technical workaround to help compensate for these browsers' deficiencies. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 19:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:01, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Cansado

Please block the user Cansado. He uploads a great number of fair use images from the english Wikipedia (wich do not apply for Commons) either with no license information or making up fake licenses. His talk page is full or warnings, but he keeps uploading fair use images in this manner Thialfi 16:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The user Thialfi me this making a persecution belong to Wikiproyect:Israel of Wikipedia in Spanish. Flock the images of articles related to the Wikiproyect. I commit errors by ignorance. Also successes. I ask for warning to the user. (They excuse my English badly). Thanks. Cansado 18:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

En español - El usuario Thialfi me esta haciendo una persecucion por pertenecer al Wikiproyecto:Israel de la wikipedia en español. Borra las imagenes de los articulos relacionados al Wikiproyecto. Cometo errores por desconocimiento. Tambien aciertos. Solicito advertencia al usuario.(Disculpen mi mal ingles). Gracias.Cansado 18:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Note for admins: The user is not a newbie, and has been warned too many times. His claim of "persecution" is not only about my marking for speedy deletion of israel-related images he uploaded under wrong licenses, but also for texts in Wikipedia about similar topics that he had copy-and-paste from important websites. Thialfi 18:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Continuous the persecution. Cansado 20:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocked for three days because of continuous uploading of copyright violations. Images already marked as copyvio will be deleted. O₂ (息 • 吹) 22:37, 08 October 2007 (GMT)

Template:PD-self/ku

Please protect this template. This template has already been vandalised two times. --Bangin@de@ku ¤ ρø$τ 15:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No, but I'll put it on my watchlist to help fighting the vandalism. / Fred J 15:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

US Air Force Auxiliary (Civil Air Patrol) template

Please unprotect Template:PD-USGov-Military-Air Force Auxiliary.

PD-USGov-Military-Air Force Auxiliary should have the content of User:Midnightcomm/Template:CAP. Namely, the category changes. --Midnightcomm 17:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Unprotection

I like to request unprotection of Image:Wikitext-wiki markup-wikipedia.png. It was fully-protected back in August 2006 log because of a edit war. I'm sure this is resolved by now. I'm working on categorizing Wikipedia-related images and protected pages get in the way. Thank you. Rocket000 02:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done O₂ (息 • 吹) 03:03, 18 October 2007 (GMT)

User:Larsab

I just created this user account. However, I would like to contribute using another account which I also have just created. Could you please either delete this account or put a permanent block on it. Thank you.Larsab 14:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Please protect Image:Mileycyrus.jpg

This image has been vandalized a lot, presumably by the same person over multiple IP addresses, in the past 2 months. A lot has gone unchecked. Please protect it. Patstuart 16:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

 Done two weeks for now, thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Joymaster

It seems that this admin is misusing undeleting function to restore too many his or her uploaded images against consensus. For Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_by_Joymaster_III and Commons:Deletion requests/Images by Joymaster IV, any OTRS log? Emergency blocking might be desirable. Any comments from my fellow admins, please?--Jusjih 03:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

See Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/User_problems#Joymaster_.28talk_.E2.80.A2_contribs.29. -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Crystal Clear

Hello, I would like to request permanent semi-protection for this page, see [7] and [8]. Thanks in advance. --Überraschungsbilder 14:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for watching. -- Bryan (talk to me) 15:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Fandrus = banned w:User:Roitr

Fandrus (talk · contribs) is a sock of longtime-banned w:User:Roitr. Compare the Commons upload log of Fandrus to the en upload log of this en-blocked sock. Blocks and deletions seem to be in order here. Thanks. —Wknight94 (talk) 18:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

 Comment - he was blocked by Riana a few days ago under another usernames. 64.178.107.132 01:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Blocked and deletions are in order. O₂ (息 • 吹) 03:15, 04 November 2007 (GMT)

User:Boo1210

This user has had numerous warnings about uploading copyrighted screenshots, but after June it has been quiet. User has removed all warnings from his userpage. User has since uploaded 2 more images (early September), one screenshot, one image of a painting with no source. Not sure if block is needed or whether to just keep an eye on this one. Deadstar (msg) 12:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Again time but something is ringing bells but the contributions make it worth keeping an eye. A block looks likely if there was anything else? --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Nothing else at the moment. Perhaps leave it and see if he's back or not. Deadstar (msg) 12:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Drunk'n doctor

Drunk'n doctor has been deleted a number of times over the last couple of days, recreated by same IP number. Can it be protected. Thanks. Deadstar (msg) 12:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:45, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Help

Please I would like to include our language (Asturianu) (Code "ast") in the following navigation bar (click here to edit). The template is blocked and only can be edited by Administrators.

Template:PD-self/lang

It's needed to insert the following text: [[Template:PD-self/ast|{{lang|ast|Asturianu}}]] |

Thanks --Astur1 20:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

 Done Patrícia ^msg 22:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Unprotection request

I'll like to request unprotection of Image:Erioll world.svg. I understand that certain images get protected simply because of high visibility, but I believe in general there should be other reasons, such as vandalism or editwarring. The history shows no sign of either. The reason for protection was "Used in MW interface - eg MediaWiki:Wikiminiatlas.js"[9], however, this doesn't seem like common practice (thankfully) as most of the images used in user scripts are not protected at all. Besides trying to help keep protection to a minimum, my personal reason for this request is I wanted to upload a new version of the image (visually the same, just optimized code). I know I can request an admin to do this, but I been running into fully-protected pages more and more, and it's starting to get frustrating. Most of the time, there's no outstanding reason for it. Having to request non-controversial changes runs counter to the openness of a wiki. If there is some major reason for all this protection, please inform me, as all I can see this doing is hindering improvement and growth. Pre-emptive protection is not assuming good faith.

Sorry, I started to rant, but like I said, this is getting frustrating. Thanks. Rocket000 08:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no definite guideline on when to protect pages. I assume that it often happens because an admin thinks it is a good idea.

The Erioll World image is used on a lot of pages, such as en:Washington_Monument (at the top) and should not be unprotected...

Anyways, if there are other images you think should be unprotected: that's the kind of requests this noticeboard is here for. I recently unprotected a couple of templates myself that I didn't think need protection (see #I unprotected these templates).

Fred J 19:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The page is used on literally thousands of pages, mostly on it and eu, but also on others. I understand and support protection in this instance. You're right, you can get an admin to do it. At very least, this should be semiprotected. However, I can attest that if someone vandalizing a highly-used page, it's very difficult for people on Wikipedia to come fix it on commons if they don't know how. Like I said, I support this. Patstuart 20:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

When I first read this I thought little of it. However on reflection I think I am with Patstuart in that it should be protected fully. This issue, likely misunderstood in en wp terms, is about what protection actually is here. The issue is not protecting the text on the page but the image itself (I assuming I getting this right, if not let me know). I have no problem with folk editing the text BUT uploading a "vandal image" to overwrite it - and it happens often enough - would cause problem across wikis that only an admin on Commons would be able to fix. En wp is blessed (?) with plenty of RC patrollers, most folk on Commons are busy doing things. All in all I think protection for images used across wiki has nothing to do with "good faith" and probably should be protected. Just my 0.02 --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there a Commons equivalent of enWP's {{editprotected}} (alerting an admin to make certain changes to a sysop-protected page?) This would help when the image does need to be protected but someone wishes to make a change to the text. ~ Riana ⁂ 08:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The times I try templates that don't exist on the wiki I'm on but in this case {{Editprotected}} would have worked just fine :) BUT it would depend on an admin checking the category..... Click, whir (early) - I think I'll go do a category watch using Bryan's bot for a couple of those sort of categories? Probably unblock reqs too? Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Aw, trust me not to look for the obvious! I'll try to keep an eye on the category too; I did a lot of work with protections on en but not so much here so I'll have to read up on our policy first ~ Riana ⁂ 09:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. I see why it's protected in this case. Thanks for all your responses. Rocket000 17:09, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Compared to the English Wikipedia, how hard is it to become an admin here? Rocket000 17:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Not that hard. 6-8 weeks experience in areas where admins work, decent knowledge on Commons practices and processes and generally being nice to users should suffice. See Commons:Guide to adminship. Personally I find interaction with other users importtant.

About the image, it is used on very many Wikipedias; not only the English. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I know I'm not ready yet, but someday I hope to be one. Rocket000 22:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Licensing of Image:TonpaShenrab.gif

Hi. I found and incorrect information for the image found on http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TonpaShenrab.gif. It gives completely wrong info about the authro stating he is dead more than 70 years. In fact he is alive and well and actually, has a copyright on the picture which is said to be i9n public domain. The link for the source of the photo dorn't work either. I tried to update it but it soen't change the license. I'm new on Wiki so I don't know how to do it. So I hope you can look into it.The image is line drawing by Lopon Tenzin Namdak and not a wood block print as suggested. He is alive and well and has copyright on it as it was a part of a book Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, Snow Lion, 1993 ISBN1-55939-0112-3. Book and all materials in it are copyright of Lopon Tenzin Namdak, so to use this image one has to ask permission from him. Please correct the license. Thank you, Lhagon 17.11.07 —the preceding unsigned comment was added by Lhagon (talk • contribs)

OK, in that case, I think the image should be deleted here and re-uploaded to the French Wikipedia with some sort of fair use license (I'm unsure on their policies there). Could someone confirm - I'm still learning the ropes somewhat :) Giggy\^Talk 21:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia strongly discourages it, so yes I have deleted the image. Will not upload to the French Wikipedia 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 02:17, 21 November 2007 (GMT)

Aaah, OK, thanks O. Giggy\^Talk 05:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Hansjoseph

User:Hansjoseph was blocked for three days on November 23 for "Uploading files without source/licensing after warnings". This after he spent November 21st adding source info to his images. After doing so, he sent the involved admin, User:ALE!, an email to ask if his additions were satisfactory. After receiving no reply, he assumed that he had produced the required information, only to be blocked for three days after uploading another file.

I find this harsh and over-zealous treatment of a user who simply does not understand what he is doing wrong. (The images in this case, such as Image:Anterus.jpg are two-dimensional representations of icons of the various popes inside en:Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. The images themselves are centuries old and the author is not known).

I request that the blocking of this user be removed forthwith and that administrators at least try to communicate with users beforesimply clicking "block". Anrie 13:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I confess I do not fully agree with you. The user was warned on the 20th twice and then returned to do the same thing. I agree it is possible that they did not understand and obviously I have no idea what "private" emails were sent (it is always best to keep discussion on wiki whenever possible). A three day block for this is not something I would consider unreasonable without actually seeing the email. Every admin operates in the way they see as best - we are not cloned and we are volunteers - ALE! is an admin I respect and I would certainly not overturn a block of his without very good reason. Others may have views but ALE! is the one who should comment as well. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Since I am now once more allowed to contribute to Commons, I would like to add my side of the story,

First thanks to Anrie for her intercession on my behalf. It is not so much the blocking that I want to complain about, but the absolute UNHELPFULNESS of administrator ALE!. This is what happened:

I am a contributor to a small wiki (Afrikaans, 8.6K pages) and I write mainly on early Popes of the Roman Catholic Church. I started in March this year and soon found that no images of some of the early Popes existed on Commons. I understood that I needed to find public domain images. To my delight I found a full set on "The Popes Photo Gallery" (URL: http://members.tripod.com/~cckswong/pope.htm). These appeared to be photograpic copies of old iconographs. I uploaded one, filling in the upload form as best I could. The "Author" field baffled me, I thought it should have been "Artist", but since the artist was unkown I left it blank. I set the copyright tag to "Public Domain: Old (more than 70 years after death of author)". Everything worked fine. No error messages, no messages from administrators. I uploaded a few more as my series of articles grew. I got a message from an administrator politely requesting that I include category information. Fine, I immediately did so and also to the earlier uploaded files. For nearly six months everything is fine. Then I get a rude Template Message saying two of my images have no source information and I better supply that or they will be deleted! But the images DO HAVE source information! The message seems to imply that the source information is not sufficient, but does not give any information on what I should do. Being a responsible wikipedian I try to comply and add URL information to the source field and add "unknown" to the author field. Since I am not at all sure that this suffices I send the following e-mail reply:

Dear Sir / Madam

I do not understand your message. The image in question does have source information and copyright tag. What is wrong? I have added URL in case that is what you want.

The administrator apparently did not get this message as it was sent as a reply.  ::However the administrator must have seen I edited the images in question. Two days later I get another template message threatening to delete the images and I get blocked for three days since in the intervening time I had uploaded 2 more files with the same information. What am I to do? I try to change the image information again and send another message to the administrator, using the wiki facility. Now the wiki facility does not allow (or at least I do not know how) the attachment of files, therefore I cannot send document material. Here is the second e-mail:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I did reply to your previous message, but got no answer from you. I am NOT trying to be difficult. The images in question have source information. They are very old and the original author is unknown. What more do you want? There are several images from the same source on Commons, not uploaded by me.

Please remove my block, I am NOT trying to damage Commons.

If you tell me what you want I shall try my best to supply it.

The author of the images in question is not known so I cannot supply it nor can I give the date of his death, but I assure you it is more than 70 years ago. The URL is given. I cannot imagine what more could you possibly want.

I have uploaded these images since March this year and never had any problems. Has Commons policy changed??

Regards

HansJoseph

I am now getting desperate. I cannot access commons and nobody tells me what is wrong. I do some more research and find some more information which I send in the following e-mail:

Dear Sir,

I am again trying to contact you regarding my uploaded images, but I get no answer.

Please cooperate with a user that is trying his best to comply with your strictures.

I have done some more research regarding the images I uploaded.

It seems they are photographic copies of icons in the basilic St. Paul outside the Walls in Rome. Since the icons themselves are from the time of Pope Leo I, the photographs are not subject to copyright.

I have documentary evidence, but since I do not have your e-mail address and since this facility does not allow file attachments, I can only add the URL where the evidence can be found.

The URL is: http://www.popechart.com/history.htm

I perfectly understand that I and not you should change the descriptions on the images, but I do not understand what should be written there.

Could you please fix one of them (using the evidence supplied) and let me know which one is now OK and I shall fix the others ASAP.

Thanks for your cooperation.

HansJoseph

The problem is that I still have no answer and do not know how to fix my image files. The wiki, (including Commons) is much more than a set of pages on a server. The community of wikipedians is its greatest asset and administrators should support the community. We are not (by far the majority at least) intend on damaging Commons, after all we spend a lot of our time supporting Commons. We may not all be experts on copyright and image procedures, but given some positive feedback this can be fixed.

Why did I not write on this page before and only sent e-mails? I suspected that either I was being stupid (most likely) or the administrator had a "bad hair day" and I did not want to air dirty linen in public. Had ALE! sent me an e-mail with the necessary instructions all this would have been over days ago.

So again, and this time to the entire Commons administration, PLEASE HELP.

This morning before I can post this lamentation I finally get an e-mail from ALE!.

Here is the text:

I have unblocked you now as you requested so you can add the relevant information to the popes' images. However, please keep in mind, that some images of more recent popes might still be covered by copyright law and that freedom of panorama generally does not exist inside buildings and that it does not exist at all in Italy. Please tag them with <<copyvio|not old enough.>> --ALE! ¿…? 22:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought I speak English pretty well, but this NOT helpful. Thanks for the unblocking, but what do you mean with "The relevant information"? What do you want?? Please give a concrete example. I agree that the images of the recent popes are still covered by copyright. There are free images of these recent popes available on Commons so I do not need others (I only upload if no other image is available). What is meant by "freedom of panorama"? (Does it mean the original photographer violated copyright and the images in the "Popes Gallery" are illegal?) Which images should I tag with <<copyvio|not old enough>>? That surely means they will be deleted? I shall attempt to change Anterus.jpg. Please check it and let me know if this now satisfactory.

Regards

HansJoseph

Sorry Hansjospeh but I did not read your e-mail until yesterday. I only occationally read my e-mail so it is always better to leave me a message on my talk page.

I thought that my comment after unblocking you was fairly clear. But is seems that you might want read some additional information very important for contribution to Commons:

1. Commons:Derivative works and
2. Commons:Freedom of panorama

If you have further questions concerning your images after reading this then please contact me again on my talk page or here. --ALE! ¿…? 09:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

And here some additional help considering your images:

1. The original paintings in the basilica are the copyrighted works of its artists.
2. You can make a photograph of these and upload them to Commons if a) teh author has died more than 70 years ago or b) if the paintings are covered by the freedom of panorama exception.
3. In case a) you can tag them with any free license accepted on Commons as the photograph is yours. But you should mention that the artwork's copyright has expired and state the reason.
4. In case b) you can tag them with any free license accepted on Commons and should mention that the artwork is in the PD. Additionally it is recommended to also add the {{FOP}} template.
5. If you have not taken the photo personally (as in your case) you can upload the image to Commons if a) the photograph has a free license accepted in Commons and if the image falls under the freedom of panorma exception or b) the photograph shows a 2D artwork and its author has died more than 70 years ago.
6. In case a) please use the original license and add the {{FOP}} template and also state where you have found your image.
7. In case b) please use the {{PD-Art}} tag.

In your case for most images the last case is applicable except for the paintings where its author is less than 70 years dead. If the author is annonymous (and not only unknown!) than the 100 years rule after its creation applies. So the most images showing the most recent popes are most probably copyvios.

BTW: Freedom of panorama does not exist in Italy but that is of no importance in your case. --ALE! ¿…? 09:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Northern Ireland and Image:Ulster banner.svg

Hi there, I just protected Northern Ireland (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) and Image:Ulster banner.svg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) due to edit-warring by 86.158.71.43 and Padraig3uk. This is a naming dispute which has been discussed in an arbcom case on en WP and can become quite nasty. Please review as necessary. Thanks, ~ Riana ⁂ 15:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd hoped that had gone quiet but obviously not, thanks for catching it Riana, I doubt it will be an easy one to sort --Herby ^{talk thyme} 15:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Mhm, these things aren't - I was about to leave a message on your page when I looked through the image talk history but thankfully you turned up here :) Let's see what 2 days' breather produces ~ Riana ⁂ 16:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I've watchlisted both, and am prepared to extent protection. I doubt this issue will go away in 2 days if it got to ArbCom on EnWP. We can only hope. Giggy\^Talk 00:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Image:055.jpg

Hello. I've added Image:055.jpg to Commons:Protected against recreation, as it has been uploaded and deleted many times. I'm a new admin, so I'd like to know if this is acceptable or if I've just screwed up real bad :-) --Boricuæddie 01:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

You did just fine :-) 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 02:00, 03 December 2007 (GMT)

File Upload Bot (ZackClark)

I have blocked this user because the operator is running his bot using this account without approval. Was this the correct thing to do? --Boricuæddie 21:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be the correct thing to do - I can't imagine why an unapproved bot should be allowed to run. — Giggy 01:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

What's more hysterical is that the owner has never made any edits, visible or deleted. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 03:26, 05 December 2007 (GMT)

For what it's worth I agree with the action too. I blocked one a while back (at least it was doing something, cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Whoa. Back the truck up there, kidlets. Let's go back to Commons Admin 101.

Why do we have a bot flag? So that people can ignore bot edits in RC. Why do we make people ask for approval? Because bots that make mistakes can potentially cause a lot of damage due to fast editing rate.

Running an unapproved bot is not in and of itself something that damages the wiki and therefore should be blocked.

OK... now onto this particular bot. The 12 warnings on its talk page tell me that if nothing else, the bot operator is not formatting the summary info in a preferred way. So for that reason alone it is worth blocking the bot to prevent further damage (editing in a way that will necessitate largescale cleanup is a kind of damage, especially when it could be easily fixed). So there is no reason to block the bot indefinitely. Block it for a day or whatever to get the operator's attention.

Secondly, did the blocking admin make any attempt to contact the bot operator? I don't see any message at user talk:ZachClark.

Let's use admin tools with our brains in gear and not just follow nice summaries, folks... think: what is the point of the rule? (ps: commons:bots)

regards --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - reading some more. The one I blocked a while back I blocked for two hours after I was unable to get a talk page response from the owner. It could well be a misunderstanding - the indef should be removed and communication worked on. Agree with pfctdayelise (and appreciate being called a "kidlets" - nicest thing anyone has said in while...) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Unblock please Boricuaeddie to maybe a day or so if you will. If not I'll do it later, cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, Pfctdayelise. Commons:Bots says, "The bot's user page should clearly state who the creator is and how they can best be contacted. Bot Creators or Bot Operators should be prepared to take responsibility for fixing any mistakes that their bot makes. If a bot is being used to upload files, this includes correct licensing information and categorisation (each file should belong to at least one category that describes its content or function)." The operator failed to do all of this. Also, User:ZachClark does not exist. Therefore, there was no way I could contact the operator, whom ignored all previous warnings, BTW. I think all these things warrant a block, at least until the operator identifies himself, adresses the warnings on the bot's talk page, and seeks community review and approval. I stand by my actions, and will not unblock the bot myself. If anyone else wants to unblock it, feel free, but make sure you have consensus and a pretty convincing reason to back the action up. Regards, Boricuæddie 20:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Everybody's right. I think pfctdayelise is correctly summarizing our principles. I think Boricuaeddie is correct that this particular bot should remain blocked until the bot has an identified owner/operator and the operator has engaged in discussion about what needs doing. Right now I see a bot with no user page, no sign who is running it and no responses to the warnings on the talk page. We can have unapproved bots. They're just subject to blocking if they go off in the weeds, and with a LOT less forebearance than a bot run by someone that ran through the approval process. What we can't have is non responsiveness to issues... this bot had 10 days for the operator to act before Bori blocked it. My only quibble is with "The user is not an approved bot." as the block reason. The block reason ought to be "this bot's owner is not responding to legitimate concerns raised about it". YMMV. PS, how do I get to be a kidlet? ++Lar: t/c 22:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I blame en.wp for my incorrect blocking rationale :-) --Boricuæddie 22:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You can only be a kidlet, Lar, by incorrectly approving Eddie's block before pfc's comment. Like me! — Giggy 22:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I do believe you've got my goat there. :) ++Lar: t/c 05:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, en.WP's policy is to block all unapproved bots. And approval is needed not just the bot account but each task! Rocket000 13:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe we're a bit more mellow here. We like people to go through the approval process if they want a flag, and we like to know what it is the bot is doing, and see some tests and etc, but if someone is running an unapproved bot, that bot would get treated just like a human, if it's in the weeds and comments aren't responded to, it will get blocked, as a preventative measure. Hopefully our approval process isn't too bureaucratic. ++Lar: t/c 17:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It's much less bureaucratic than en.wikipedia. We approve bots; they approve tasks... 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 03:19, 07 December 2007 (GMT)

I think there's something to be said for approving tasks, though. Although we haven't had any major problems with a bot getting approved claiming it was going to do category moves and then being run to blow away images or whatever.. :) so maybe not. ++Lar: t/c 04:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

And hopefully we don't need something like w:WP:BEANS either :) Rocket000 15:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

What Lar says. NB, I agree this bot needed blocking, but not indef and not because it was an "unapproved bot". --pfctdayelise (说什么?) 06:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with blocking not being indefinite, because bots are not humans (meaning they are much dumber than humans), and therefore after the block expires it would just start editing where it left off. 哦， 是吗？(User:O) 22:10, 07 December 2007 (GMT)

I think we should be blocking until someone comes forward and claims responsibility for the bot's actions, and explains what's going to happen next in terms of fixing the issues raised. But I see no problem in changing the block reason to something more appropriate. — Giggy 05:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. Indef != forever. Indef == "until such time as conditions warrant lifting" :) Any admin can change the block reason by unblocking and reblocking, but it would be nice if the original admin (Bori) did it. I don't see it as controversial though so anyone COULD do it, Bori already agreed with the rationale for changing it. ++Lar: t/c 15:12, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I think pfctdayelise should really give it a break. I already recognized that I made a mistake; there's no need to keep rubbing it in my face, and there's certainly no need to "make it official" by unblocking the bot and re-blocking him with a "correct" rationale, IMO. I could just leave a message in the bot's talk page telling him this. But, to avoid any more trouble, I'll do the dang unblocking. --Boricuæddie 15:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You were not alone with this assumption, I wouldn't take personally. Rocket000

I think it's a fitting name per the definition "time not specified", but "indefinitely" is usually used to mean "probably forever". Maybe we should call it something else when it's used in this manner to avoid confusion? Conditional block? "Shape up or ship out" block? :) I know "indefinite" is the opposite of "definite", but clearly blocks like this are not the same as blocking vandalism-only accounts where indef does mean probably forever. Rocket000 15:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Viewseneemy = Roitr

More Roitr nonsense (see #User:Fandrus = banned w:User:Roitr above). User:Viewseneemy has uploaded the same images as User:Fandrus so the same blocking/deleting appears to be necessary. —Wknight94 (talk) 22:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Blocked, deleting. — Giggy 00:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Bcc chAmPIOn123

Possible sock puppet account used to manipulate other users votes for a featured picture. --TM 09:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't think it is a puppet account but "final" warning given and should be blocked if they do that again - thanks for bringing it to our attention, regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I (and others) think User:Bcc chAmPIOn123 and User:Sasumaro yakanti are the same person. Both are vandalizing in the featured picture candidates and changing other peoples votes. They do continous edits ([10], [11]). Both are uploading Harry Potter images and adding them to the featured picture candidates. Both should be blocked in my opinion. --TM 07:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Not totally convinced they are the same person but maybe meat puppets if not socks. That and the disruptive nature of the edits has lead me to block User:Bcc chAmPIOn123 indefinitely. I am unsure about User:Sasumaro yakanti - assume good faith maybe for now but I don't feel strongly. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Mohammed pages

Please permanently semi protect Image:Maome.jpg and Muhammad and Image:Mohammed kaaba 1315.jpg due to constant vandalism. -Nard 15:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

 Done --Boricuæddie 18:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The first two are fully protected for a bit, the third semi protected. Both should have expired in a few weeks (forget the exact date). — Giggy 05:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Image:Heckert GNU white.svg

Please protect this high-visibility image. An anon recently nominated it for deletion. -Nard 14:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Err - care to check you have the correct image? No edits since April & it is protected already. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:15, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

An anon did just nominate it for deletion (again), but the nomination doesn't cause any problems, unless you think someone's going to take it seriously. --dave pape 21:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I've protected the deletion request subpage. 哦，是吗？(User:O) 23:53, 22 December 2007 (GMT)

Is that necessary if the image page itself is protected? Nevermind, I see that it is. Rocket000 00:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Erection partial.jpg

Just closed a third deletion nomination from an anonymous editor on this deletion subpage, could we have the page semi-protected to prevent against further deletion nominations from those without accounts. There is no reason for deletion being given other than "pornographic image" and the image is used on projects, so deletion isn't really an option. I've left a note in my closing comment that if the image is problematic, ask a local administrator to add the image to the Mediawiki:Bad image list on their project. I don't see that there's any need for the page to be edited by anonymous and non autoconfirmed users at the moment. Nick 04:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi protected. If they started registering and nominating, I'll full protect, but I'd rather give it a chance if someone can bring forward a genuine case for deletion. Oh, and it's full move protected, for rather obvious reasons...— Giggy 05:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that the used images like this bring the anons here. If it wasn't used, they'd have more of a case, but they probably wouldn't see it then. Rocket000 09:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The Main Page itself

It's a very important page. In other projects they have their main page protected. So why not have Wikimedia Commons'.--David Angel 00:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The page is semi-protected already. There is so little vandalism, it isn't worth it, being a wiki. Wikispecies main page isn't protected either. Majorly (talk) 00:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I have it watchlisted, as do many other users, so vandalism is reverted quickly with accounts vandalising on the Main Page generally blocked indef (from what I've seen). — Giggy 06:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

WSs's page is ½ protected. 68.39.174.238 12:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The main page gets extremely little vandalism, all things considered, and it is a nice feeling when absolutely anyone can edit it. Pracising what we preach, and all. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The return of Primetime!

The English Wikipedia and Wiktionary, as well as alot of other WMF wikis, have been annoyed by this noxious vandal and serial copyright-plagiarist Primetime. He's had a few accounts here, most notably HQCentral (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user.

His latest affair has been 65h6jnjn (talk · contributions · Move log · block log · uploads · Abuse filter log) block user, which uploaded a blatantly useless image Image:Primetime_Logo.gif, and used a pupet to add it to the page tracking and describing his vandalisms. The pupet(s) have been blocked on en, however I request the local sock be blocked indefinitely as a sockpuppet of a banned user. The image should be deleted as well, but I will go through the {{Delete}} process if need be.

Thanx. 68.39.174.238 12:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorted thanks. Deleted, blocked & appreciate the "heads up", cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Mutter Erde and the personal attack

Hello! I'm asking some admin to block Mutter Erde, he called me a troll (Which is very bad in a public discussion.)--OsamaK 11:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I have put a notice to ask Mutter Erde to be civil. I think that for now this should be sufficient. Of course it shouldn't become a habit. Rama 11:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I Blocked him upon consulation to another sysop in IRC for 2 hours as a cool down period. Note: At dewiki he is currently indefinite banned. ^{__ ABF __} ϑ 12:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

For the record, which IRC channel? If we're gonna discuss admin stuff on IRC (which I don't think we should), keep it on #wikimedia-commons (I scrolled through there and saw nothing...). — Giggy 13:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It was that channel, but a bit before you joined. You joined [13:41:02] , the last comment about this was [13:23:21] . Regards, ^{__ ABF __} ϑ 13:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it wasn't really necessary to block. Is there a background I'm not acquaited with? Oh well, two hours is a good "cool down period" I guess. Patrícia ^msg 14:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Mutti is sometimes getting angry a bit early (expecially at de:) and i belived its a good way to let him cool down a bit. It was no way to punish, just a way to get a bit tranquility into all this. ^{__ ABF __} ϑ 14:19, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Would you please tell me, who was the second guy in this nonpublic channel? I need his name for my - (of course!) - public archive. Thanks. And please don´t tell such de:Mumpitz as above in the public, otherwise I will peek in my archive and present some links around your hopeless attempts to become an admin in de. :-). Mutter Erde 15:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

How would that help defuse the situation and increase the general harmony around here? I don't support cooldown blocks in general, I don't think they work but let's not widen the conflict ok? ++Lar: t/c 19:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

No no no, not so quick. If ABF must admit, that the second guy was Osama himself I give ABF exactly 2 hours to resign. And then I would "forget" his part in this story. (Not everybody gets the chance that I forget something. Don´t be silly) .Btw.: What was wrong with this interesting pic? Mutter Erde 09:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I have not talked to Osama in IRC the whole last day and I said its a commons-sysop wich Osama is in fact not. I wont tell you the name of him (es reich, wenn du auf einen Sauer bist) untill i talked to him again and ask him if i am allowed to tell you his name. Regards, ^{__ ABF __} ϑ 12:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the first time, you can see this edit. two hours is too few.--OsamaK 08:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

this one--OsamaK 08:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

With comments like this I don't think you are really helping to deal the situation with Mutter Erde. I wish you could leave judgments to other admins and users, more info is, of course, always welcome. (While I'm at it, may I make a petition that you—and every other admin—remove polemic and potentially hurtful content from your user page?). Samulili 09:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I just can please everyone to come down and come back to a cool and clear diskussion. ^{__ ABF __} ϑ 12:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

ABF is definitely carrying conflicts from German Wikipedia ("Mutti") into Commons. I strongly recommend to give this matter into the hands of admins who are mainly based in other projects who stay neutral. Simplicius 12:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

OK I hadn't read this with attention since my last comment... let me get this straight. ABF, you wrote "Mutti is sometimes getting angry a bit early (expecially at de:) and i belived its a good way to let him cool down a bit." Did you do your blocking based on previous behaviour from other wikis?

I can understand that knowing a user background may be helpful to analyse his/her behaviour cross-wiki, but using it as an excuse sounds like a bad idea. Usually blocks don't cool down people, they just get pissed off, so it's a last resort, not a first.

Users can behave differently in different environments and Commons is certainly different from Wikipedias, so let's give people a break. Everybody relax and {{Be civil}} and talk before you do/say something drastic :)

Simplicius: several admins *are* reading and commenting here. To accuse people of transwiking conflicts doesn't help either, I'm afraid.

Lar, where's that COM:MELLOW?? :) Patrícia ^msg 14:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Not policy, not ever policy I hope!!! But now a blue link. :) Edits and expansions welcomed! ++Lar: t/c 15:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

@ Osama: Mutter Erde is a Troll. He knows it and he loves to be a Troll, he playes with this behavior. If a Troll calles you a Troll - do you really care? @ Mutti: Schaffst du es mal ohne Show? Du hast dir deinen Ruf hier noch nicht versaut. Mache es auch nicht. Marcus Cyron 18:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Administrator abuse of power

I have a complaint against two administrators: Dodo and Ecemaml.

It all started whe Dodo proposed one of my images for deletion. I disagreed with the proposal and stated so. An exchange of arguments went back and forward (which I will not transcribe here, for fear of leaving something out) but I request that an Administrator read chronologically the series of events as they appear in the deletion request, Dodo´s and Ecemaml´s talk pages, MichaelMaggs´s talk page, my talk page and any other realted to this event. Admin Ecemaml demanded that I apologized for my comments that I believed are well founded and accused me of Insults, Threats and Harrassment, something that an analysis of the exchanges will show that are totally untrue. Furthermore, administrator Ecemaml blocked me from Commons, a move that I consider a violation of my right to express my views in a free environment and an abuse of the trust placed upon him by the community, and an excesive abuse of power by his decision to block me in a unfair and unjust manner.

I find their comments degrading and insulting.

I request an inquest into the behaviour of these two administrators.

--Tomascastelazo 15:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Some links would have been nice... I'm posting them here first, so one can follow this discussion, otherwise it's impossible to know what are you talking about.

Image deletion debate (is there another?)

Tomascastelazo accusing Dodo of censorship

Tomascastelazo suggesting Dodo has had a vandal conduct. Just below there's a message in English too from Tomascastelazo.

Replies from Dodo and warning from Ecemaml

OK, now I'm going to read carefully... Patrícia ^msg 16:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Alright I just read the above links, plus User_talk:Ecemaml#Censura (forgot to add before). Tomascastelazo, I understand that you are upset at the deletion request, especially because you are a valuable contributor. However, it was your insistence on calling the nominator "censor" that led you to be blocked. It was not correct from you to insist on that attitude. No matter how upset you are with deletion requests and the people behind them, you cannot go around and be rude. Since the image was kept, it was obviously a misjudgement from the nominator to put it on for deletion in the first place (I'm saying this because there's a consensus on that deletion debate that the image should be kept, nothing else - far from me to want/be able to judge what goes on other people's minds). That happens because we are humans and many things, including (oh yes) "Project Scope" can be quite subjective.

So I just suggest that in the future you avoid labelling people as "censors" and the like, and instead just present arguments in an objective way, should such type of requests come up again. I don't consider this a case of abuse of power.

Sorry for the long answer. Patrícia ^msg 16:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Why are we afraid to name things by their correct name? The act of submitting the image in question for deletion is an act of censorship.

Below I reproduce some definitions by Webster:

1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised repressively. 1: a person who supervises conduct and morals: as a: an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter b: an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered sensitive or harmful.

What was the original reason for submitting the image for deletion? Other than a subjective judgement, none have been given. Maybe Censorship is an ugly word, but it is what it is, and this act by definition, the event was an act of censorship, and the one who carried it out, a censor. Censorship makes no distinction between "good" or "bad" censorship. Censorship just is. I like to think of this Wiki effort as the second Encyclopaedic movement of modern history. And if we remember right, the first movement was threatened by censorship and repression, by people who wanted to maintian the values of the day. No different now.

I did not initiate contact with these individuals, I just replied to their comments. I find Dodo´s comments insulting too, in response to my comments that the proposal to delete "smelled" of censure, to which he replied in a manner that can be interpreted as that what "smelled" was my rear end. Where is the objection to his comment? Also, in response to me placing the image in my user page, he clearly says that I am "short in shame". Isn´t that an appreciation as to my moral character? So these individuals can state with impunity what they think of my moral character, and because I point to what constitues a act of censorship get blocked?

One more point: It is important to read the series of exchanges chronologically, not by sections, in order to put this discussion into context. That way it will be clear as to who said what at what time.

--Tomascastelazo 21:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read the pages linked above, but I would just like to make a comment before I start. There ain't no "free speech" here, mate. --Boricuæddie 21:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

That is a Wikipedia essay, by the way, not sure if it applies here. Majorly (talk) 22:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

In spirit, it does, see LX's much more elaborate statement below... A thing can support free speech and yet not itself be a platform FOR free speech at the same time. Commons is not censored, but it does have a scope and therefore some things don't belong. And that is true of every WMF project. ++Lar: t/c 23:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't comment on the Spanish part of the discussion (and hence the validity of the block), but drawing parallels between your fellow contributors and the inquisition and then calling their comments "degrading and insulting" is rather unlikely to gain you any sympathies. As the deletion notification template states, deletion requests are not to be taken personally. It seems this whole series of events started because you did take it personally.

Commons has a specific scope. Just as not every subject ("my friend Bob's pet hamster") is appropriate for a Wikipedia article, not every image is within Commons' scope. I can definitely see why someone might wish to pose the question of whether or not this image comes within that scope, even if the consensus was eventually not in favour of deletion.

If an admin nominates an image for deletion, it probably means it is not their immovable conviction that it should be deleted. If it were, they could have just deleted it speedily. Instead, it simply means they think it might not be suited for Commons, but they would like second opinions. In fact, the nominator was obviously more cautious than another commentator, who did call for speedy deletion.

Suggesting that an image might not be useful to any Wikimedia project is not the same as censorship. Firstly, this is not a governmental institution, but a private project. Nobody at Commons is preventing people from exercising their right to free speech, but Commons is also not under obligation to provide a platform for exercising free speech. Secondly, assuming good faith, I cannot see any sign that the concerns raised were based on any moral, behavioural or political agenda. (When it's stated that Wikipedia is not censored, it doesn't mean that everyone should write about their toenail clippings; it means it won't let fear of offending people dictate the exclusion of legal and relevant content.)

—LX (talk, contribs) 22:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

LX, thanks for your post. However, it is important to read their comments in spanish to get the entire context.

Also, as Juvenal once asked... Who watches over the guards? What safeguards are there to protect users from administrator abuse? Regards... --Tomascastelazo 23:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've read all the pages, and I agree with the block. You made unnecessary personal attacks; that is unacceptable. You could have disagreed without resorting to the comments you made. This was just plain juvenile. Yes, we have to be on the lookout for admin abuse and protect our users, but that is not the case here. Now, stop with the conspiracy theories and move on, please, before you earn yourself another block. --Boricuæddie 00:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC) P.S. Dodo was no saint, either...

I fail to see where is the personal attack. Please point it out to me. Nothing that I have said directly to a user is outside the true meaning of the vocabulary that I have used. And in any case, what about the direct comments as to my character expressed by the individuals involved? Are they not personal attacks too? And were not the alleged personal attacks the reason for me being blocked? Is there a double standard? And are my questioning and critisism grounds for me to "earn" another block? --Tomascastelazo 03:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I consider [12], [13], [14], and many other of your comments personal attacks. And, continuing them will earn you another block. --Boricuæddie 03:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

(Disclaimer: I skimmed most of this and haven't read much of the stuff linked to). Please, enough with the block threats. The user is obviously stressed (I would be in his shoes), but blocking will only make discussion more difficult and painful for everyone. Not to mention the enhanced risk of losing a contributor. Everyone (including admins), chill. — Giggy 07:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You wouldn't be so chillin' if you read the barbarities written. "Stress" is not a valid reason for disrespecting your fellow editors in my book, and blocking will occur if he continues his behavior (<== perfectly good warning). --Boricuæddie 11:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If there is one essay we should usurp from Wikipedia, it is definitely w:Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot. pfctdayelise (说什么?) 08:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

LX, thank you, you expressed it very well. Tomascastelazo, censorship would be deleting your image without informing anyone (specially you), blocking you forever and having this supported by the other "censors". Bringing images to deletion requests is not an act of censorship, regardless of what you think. And I completely agree with what Giggy wrote; I read Spanish fairly well and the exchange of words, albeit strong, is not worthy being called "barbarities". COM:MELLOW (this will eventualy be a blue link... right, Lar?) Patrícia ^msg 14:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This user stays melon mellow. -- Bryan (talk to me) 14:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Why yes. ANYONE can start it, in fact... (I think this is a wiki last I checked?) then I'll just swoop in, do a few minor edits and claim all the credit, as per usual. :) Actually starting from concepts in w:WP:COOL as Bri suggests, is not a bad idea. ++Lar: t/c 14:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Not policy, not ever policy I hope!!! But now a blue link. :) Edits and expansions welcomed! ++Lar: t/c 15:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There are two issues now. One is censorship and the other one is abuse of power. As far as censorship, well, there is the dictionary definition, and it is from the dictionary definition that I build my argument. Unless, of course, here in Wikipedia the term has been given a new meaning. The abuse of power is the second. If I, as a user, use the word inquisition in a rethorical manner, in a forum, not directed to anyone in particular, but in a contextual situation (read chronologically the exchanges), censorship or censor, in response to an act that originated another user (an admin, in this case) with whom had never had contact with and that affected my intellectual creation (as much as this term may make people laugh, cringe, dispair, cry, etc., etc.) it is called Insults and Personal Attacks and gives grounds for me being blocked and threatened to be blocked again if I continue with the discussion of the issue (read the perfectly good warning). But if an administrator calls my comments "barbarities", that is to be taken as objective and unquestionable judgement.

I reproduce Merrian Websters definition of Barbarity:

barbarity

Main Entry: bar·bar·i·ty Pronunciation: \bär-ˈber-ə-tē, -ˈba-rə-\ Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural bar·bar·i·ties Date: circa 1570 1: barbarism 2 a: barbarous cruelty : inhumanity b: an act or instance of such cruelty.

So I ask, Is this a personal attack or is there a double standard?

And if my questioning gets me banned, so be it. If introspection is not a value maybe it is the best thing that can happen to me!

Cheers,

--Tomascastelazo 15:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A Parting Shot...

Patricia: By definition a censor is an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter, and in this case, an administrator is an official, and the reason for deletion was based, from what I can dilucidate, on the grounds that the administrator found it objectionable. Why else did he propose the image for deletion? I am not inventing meanings. Calling the administrator a censor is not rude, it is an adjective without moral overtones that describes the nature of his actions. The possibility that he may be offended by a term that is applicable to him may derive from his interpretation of the word and the meaning he applies to the term and how he may perceive himself within that context. He is responsible for that.

LX: Ok, drawing the parallel between inquisition and the contributors, if stated by me is degrading and insulting and results on me being blocked. If an admininstrator tells me that my rear end smells, that I lack shame, and that my words are barbaric, that is not to be interpreted as neither degrading nor insulting, but objective evaluation of my corporal scents, my moral character and inhumanity. Also, the issue that prompted this discussion was not that it was suggested the the image may not be useful, it was a deletion request. It was an act of censorship.

So, from what I gather here is this:

1. Admins are always right. 2. Admins must have a magic potion that allows them to penetrate into people´s mind and mental disposition just by reading their written words. I wish I could get some of that. 3. Words here have different meaning from the dictionary definitions. Sorry, I do no speak wikish.

And as a parting shot… I hereby request that all of the images that I have uploaded be removed from Wikipedia first, and second, my account closed after the deletion of such images.

--Tomascastelazo 19:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, this type of "psychological blackmailing" isn't constructive either, or to now pass to an attack position regarding administrators in general. Everyday we have to take difficult decisions, and this is by no means a clear cut case as you want to make it. I agree that it was not correct for some people to call your words barbarities, and to reply your aggressive words with more aggressive words. It was plain wrong, and I'm sorry people did that to you. Your option, if you feel such people are not adequate for administrative tasks, is to propose their de-adminship. I am not going around blocking three users because they retaliated somehow in a heated discussion, I don't think this is a way to resolve any issue whatsoever.

Your insistence in stating that a deletion request is an act of censorship is to me now "disrupting Commons to prove a point". Honestly, you're driving me mad with this. So every deletion request is censorship on Commons? Is that it? Should we just happilly allow every single image to stay, regardless of their usefulness to Wikimedia and educational projects? Aren't we allowed to think "hey, maybe that image is not useful at all, maybe it's not within project scope"?

You are a good contributor, and it's absolutely not good for Commons if you decide to leave, so please reconsider that. It's not fair to put us in this position either. What do you want us to do, to block three users as your personal retaliation, then you'll be happy and won't leave? I don't know if anyone else agrees, but I am certainly not going to do that kind of "negotiation".

I don't seem to get across with my point of view, so I give up. Maybe someone else can enlighten you (and me) what would be the best thing to do. Patrícia ^msg 19:52, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Patricia's right. "Parting shots" set pretty much the wrong tone, really. We want to work with you, Tomas, but you have to want to work with us as well. ++Lar: t/c 22:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Cooperation is essential here. Some terms that are used here can deviate from their dictionary definitions. Calling someone a censor is in fact a personal attack here, as it disparages someone. Also, administrators are not officials; they are regular users just like you who have additional ability to block users, delete stuff, protect pages, and check deleted contributions. Nobody prematurely deleted something here, but opened a discussion to see if the image(s) were suitable for deletion (turned out not). Yes, you got upset at the deletion request because it was about to be deleted, but we all (administrators, yes) get upset when our contributions are requested for deletion. Does that mean we have an excuse to call other contributors censors and/or an arsehole? No; we assume that their actions are for the betterment of the project(s). Nobody should disagree about that, but there will be disagreements on the specific action (in this case the DR). If that happens, we engage in mellow discussion (that means no attacks or anything that can sound like one), and from that, form a consensus. When that consensus is reached, the action consensus wants is fulfilled. I hope that you will understand that you can't always get what you want in life, and Commons is no exception. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 23:40, 18 January 2008 (GMT)

Just as a courtesy to you. It is a clear cut case to me. I express an opinion, drawing parallels, my words are taken out of context, assigned meanings and I get blocked. I request an inquest and I am threatened (as you can plainly see) to be blocked again. I am told that I am by extension barbaric and that I lack shame, accused of promoting conspiracy theories, etc., etc., and yet, nothing is said. All I wanted was a little introspection.

Maybe I am so dense that I just fail to see why calling someone a censor due to the nature of their acts is a personal attack. Excuse me if I offend someone with this analogy: If I call prostitute a person who sells sexual acts for economic gain is that an offense, or is it the correct term for the profession? Censorship is just an action, but here it seems that it carries a negative connotation all the time. People assign meaning to the term and it is the meaning to that term, as assignd by the readers, that in my opinion, does not allow them to see the depth of the issue. And BTW, what got to me was not the nomination itself, people are free to like or dislike things, it was the blocking that got to me, because it was a retaliatory act and abuse of authority in my opinion, and those that carried it out acted with impunity with their own personal attacks and they do not seem to be held accountable to the same standard, that is all. Just in this very discussion I have been personally attacked by the very definitions that got me blocked. It is a vicious circle.

It is ok… you guys don´t want me here (meaning that I really don´t belong here, a choice made by me, in total freedom). No need to block me… I is leaving! And thank you, truly!--Tomascastelazo 00:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, really now... this is my last posting...

An enlightening discussion between administrators that suggest a continuation of harrassment. Why the scrutiny of my work? It is even laid out as a “problem” due to the fact that I am the creator of this image. Boricuaeddie even says that I hate him. Where does he get that from? Is he reading my mind? I really would like to read the private communications between them, for it is obvious that they have it… Should make fun reading!

Hola Eddie, como creo que perteneces al jurado o comité de la foto del año, quería plantearte el problema de Image:Catrinas 2.jpg antes de hacer nada que pueda interferir con el concurso. Si te fijas en la descripción, la foto se ampara en la libertad de panorama. Pero no tengo claro hasta qué punto el interior de un museo sea "visible desde un lugar público", como se indica en la ley citada en COM:FOP#Mexico (bueno, realmente tengo claro que un museo no lo es, ya que si no, podríamos fotografiar la obra de cualquier artista contemporáneo en un museo mexicano y voilà! ya tenemos fotos de su obra libres de derechos), por lo que creo que simplemente, la foto no es compatible con las licencias de commons. ¿Qué opinas? --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 14:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

¡Ay bendito! ¡Que gran problema has encontrado! Veo tu punto claramente, pero, en este caso, se debe actuar con cuidado, ya que la imagen es usada en 75 páginas, es destacada y participa en el concurso de la Imagen del año. Creo que deberíamos comenzar preguntándole al autor de la foto donde exactamente la tomó, ya que Guanajuato tiene muchos museos y no encuentro el que mencionó. Una vez sepamos, deberíamos verificar si es válido el reclamo que se hace de libertad de panorama y si se encuentra que no, proceder a consultar a la comunidad a ver que piensa y que se va hacer. Pero no debemos borrarla todavía, por las razones ya mencionadas. ¿Qué crees? --Boricuæddie 23:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Por eso no he abierto una petición de borrado. No sé qué hacer porque el autor es Tomascastelazo y prefiero no volver a tener nada que ver con él tras un incidente que se saldó con un bloqueo hace unos días. ¿Podrías hablar con él tú? Otra posibilidad podría ser plantear el problema en el Administrators' noticeboard para recabar opiniones. No sé me ocurren más cosas :-( --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 23:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Umm, creo que deberíamos dejar que otro bregue con él en el Administrators' noticeboard, ya que me odia a mi también ;-) --Boricuæddie 23:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

¿Qué le has hecho? ¿También te ha llamado censor? ¿O miembro de la Inquisición? ;-) --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 23:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Le dije que si seguía con los comentarios esos lo bloquearía de nuevo. Obviamente, esto es aún más prueba de que los admins estámos aquí para censurar :-D --Boricuæddie 00:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Below are the conversations, chronologically, of the exchanges that led to me being blocked.

Keep So is this the Commons Inquisition Board? It is obvious that it is a parody. What are the grounds for deletion? I tremble at the thought that such an innocuous image can trigger censorship. Is this for real? --Tomascastelazo 02:46, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment Beg your pardon? I'm sure you can defend your photo without these nasty personal attacks. For example, you can try to explain which page of which project is this image best suited for. Regards. --Dodo 16:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment Personal attacks? Agaisnt whom? Defense is a response to an attack, and the proposal to eliminate the image based on personal taste is not only an attack on intellectual activity (even if for you it is tasteless) and censorship. And for your eligntment, I reproduce Merrian Websters definition of censorship and censor:

1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised repressively. 1: a person who supervises conduct and morals: as a: an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter b: an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered sensitive or harmful. So tell me, what are the grounds for your request for deletion? --Tomascastelazo 17:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

… And the conversations from the different user pages…

Censura?

Y cual es la razon, si es que existe, por la cual pretendes eliminar una imagen que yo he creado? Me huele a censura. --Tomascastelazo 02:51, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Como si te huele a lavanda. ¿Exactamente en qué página de qué proyecto tiene utilidad la imagen? --Dodo 15:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

La imagen tiene uso en mi pagina de usuario, dentro del scope of commons. También he notado que algunas de tus imágenes no tienen uso alguno en artículos de Wikipedia, se van a eliminar también? --Tomascastelazo 22:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Veo que de vergüenza andamos corto. Te recuerdo que tu página de usuario no cuenta como artículo. Y aunque estamos hablando de tu foto, ¿serías tan amable de indicar cuál de las mías no tiene un uso enciclopédico? --Dodo 08:39, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Encuentro tus comentarios insultantes y fuera de linea. Limitate a asuntos meramente enciclopedicos y no trates de imponer un valor moral y subjetivo. Eso, para mi, es propio de la edad media. Subire el tema de tus comentarios como administrador a la esfera correspondiente. --Tomascastelazo 17:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Deje respuesta a tus comentarios en la pagina de eliminacion. --Tomascastelazo 17:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Veo que no soy la unica victima de ese teclado Inquisicional de Dodo. Sugiero una defensa de cada uno de los agraviados a esta conducta vandalica. --Tomascastelazo 17:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

As an answer to your question as to which images of yours are not used. The following are images that link only to your user page, so, shopuld they be deleted? Algas en el fondo del río Lozoya.jpg Paisaje de Alameda del Valle.jpg Panorámica Plaza Duomo (Milán).jpg Velázquez - Marte.jpg

Also, the rest of the images are linked to Commons pages, but are not linked to any articles that I could find, so they basically fall in the same category of unused images… should they be deleted too? --Tomascastelazo 17:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC

Me temo que usted no ha hecho todo el esfuerzo necesario para entender mi pregunta. No le interrogué sobre qué imágenes no se usaban en artículos enciclopédicos, sino sobre cuáles de ellas no tienen un uso enciclopédico. Hay una notable diferencia, me temo. De hecho, la misma que va desde la foto de un edificio hasta la foto de mi niño frente al mismo edificio.

Dicho lo cual, es usted completamente libre de iniciar cuantas consultas de borrado desee sobre las imágenes que me señala, sin riesgo alguno de recibir acusaciones de "inquisidor" ni "censura" por mi parte. Un saludo. --Dodo 22:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Enter Ecemaml (who by the way, was not invited to the party)

Espero que modere sus comentarios, totalmente faltos de respeto a la wikipetiqueta, que vierte aquí. Su foto podrá ser más o menos acorde con el propósito del proyecto (COM:SCOPE) pero, del mismo modo que aplicar tal política oficial no significa censura, acusar al proponente de un borrado de censura (ataque personal) en lugar de justificar por qué su foto se adecúa al propósito del proyecto es una conducta claramente contraria a nuestras políticas. Espero que se modere y que se plantee pedir disculpas. Un saludo --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 00:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Ya que decidiste entrar al tema de la Censura vamos por partes.

1. Por favor busca el significado de censura en un diccionario, así pondremos los términos en el contexto de su significado, y no nuestra interpretación. Te anexo la liga al sitio de la Real Academia Española. Discutir el tema fuera de una base de referencia sería un ejercicio inútil.#REDIRECT1

2. El proponer y/o aplicar cualquier política para la eliminación de cualquier creación intelectual, en este caso, por definición, es un acto de censura, y el que lo lleva a cabo, es un censor. Por crudo que parezca, por ejemplo, defecar es defecar, aunque usemos eufemismos para describir el mismo acto, tal como hacer popó, o ir al baño, etc., etc. Censura es simplemente, censura.

3. El utilizar las palabras correctas que se refieren a los actos humanos, no es un ataque personal, es simplemente llamar a las cosas por su nombre.

Ahora, por que he de justificar mi creación intelectual a cualquier hijo de vecino que decide que no le gusta mi trabajo?

Y ya que estamos en esta discusión, sería interesante que me señalaras en donde le falto el respeto a alguien que se ha propuesto censurar mi trabajo y al cual simplemente lo llamo por el nombre que le corresponde de acuerdo a la naturaleza de sus actos?

Pedir disculpas? Acaso si te llamo por tu nombre te tendría que pedir disculpas también?

Entiendo que el material que originó esta pequeña discusión puede no ser del agrado personal de muchos. Pero te has puesto a pensar que este personaje, a fin de cuentas, también es fuente de desilusión para todos aquellos niños que no reciben lo que le piden y no se explican por qué? El hacer creer a tantos niños acerca de este personaje y el hecho de que a fin de cuentas no es mas que un instrumento de un consumerismo desenfrenado es en mi opnión, lo verdaderamente obsceno.

Saludos, --Tomascastelazo 02:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Insultos, difamación y amenazas

Espero que tengas a bien retractarte de los comentarios que te señalo, o seré yo quien los "suba" las instancias pertinentes. [5] [6] --Dodo 10:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

uyuyuy! me muero de miedo! --Tomascastelazo 16:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Creo que tu desconocimiento del carácter de Commons te lleva a la incomprensión de sus políticas y, lo que es más grave, al insulto y la agresión verbal a aquellos que, mal que bien, tratamos de hacerte comprender de qué va todo esto. No renuncio y voy a intentarlo de nuevo.

Lo primero y fundamental: Commons no es flickr. Commons no es picassa. Commons no es un simple repositorio de fotografías y material gráfico. Parafraseando Commons:Alcance del proyecto: "Wikimedia Commons es un repositorio de archivos multimedia publicados bajo licencias libres enfocado a los otros proyectos Wikimedia". Es importante señalar que se trata de un repositorio de material gráfico enfocado a otros proyectos Wikimedia. Consecuentemente, y parafraseando la misma política "los archivos subidos a Wikimedia Commons deben ser útiles para algún proyecto Wikimedia. Los archivos multimedia que no sean útiles para algún proyecto están fuera del alcance de proyecto de Wikimedia Commons". Si vas aquí leerás "If the decision was correctly based on the current licensing and Commons:Project scope pages", esto es, si se determina que una imagen no tiene utilidad para otros proyectos de wikimedia, se borran archivos

Como podrás ver aquí (haz una búsqueda por "Deletion requests") o aquí (busca "scope"), es habitual plantear el borrado de imágenes que se considera que no son compatibles con el propósito del proyecto. Unas se borran, porque los argumentos se consideran suficientes, y otros no, porque no lo son.

Y nada, nada de todo esto tiene que ver con la censura. Porque supongo que puedes gritar "censura" si La Jornada no publica tu carta del crítica al Peje, pero no puedes hacerlo si el boletín del colegio de médicos no quiere publicar un artículo sobre aviónica.

Eso es una cosa, y tus insultos y descalificaciones son otras (algo aún más sangrante por provenir de un miembro de uno de los colectivos, el de los maestros y profesores, que más respeto y admiro en este mundo). --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 23:46, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

… And user is blocked…

An illustrative conversation that resulted because the image in question was kept…

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Santa got your letter.jpg

It's very sad to see that a photo by a "respected contributor" is kept apparently just because of their aggresive comments against *the nomination itself*. Good lesson to learn here: shout "censorship!" and keep your photo. Regards. --Dodo 22:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to agree with Dodo's comments. I cannot understand the fact of supposedly being a "respected contributor" to keep a picture (of course that it can be arguable whether a picture goes or not against the scope of the project, but IMHO being by a "respected contributor" does not make it more within the scope). It seems to create a (bad) precedent. --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 00:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It illustrates parody nicely which in my view is within Scope. --MichaelMaggs 06:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Now that the series of exchanges is somewhat arranged chronologically, I rest my case. --Tomascastelazo 05:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

In a posting below, Samulili says "I think that admins have to be able to tolerate moderately higher levels of criticism - after all, what we do has significant effects. By the way, I think anyone has the right to criticize images we host as long as such criticism is within the scope of the project - which it is in a deletion request." I think that is correct, and applies just as well here. Although I've seen only a machine translation of the Spanish, so I can't comment on any subtleties of meaning, I think a mellow response to Tomascastelazo's 'censorship' comment would have been a better approach than escalation leading to a block. --MichaelMaggs 17:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Amen. --Boricuæddie 18:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I came into this forum with the intention of asking for the review of the actions of two administrators and a series of exchanges that led to me being blocked and that I considered unfair. I have put the arguments in a chronological order in order to get the context of the events. I have throughout my arguments stayed within the meaning of regular dictionary definitions of the vocabulary I have used. As a result, I have been personally attacked by other administrators, Boricuaeddie in particular, who has, by the definitions and arguments that have been used against me, attacked me, insulted me, harrassed me and threatened me. And yet, I fail to see any effort to redress or analyze the original argument and what is even worse, the inaction by administrators to mediate or call attention to the attacks that I have been subjeted to in here. Furthermore, I really question the ethical behaviour of Boricuaeddie as an administrator due to the fact that he has actively threatened me, accepted his role as censor (his own words) and is currently involved in a conversation with the administrator who blocked me with regards to the possible deletion request of one more of my images. The fact that this person, who sits in the POTY committe is discussing the possible deletion of a image of a member that he is threatening, and such image is a candidate in the POTY is grounds enough to either recuse himself from that committee lest he taint it or recuse himself from participating in any action where I interact. I have made a request in another forum and he came in and closed the discussion. He is being judge and jury at the same time. Below I reproduce the conversation he had with the other administrator in question. But please, read it and understand it. If you do not speak spanish, ask someone who does, but don´t ask them. Below, the conversations that I mentioned:

An enlightening discussion between administrators that suggest a continuation of harrassment. Why the scrutiny of my work? It is even laid out as a “problem” due to the fact that I am the creator of this image. Boricuaeddie even says that I hate him. Where does he get that from? Is he reading my mind? I really would like to read the private communications between them, for it is obvious that they have it… Should make fun reading!

Hola Eddie, como creo que perteneces al jurado o comité de la foto del año, quería plantearte el problema de Image:Catrinas 2.jpg antes de hacer nada que pueda interferir con el concurso. Si te fijas en la descripción, la foto se ampara en la libertad de panorama. Pero no tengo claro hasta qué punto el interior de un museo sea "visible desde un lugar público", como se indica en la ley citada en COM:FOP#Mexico (bueno, realmente tengo claro que un museo no lo es, ya que si no, podríamos fotografiar la obra de cualquier artista contemporáneo en un museo mexicano y voilà! ya tenemos fotos de su obra libres de derechos), por lo que creo que simplemente, la foto no es compatible con las licencias de commons. ¿Qué opinas? --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 14:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

¡Ay bendito! ¡Que gran problema has encontrado! Veo tu punto claramente, pero, en este caso, se debe actuar con cuidado, ya que la imagen es usada en 75 páginas, es destacada y participa en el concurso de la Imagen del año. Creo que deberíamos comenzar preguntándole al autor de la foto donde exactamente la tomó, ya que Guanajuato tiene muchos museos y no encuentro el que mencionó. Una vez sepamos, deberíamos verificar si es válido el reclamo que se hace de libertad de panorama y si se encuentra que no, proceder a consultar a la comunidad a ver que piensa y que se va hacer. Pero no debemos borrarla todavía, por las razones ya mencionadas. ¿Qué crees? --Boricuæddie 23:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Por eso no he abierto una petición de borrado. No sé qué hacer porque el autor es Tomascastelazo y prefiero no volver a tener nada que ver con él tras un incidente que se saldó con un bloqueo hace unos días. ¿Podrías hablar con él tú? Otra posibilidad podría ser plantear el problema en el Administrators' noticeboard para recabar opiniones. No sé me ocurren más cosas :-( --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 23:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Umm, creo que deberíamos dejar que otro bregue con él en el Administrators' noticeboard, ya que me odia a mi también ;-) --Boricuæddie 23:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

¿Qué le has hecho? ¿También te ha llamado censor? ¿O miembro de la Inquisición? ;-) --Ecemaml talk to me/habla conmigo 23:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Le dije que si seguía con los comentarios esos lo bloquearía de nuevo. Obviamente, esto es aún más prueba de que los admins estámos aquí para censurar :-D --Boricuæddie 00:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Double Amen

--Tomascastelazo 20:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I really wanted to archive this thread and move on, but it seems you want more attention. So be it. Firstly, I would like to remind you that, if you feel that I and/or any of my fewllow companions are not worthy enough to serve the people of my home wiki with administrator rights, Commons:Administrators/De-adminship bears the instructions on how to request the removal of sysop powers for someone other than yourself. Secondly, I would like to comment on your most recent accusations. I am a non-core member of the POTY committee. Therefore, my only duty is to translate the pages, announce the contest on Spanish-language Wikimedia projects, and help Spanish speakers with any problem they might encounter during the election process. Nothing less, nothing more. Therefore, I do not see the point in resigning my role in the process. Secondly, my comrade Ecemaml approached me with a serious problem; one of the images you uploaded, which, by the way, is competing in the POTY, was a possible copyright violation. I suggested that he take the matter to another forum, because of my involvement here with you. Was that negligent, too? Finally, I closed Commons:Deletion requests/all photos uploaded by tomascastelazo without any prejudice. I closed it because neither the GFDL nor the CC licenses, under which you licensed your images, are revocable. The only thing I did there was refuse to allow your attempt at breaking the law. I have replied to your comments now, and I do not wish to take further part in this discussion. I hope everyone moves on. Until our paths cross again, which I sincerely hope is never, I bid you good day, sir. --Boricuæddie 23:36, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Boricuaeddie I have never questioned the overall value that you or your “comrades” contribute to the effort. I merely asked for a review of the actions of one in particular, and you came to his defense, and at the same time, attacked me and threatened me (your words are clearly stated in the record, I am not inventing).

Closing the discussion prematurely, in the middle of a heated debate with me, for the reasons that you claim are purely nonsense, for I dare you to point out, as you accuse, where I proposed to break the law. Now, that is a serious accusation, accussing me of criminal intent, and I demand that you prove my intention. And if you can’t , in this I demand an apology from you. You are long in interpretations but very short on evidence. I suggest to you to be very careful on your choice of words. Either you did not read the reasons or what I stated on the request or you are not being objective. I clearly said that I was NOT revoking the licenses, merely to have the images that are not being used deleted from wikipedia, a courtesy granted to me before and to many others. If I had made the request for the image that originated all this it would have been granted (as it happened before with another image of mine), and if there is a precedent for one, what keeps it from being possible for many?

To all: The ONLY reason I have taken the trouble to respond to this accusation is because I will not accept to be accused of criminal intent. That is defamation.

If, from all this, admins will take a second to reflect on the reach of their acts, it would be good enough. --Tomascastelazo 18:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

That's only if the image(s) are unused or superseded. This is not the case here, and please stop shouting. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 18:03, 21 January 2008 (GMT)

The same boring tale on censorship and Inquisition: Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Catrinas 2.jpg. Alas! --Ecemaml ^{talk to me/habla conmigo} 23:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Protection request

Could someone please protect Image:St Barnabas' Church, Bromborough.jpg as it is soon to be on the english wikipedia mainpage. We can't upload it though as Wikipedia won't accept one of the characters. Thankyou. Woodym555 01:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Scratch that, problem seems to have solved. Woodym555 01:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Jebur and personal attack

Hello! Please block Jebur for this attack. Thanks!--OsamaK 09:06, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

What personal attack? Majorly (talk) 10:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

He accused someone of being a troll and of creating "antisemitic racist propaganda". That's pretty harsh, don't you think? --Boricuæddie 10:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's harsh when someone calls you a troll, so I notified Jebur with {{Be civil}}. However, I think that admins have to be able to tolerate moderately higher levels of criticism - after all, what we do has significant effects. By the way, I think anyone has the right to criticize images we host as long as such criticism is within the scope of the project - which it is in a deletion request. Samulili 11:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right; there, we have the right to constructively criticize images. Calling something "antisemitic racist propaganda" is not constructive criticism. --Boricuæddie 20:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not enough always (This is third time someone calls me a "troll") It's very bad and I'm asking someone to do anything more than notice (I can notice ;)). Thank!--OsamaK 12:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If the same user has called you a troll 3 times, please give three diffs. We can't systematically block everyone because 3 people have called you a troll. — Giggy 07:49, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

lol, We will have a long blocking backlog :P. Chaos was blocked for only one personal attack.--OsamaK 13:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

One user, two difflinks: [15] + [16]. btw.: I bet 5 euros, that the number of users will increase within a week :-) Mutter Erde 08:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Be careful, we have only few pornography uploaders, we don't want to lost you! :P--OsamaK 13:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

What porn? on commons? on en? on de? Please give difflinks - or better a gallery. If you have found a redlink - please post it too. Admins can watch it!

I will help you. Maybe you will find some "pornographic images" here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive13#User:MutterErde (= en:User:MutterErde/Nudity2) or here http://hu.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_vita:MutterErde&oldid=329197 Good luck Mutter Erde 10:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Mutter Erde blocked for 3 days. — Giggy 03:05, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

That's more generous than what Jimbo would have done ;) Rocket000 08:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

He's used 195.93.60.40 to evade his block. I have blocked the IP. --Boricuæddie 14:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Rocket000 extended his block to 5 days for using the IP above. --Boricuæddie 15:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Rocket, I'm a nice guy. Eddie, thanks for that. — Giggy 00:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Me too. It was a request by another nice guy ;) Rocket000 00:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Upload discussion

Please protect the page Commons talk:Upload/es (talk page of the spanish interface to upload things). I have had to revert many different users that used it to post spam and nonsenses Thialfi 01:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

 Semi-protected for a week 哦，是吗？(O-person) 01:13, 19 January 2008 (GMT)

flag

Image:Flag of Serbia.svg is locked. New version contains slightly different colors and slightly different border around the coat of arms but I can't put it in the original file because it is locked. It should be uploaded in Image:Flag of Serbia.svg and new file should be erased afterwards. Source of the new official version is the Parliament of Serbia - National Symbols page http://www.parlament.sr.gov.yu/images/Srbija-Drzavna_zastava-4.5x3m-cmyk.cdr. There was no change in flag colors but the old version here was user drawn and therefore a bit different (almost unnoticeable). So could anyone put this in place of this?

I noticed the protected image is also from the same website as your cite this new image for? Anyways, to note to the other admins, color choice isn't the reason for protection. It was either the image had the coat of arms, or doesn't. This says it does, this calls it the "state flag". That is another issue, but I will look into it later. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 21:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess it was locked for some other reason. I thought maybe all flag files were locked but it's not the case. I don't know how did we get those slightly wrong versions (you can see in the cdr file from the parliament website that the version i just uploaded is the official one). For an example the flag of the president of the parliament here had a misplaced coat of arms (it was several mms off the right place vertically) which brings me to conclusion someone redrew them because they couldn't convert the cdr file from the official parliament website. And about the other thing - there are two files - flag of serbia (state flag with coa) and national flag of serbia (civil flag without coa). They are two different things.

So can anyone unlock the flag file or upload the new one? --Avala 22:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll upload it. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. You can also delete the temporary file I uploaded. --Avala 22:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. If anyone wonders, these are just the official colors while in reality all flags use almost html colors like this Image:Flag of Serbia 1991-2004.svg, and not those faded ones (royal as they sometimes call them). --Avala 00:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Several protections needed

Can someone please protect these pages and images from User:Le Behnam:

• Pashtuns
• Tajiks
• Image:S. J. al-Afghani.jpg
• Image:Bacha-i Saqqao.jpg

User:Le Behnam is a very disruptive person, he is redirecting gallery pages that I've created to category pages. He removes categories from images and claims that the person in the image from 1920s is fake when there is verifiable source included. He also uploads images of unknown poor street people in Kabul (Image:Pashtun man in Afghanistan, 01-07-2002.jpg) and labells them as ethnic Pashtuns but the source of the image does not mention ethnic background. Le Behnam is targeting a specific ethnic group, he called me a Pashtun ultra-nationalist [17] when I never even mentioned my ethnic background.--Executioner 15:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

All protected for a week. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 20:41, 30 January 2008 (GMT)

Thanks!--Executioner 14:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

User:Knigtlhey

User:Knigtlhey had a final warning for uploading copyrighted content, but was at it again on the 29th (now deleted Image:Headstrong Ashley Tisdale.jpg. They now need a block, but I (*blush*) can't remember how that worked again... -- Deadstar (msg) 08:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

 Done There's nothing to it ;) Rocket000 09:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

D'oh... I found the link... I think I shouldn't get up so early... Thanks Rocket000 :) -- Deadstar (msg) 09:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hilarious on so many levels. giggy _(:O) 09:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Image:Stop sign MUTCD.svg under attack again

User:Rappingwonders2 keeps reverting this image just like how User:Yung6 and User:Da Man2 used to in the past. I believe that they are the same person because if you look at their contributions to the Commons, you will see that they edit the same exact images over and over again. I need a protection to Image:Stop sign MUTCD.svg and maybe a block for User:Rappingwonders2. Thank you. --Ltljltlj 23:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done Yeah, same person. →Rocket°°° 23:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW, what license is correct? You got three on there. →Rocket°°° 23:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I only put my template on it. Someone else put more licenses on it for the MUTCD and government. Those licenses I have no problem with. --Ltljltlj 23:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like they're from the older version. Oh well, nothing wrong with three reasons why it's PD. (Tip: When you want to list a template like {{Ltljltlj}} you can use {{tl|template name}}. I was just about to fix that for you :) →Rocket°°° 23:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, ok. Thanks. I didn't know how to put it on there. --Ltljltlj 23:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Why do you not like me, Ltljltlj? It's clear that you don't like me because you're reverting my edits and calling them "vandalism" when all I'm doing is making the format look better. So, why exactly do you not like me? I'm not even sure that you know the definition of "vandalism". Vandalism is like editing a page and replacing it with "hi i am a guy and i like pie". However, what I am doing is NOTHING like that. The format you insist on using is this:

==Licensing== {{Ltljltlj}} 600 mm by 600 mm (24 in by 24 in) stop sign, made to the specifications of the [http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/SHSm/regulatory.pdf 2004 edition of Standard Highway Signs] (sign R1-1). Uses the [http://www.triskele.com/fonts/index.html Roadgeek 2005 fonts]. (United States law does not permit the copyrighting of typeface designs, and the fonts are meant to be copies of a U.S. Government-produced work anyway.) Colors are from [http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/kno-colorspec.htm] (Pantone Red 187), converted to RGB by [http://www.reeddesign.co.uk/test/pantone2rgb.html]. The outside border has a width of 1 (1 mm) and a color of black so it shows up; in reality, signs have no outside border. {{PD-USGov-MUTCD|R1-1}} [[Category:Stop signs]] [[Category:R1-1 - Stop]] [[Category:Diagrams of U.S. Regulatory Signs]]

The one I'm using is this:

== Summary == 600 mm by 600 mm (24 in by 24 in) stop sign, made to the specifications of the [http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/SHSm/regulatory.pdf 2004 edition of Standard Highway Signs] (sign R1-1). Uses the [http://www.triskele.com/fonts/index.html Roadgeek 2005 fonts]. (United States law does not permit the copyrighting of typeface designs, and the fonts are meant to be copies of a U.S. Government-produced work anyway.) Colors are from [http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/kno-colorspec.htm] (Pantone Red 187), converted to RGB by [http://www.reeddesign.co.uk/test/pantone2rgb.html]. The outside border has a width of 1 (1 mm) and a color of black so it shows up; in reality, signs have no outside border.

I think A LOT of people would agree that my format is A LOT better. Rappingwonders2 00:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I think A LOT of people would agree that you're doing this just to cause trouble. →Rocket°°° 00:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Except that's not what I WANT to do. What I WANT to do is make it so the image uses the standard format for images, which is to have the summary heading at the top, the licensing heading below the summary, and the cartegories below the lincese tag. Rappingwonders2 00:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Page protection needed

I request a permanent semiprotection (at least) for Commons:Upload/it, it's to high risk for vandalism and there is not necessity of frequent modifications. Thank you--Trixt 20:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done →Christian Nurtsch^TM 21:32, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Serbian map edit war brewing?

It looks like that an edit war may be starting up at Image:Europe location SRB.png due to the naturally disputed status of Kosovar independence. Could some admins watch over this and protect this page if needed? Jesse Viviano 04:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I've protected the page for 2 weeks, and watchlisted. giggy _(:O) 08:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. However, some administrator needs to apply Template:Protected to this page. Jesse Viviano 22:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Another dispute is over Image:Serbia Map.png and Image:Serbia Map2.png both protected by User:O until 25 February 2008.[18][19][20] I endorse protecting the files. However, the protected versions appear to be identical and show Serbia with Kosovo included. I think it would be useful (and neutral) if Serbia Map2.png were reverted to the version that shows Serbia without Kosova. Comments? Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Just extended those protections for another week. I would strongly suggest not taking any action after the protections until the dispute is solved by the two parties. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 19:04, 18 February 2008 (GMT)

Commons:Administrators/Requests and votes/Stahlkocher (de-adminship) (done)

ResolvedPatstuart (talk) 14:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Additional to this I request a block for 2 to 4 weeks. Any oppinions? Regards, abf /talk to me/ 12:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Why? Punishment? The misbehaviour as a sysop resulted in my request, I see no need for further actions. --Polarlys 12:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Remember that blocks are done to protect Commons. The immediate problem here appears to be alleged misuse of the administrative tools. If they are removed, there is no possibility of that particular behaviour continuing. Is there some other specific disruptive behaviour that you expect to continue without a block?

(I've refrained from commenting in the current vote because of my involvement in Commons:Disputes noticeboard#User:LX and User:Stahlkocher, which I suppose is technically still active, but I figured I could inject a "hold on" here without seeming too biased.) —LX (talk, contribs) 12:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

One humble question: was there an attempt for dispute resolution before this deadminship proceeding began? I'd like to know before I opine. Patstuart (talk) 12:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. There were a lot of related discussions regarding this whole permission issue since summer 2007 and discusions resulting from the damage done by this deletions. After threatening to remove files, I clarified my previously misinterpreted statement but one day later the deletions began. A lot of users asked about the reasons, Lupo asked Stahlkocher for help resolving this, but no serious response. There is no sense of wrongdoing, since Stahlkocher keeps telling people that they have to ask me why he deleted hundreds of USAF and NASA files. In consideration of various requests for deletion, the permission debates over the last weeks and his behaviour there I see no will to solve this issue on Stahlkocher's side. All in all, there was not even the will to send in a simple OTRS ticket with a proper permission (the ADL uploads). --Polarlys 13:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

ABF: Please withdraw this request, see LX' argumentation above. There is absolutely no need for a block right now. --Polarlys 13:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Just to say I agree completely with Polarlys (& thank him for bringing the issue to the attention of the community). A block would seem punitive & we don't do that. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Completly withdrawn, sorry. abf /talk to me/ 13:59, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

User:71.233.232.196

I need this ip blocked. This ip belongs to a sock puppet known as 98E and Yung6. He is now reverting my Image:Stop sign MUTCD.svg again just like before. --Ltljltlj 18:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm reverting it because you're vandalizing it. It may be your image, but you should not be vandalizing it. 71.233.232.196 19:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

1) I see no vandalism, and 2) what are you fighting over? The diff: [21] changes almost nothing. 3) It's a sock, block on sight. Patstuart (talk) 19:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

1) Yeah, I'm not vandalizing it, just correcting the format. 2) True, and I don't see why Ltljltlj keeps reverting it. 3) No, wrong. 71.233.232.196 19:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

1) No, but you were the one saying it was vandalism, 2) That was a jibe at both of you, 3) And I'm not Patstuart. Patstuart (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

1) Because Ltljltlj was the one changing the format. 2) What is a "jibe"? 3) Huh? I don't get it. 71.233.232.196 19:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done Yes he is. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI, the user request unblock on User talk:71.233.232.196, which I declined. -- Bryan (talk to me) 20:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Image:Flag of Croatia.svg

Please protect this flag. -- Rainman 02:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It should in sync with the dependent images. -- Rainman 02:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yet another flag edit war...protected for a little over two months. Please sort this out by mellow discussion and not by fighting World War III. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 03:02, 23 February 2008 (GMT)

It may have been better to actually issue a block on this, rather than to go and protect the version of the flag immediately after the user who reverted it requested protection. This behavior should not be tolerated and we must show this. Patstuart (talk) 14:09, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

With flag wars, it's better not to take any side. As far as I'm concerned they're both at fault. - Rocket000 14:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. Very apparent. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 23:25, 25 February 2008 (GMT)

I also reverted to the pre-editwar version, since after an upload in 2006, it has been revert war after revert war. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return fire)} 23:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I was happy for a brief moment and then again sad. Nevertheless of locking the file on the version I proposed. Two administrators or even three locked on Minestrones version. The file was locked on his version for a month + a week (at least). In that period he has not contributed to solving the issue but instead either stuck with what was before (Neoneo13 version) or demanded that his compromisal version should be accepted (that compromise is in short that the colours of French flag would be used). The file has never been locked on my proposal - not even for a single day. I do not know why that sittuation happened. And I will not discourage myself. But still I think that Image:Flag of Croatia for discussion.svg should be used as a workspace. This is what I wanted to be most clear, that workspace has been set up by an another administrator named Lupo. Lupo proclaimed that no file should be uploaded to Flag of Croatia.svg (the main flag) until the discussion is not over by a compromise and then and only then one of the files from workspace should be uploaded to the main space. I honoured that rule and every other rule that I was warned about. I have received go ahed from Nightstallion and Denelson83. Sucessful was my contributions to two another flag issues.

I comented to User:Lupo and User:PatríciaR (both admins) that when the file was locked Minestrone avoided discussion, so what is this lock down going to bring?

The entire topic started because of that version on which the file has been locked now. So why not going to the orriginal of Nightstallion's.

Rainman 00:39, 2 March 2008 (UTC)‎

In edit wars, administrators always protect the wrong version. It's sort of a law of nature. —LX (talk, contribs) 09:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I know that is one way of looking at this problem, but the administrator 哦， locked the file and then other users and administrators came to the issue claiming he was wrong to protect the file on the current version. Then the file was reverted + locked at the version that I complained about.

Wouldn't it be more correct not to revert to the version that my counterpart Minestrone wished nor to my own version but to the orriginal version as was the case at Image:Civil Ensign of Croatia.svg. -- Rainman 21:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Possibly, but I don't think O/哦 was wrong to protect it on any version. It was just to end the edit-warring, not decide on what the image should be. If there's consensus that a different version should be the one it's locked on then an admin can change it, as was done in this case. No big deal. That's how it works. - Rocket000 10:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This issue has been going on for far too long. I fully agree with what Lupo once commented about this: Commons isn't ultimately the place to discuss this, the Croatian community (and others interested) should come up to a consensus and present it here. Disrupting Commons with edit warring is no solution, and I'd even go to the point of indef protecting that image if that's what it takes to engage in some dialog. Patrícia ^msg 11:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

100% agree. I'm beginning to think we need some kind of explicitly stated policy on things like this. We shouldn't need one as COM:SCOPE makes it pretty clear what Commons is for. We simply host free content. All these recent edit wars or flags, maps, etc. shouldn't be taking place on Commons. Unlike other Wikimedia projects we don't have to agree on if the image is correct or not. We can host as many different versions of a file as there are different viewpoints. We're not the ones who are or should be deciding which image is used in a Wikipedia article. Discussions over a file's "correctness" or NPOV should take place where that's actually important and being presented as verified (e.g. Wikipedia). Just like with deletion requests, if the file's freely licensed and within our scope it belongs here. Make a new version if you don't like it. Like I always say, images can't be right or wrong, only people can be (i.e. a file's name and description). - Rocket000 14:25, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You speak about ideal situations. When there is a debate does it matter where it would be led? If the "debate" would be led at some wikipedia where you do not have people that are interested in particular "debate" you would limit the debate to one or two people. This transference of a "debate" to a community that has very few people that even draw or think about flags or any other "minor" subject would mean that might of local administrators decide. This is very partial in some issues. Then one person at local wiki locks something indefinately and the matter is closed. This wouldn't benefit the encyclopaedia (which commons is a vital part). We might designate English Wikipedia as the one where "debates" would be led (also Russian, Chinese, Spanish, French if they meet the criteria of having wikiprojects that match). But who will show the way - commons users interested in certain field know where matters could be discussed very well.

And what would happen if a debate would be led elsewhere. Most debates end up with one or the other side being unsatisfied. They would come to commons and continue the debate. Is this even wise to limit the right of users to debate a content? (commons do store content)!

And when they continue debating to realize that administrators on commons would satisfy yet again only one side they upload a version of their own - but the other side used up the name of the file. The name of the file Image:Flag of Croatia.svg has become irreplaceable.

Why would this flag/issue become the exception and the one where "We are not interested" should applly. Flags of Italy and Poland were solved here. Isn't this a good result.

I do not know why nobody answered my orriginal question. Why has the file been locked at a version the other side wants and not the orriginal version of Nightstallion. When you have this kind of a sittuation why doesn't some other administrator get involved and protects at the first (the orriginal) version. This has happened at Image:Civil Ensign of Croatia.svg, why not on Image:Flag of Croatia.svg. That was the question. I have not objected that User:O locked the file on my version - I taught if Minestrone had succeded his version to be locked for a month + a week then it is finaly fortune on my side - so the file would be locked on my version for a month. This would hopefully bring other discutants to the "debate".

But what happened instead. Some other administrators came and forced User:O to back down, have they looked at the history of the file, have they looked at the explanation of almost every revertment I made, have they talked to other administrators who locked the file before (for the reason of finding out who was the one who firstly started or who were the one which brought them attention to the issue). No.

Still I hope that this issue would not be the first one forced out of commons, we have a good wikiproject for flags here, people who can resolve Italy and Poland. And if this should be the case, please reconsider the postition of localisation of this particular issue. If must comes English Wikipedia is a better choice because of their wikiproject for heraldry and vexillology. Still I beg the administrators not to push for that change, if policy must change let it be for this issue to be solved here because it started before policy changes and should finish here.

Rainman 01:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The real gut of the situation is to stop edit warring on the actual subject and come to a consensus through mellow discussion. I do not care about what revision I actually protect; this is basically common sense for administrators. Whining about not getting your way in the protection process isn't going to get you anywhere. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 02:03, 04 March 2008 (GMT)

Page protection is never the way to solve issues like this. We use it to steer the parties involved away from the revert button and to the talk page. As long as we're not locking it up on vandalism or something, it doesn't really matter what version it is. Again, by protecting a page, we are not deciding on what version it's going to be. That would be abuse. - Rocket000 02:36, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Image:Kosovo relations.svg and Image:Kosovo relations.png

User:Avala and User:Mareklug are in a ceaseless edit war on these images. They posted to Commons:Village_pump#Inappropriate_conduct_.28falsifying_reality.29_on_Commons_by_experienced_user_.28administrator_of_another_Wikimedia_project.29, but apparently my request for them to work together was ignored. Please protect these pages, or something. Patstuart (talk) 19:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

 Protected both for a week. Hopefully, they'll start acting like civilized people by that time. --Boricuæddie 19:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Look, I apologize, and if it helps, I unilaterally promise to not touch either one from now on. But these maps are in need of constant updates, and should not remain frozen until March 8. I'm sure, given the public interest, a normative version will shake out in the end, precisely with lots of people participating. --Mareklug ^talk 23:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

If any change needs to be made, then they can tell us here. However, we cannot afford to unprotect the image and allow the disruption to continue. --Boricuæddie 23:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Review of block welcome

I've just blocked User:Odessaukrain for offensive comments towards Cecil. I'd appreciate others views on this (& whether it should be extended or reduced) comments here are the reason as well as precious talk page ones etc. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:53, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to support that block, that was utterly unacceptable behaviour. Odessaukrain will have to understand one cannot accomplish anything with breaking basic behaviour guidelines. Patrícia ^msg 18:12, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely no need for a reduction. The user made it quite clear that they knew that what they were doing was unacceptable and that they did not care. I envy your optimism in believing that this attitude will change in just one week's time, but with enough eyes on the case, we'll be sure to notice quickly if the user decides to waste their next chance at civilised participation. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me, too. This user has turned up here, has made no effort whatsoever to learn about the need to specify sources properly, and is gratuitously offensive as soon as people try to explain. --MichaelMaggs 19:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the above; good block. giggy _(:O) 12:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Without a doubt. I've also closed the undeletion request where the user made disparaging comments. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 15:42, 09 March 2008 (GMT)

He was pretty much asking for it. :( - Rocket000 13:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments/support folks. Just as a matter of info Cecil does not appear happy about it. However I do not really see what else anyone could do - I wouldn't be unhappy with an indef block but.....--Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't have blocked at all, but then again I'm weird when it comes to blocks and users speaking their mind.. even if I don't like it. But I've been called an insensitive jerk before :) That's not to say I disagree with the block. Not at all. It was pretty clear Odessaukrain knew what he was getting himself in to. Cecil was on the receiving end of his uncivil remarks, so it's understandable he would prefer a longer sentence, but are we blocking to make him happy? Indef is too much if you ask me, however, if he comes back and acts the same, indefinite or a very long block would be the only thing that would make sense. - Rocket000 23:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:LOC-image

Perhaps this should be protected, it's an extremely high use template and people have been editing it on a whim. -Nard 17:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Boricuæddie 17:36, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Main Page protection (done)

Please protect the Main Page in Traditional Chinese as it may be vandalized by anonymous and new users. Thank you for your help.--Lkopeter 11:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done →Christian.И 11:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think full protection is needed. The English page isn't even fully protected. I see no vandalism in the history and it's nice when we don't have to fully lock down the main page. - Rocket000 01:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

XD Oops, that was the move protection I saw. - Rocket000 01:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection is preferred as I aim to prevent possible vandalism by anonymous and new users.--Lkopeter 16:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Please block users User:Avala and User:Mareklug (solved)

These users have been in an absolutely constant edit war concerning Kosovo relations images, and these images were already protected once before (see #Image:Kosovo_relations.svg_and_Image:Kosovo_relations.png), only to have them immediately revert to edit warring. Both users received a final warning, oh, about 100 reversions ago that any more revert warring would result in a block. To be honest, I'm not sure that Avala isn't more at fault, as he's ignoring even the most proper sources (e.g., BBC). Also, please do not protect this page, as, as I've said, this story is evoling and changing daily. Patstuart (talk) 19:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Protected both images indefinitely. There are more than two users edit warring here. 哦，是吗？(О кириллицей) 20:07, 19 March 2008 (GMT)

I must protest this as a poor decision. The war was almost exclusively between these two users, and most of the other edits were updates from the news (User:Cp6 and User:Nightstallion seem to be the exceptions, but at least their edits were trying to help as well). A page that is constantly updating should not be indef protected. Worse, these two users have now learned that edit warring will come without consequences, and they will not be blocked as promised. Please understand this has nothing to do with my version being kept. This is the third time I've posted on these users, and we still can't seem to realize that sometimes it's better to get rid of the trouble-makers than to shut the whole program down. Patstuart (talk) 20:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have blocked. I do not quite agree to your decission, O. Regards, abf /talk to me/ 20:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I consider blocking an extreme last resort. But oh well. 哦，是吗？(О кириллицей) 21:37, 19 March 2008 (GMT)

3 days for both. Pages unprotected. abf /talk to me/ 20:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Done - resolved, thanks all for the response. Patstuart (talk) 20:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... looking at the history (especially the last edit), I'm going to have to say that page protection may have been better. Don't get me wrong, their actions were worthy of a block, but... All I can say is I've seen page protection help solve disputes many times, I've never seen blocks do the same. Sure, it ends many problems (or postpones them) but doesn't solve them (unless the blockee is the problem themselves, e.g. vandals). This seems to be a POV dispute with *others* involved. And it's kinda hard to sort things out on the talk page if they're blocked. - Rocket000 22:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, looking at some talk pages, the blocks made sense. Not being involved at all puts you in the best place for neutrality but most of the time you don't know the whole story. - Rocket000 22:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

THANK YOU FOR THE BLOCKS. Commons has had enough of these people. --Boricuæddie 00:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Unblock Mutter Erde; Reprimand User:Szczepan1990

1. Will someone please have a second look at Mutter Erde's contributions. He initially blocked by abf for three days for a comparably harmless joke (even three days seems rather much for this) and was then blocked indefinitely by Szczepan1990 for "trolling" on his very own talk page. Now all I can see there are a couple of justly sarcastic remarks towards abf and pointing out his own contributions to the project (>10.000 edits here on commonswiki, undeniably commendable work most of them). That hardly warrants an indefinite block now, does it? Please put me in the picture.

2. User:Szczepan1990 doesn't deign to answer my questions, instead he popped up on IRC just to tell me to stop "trolling" his discussion, only to log off again. Never in the five years that I've been contributing to the various Wikimedia projects (admin on w:de: since 2005, sometime arbcom member, if you need further credentials to have your case heard here) have I been accused of trolling or been treated in such a condescending manner. I very much hope that this arrogance is not typical of commons admins (or is it?).

Thx, --Janneman 22:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

ack. imo some biting remarks do not justify blocking a productive member of the community indefinitely. regardless of his past. -- ∂ 01:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. An infinite block is absolutely overkill, regarding his thousands of good edits here on commons. Please unblock. --Elian ^Talk 01:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thirded. No apparent reason for block. PDD 01:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Support unblock... will wait for admins in question to comment. - Rocket000 10:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Indef is totally inappropriate in my opinion. I would be prepared to unblock myself fairly soon but would prefer Szczepan1990 to do so (an admin I do respect) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Fifted, following D and Elian. --Flominator 12:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sixthed. He/she certainly seems to have plenty of valid contributions here. Was he really blocked for this??? I don't know who the other names are, but Jimbo is a public figure... would the same block apply if he was poking fun at George Bush or Osama bin Laden? --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 13:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I unblocked and set the block down to two month. I hope anyone can agree to this. abf /talk to me/ 14:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Solved. abf /talk to me/ 14:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

What do you have "unblocked"? I don't believe that 78.48.175.11 17:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't, I still demand that you or Szczepan explicate just exactly what he is/was blocked for. --Janneman 14:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I have told that all at szcepans' talk-page before. I belive Szcepan agrees to this as well. abf /talk to me/ 15:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do you "believe" that? Is he your alter ego? see also: de:Benutzer_Diskussion:ABF#deadmins_auf_commons (for Non German speakers: Szcepan has blocked his email account for users he has blocked. Unbelievable) 78.48.175.11 17:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, since were the first to block him here, you're not exactly the neutral, uninvolved, third party whose opinion on this matter I was looking forward to hear. Especially since you tried to have me blocked on w:en just yesterday because I dared criticize your decision. --Janneman 14:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I belive it was more then neutral to set a block down from indef to two month, but if you'd like to hear another one please do so. abf /talk to me/ 15:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

2 months? that's still ridiculous. --Elian ^Talk 15:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Szczepan1990 appears not to be around. I have unblocked per the consensus above. --MichaelMaggs 17:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all. But this ABF has also blocked my user and discussion page. Greetings.

@ Janneman or all others: Should I start the deadmin procedure of these both ...(put a word of your own choice in) or who wants? Mutter Erde 18:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

User page unblocked. --MichaelMaggs 19:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank u very much. But my disc is still protected by ABF  :-) Greetings Mutter Erde 20:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, missed that one. Now done. --MichaelMaggs 21:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Mutti: ich würds lassen, über kurz oder lang werden sie schon ganz von alleine straucheln, schätzickmal. Ansonsten Willkommen zurück. Gryßle, --Janneman 18:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC) And thank you, Michael. --Janneman 18:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank u very very much. Are you not interested, who will vote for these (..... put a word of your own choice in) ? I was electrified by the "ABF-Jimbo Wales case" in that moment as Mr. Wales didn't say "Please play outside my disc" but "Only 3 days?". :-)

Is there a chance to delete all that rubbish out of my block log? I remember a special de-faker named Dickbauch (he is no longer an admin and has changed his nick in the meanwhle, see de:Benutzer:Weissbier), who filled the block log of de:Benutzer:Hans_Bug - I will always praise his name - only to say afterwards, that his block log is so filled :-).

I expect some relatives, who will visit me around Easter. So this gives us all a chance to sleep over the ABF/Sczepan case. And I will take an extra nap about Jimbo. Greetings Mutter Erde 20:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you, Micheal Maggs, but all AOL users are still blocked by this ...(put a word of your own choice in). I have lost a complicated edit some minutes ago because of him. I think, I will kick them out after Easter, unbelievable! Mutter Erde 21:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

• Bitte gib folgende Daten in jeder Anfrage an:

• Sperrender Administrator: ABF
• Sperrgrund: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Mutter Erde". The reason given for Mutter Erde's block is: "as before, only per discussion on the administrators noticeboard"
• Beginn der Sperre: 17:01, 21. Mär. 2008
• Sperr-Ende: 17:01, 22. Mär. 2008
• IP-Adresse: 195.93.60.8
• Sperr-ID: #12125

I have - I hope - cleared the autoblocks on the AOL addresses --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool heads are better than lost heads

ABF and Szczepan1990: I think a calm, rational explanation of the 2 blocks would do wonders here. From where I sit, ABF in particular seems to be taking this a bit personally, so please take a step back for a while, gather your thoughts, and share them with us... I doubt I'm the only one who's feeling a bit confused (or even stunned!) about what's going on here.

Mutti Erde: Please give us a few warm and sunny days here (Mother Earth at it's best). Your efforts at categorization and gallery creations are appreciated, but you've apparently caused some offense: whether you meant to do so is irrelevant right now. Please tread gently, and let ABF and Szczepan1990 have their say before you get involved in this again. --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 22:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I gave him a note, so that he can't slip away. If you are living in the right area, I will let the sun shine for you :-). Happy Easter Mutter Erde 18:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Step back

I herby tell with this declaration that I will not do anything in accordeance to Mutter Erde in the next two month if it isnt a emergency-case. Means NO sysop-acitons aggainst or for him. I even wont care about what hes doing. Its only to protect my nervs. I hope the other sysops will take care for this period. Regards, abf /talk to me/ 08:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's all well and good. I'll keep an eye on his contribs, but you still need to tell us what we're supposed to be keeping an eye on! --SB_Johnny | ^PA! 21:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Spring troll festival

Ongoing Shankbone stalking has been an issue for a while here. My talk page gives a flavour of it currently as does this.

I'm posting here as a "heads up" rather than requiring attention however I have just placed three range blocks which I feel is important/unusual enough to be brought to the attention of others. Anyone thinks that it is excessive/wrong is more that welcome to say. I have checked those ranges for legit contributions but there aren't any so there really should be any innocent injured parties. I would ask that care be taken with any possible unblocking - not my definition of "nice people"! Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 14:39, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Reviewing the IP edits to WJBscribe's talk page I've now blocked some more ranges. In each case I have user the range contributions tool & the only edits are from this stalker. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Herby, Herby, Herby...what's next, blocking all of New Jersey, and then what, the eastern seaboard? Please! The problem isn't me, it's Shankbone: his opportunism in all things Wiki, his cozying up to prostitutes -- and that's only the tip of what he's done here, nevermind what I'm out to get him for. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.76.83.60 (talk) 19:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

This one blocked. 哦，是吗？(О кириллицей) 19:24, 22 March 2008 (GMT)

I have blocked anonymous users on this range on /16 for 3 days, which means unfortunately that many legimate users may be blocked as well. However, I checked and there appear to be no other anons on this range the last few months. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way for non-checkusers to see all the edits from a range? Patstuart (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I can see them all, and I'm not a checkuser. It's a gadget in preferences that can be enabled. 哦，是吗？(О кириллицей) 19:43, 22 March 2008 (GMT)

-Drools-. Thanks. Patstuart (talk) 19:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all for watching. I've done another /24 block (which only affected the poster here). Should mean they spend more time rebooting the router than anything else! The mild irritant is that we have to put up with en wp dramaz here on Commons - ho hum --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protection for Bayern, Sachsen, Thüringen

An IP doesn't accept that this german states are Free States (Freistaaten).--kogo 22:14, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, done. --S^[1] 22:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --kogo 22:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Image:Illustration.png

Please protect Image:Illustration.png. -- RHaworth 19:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Any reason? Majorly (talk) 19:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because it was protected at en??? I think RHaworth brought it over (but I could be wrong) or created it anew. Apparently it has a history there (it had a protection template on it from the creation), and some revisions seem to suggest it was a promotional image for some printer or something. En admins can view the history, deleted revisions, etc here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Undelete&target=Image%3AIllustration.png ... Myself I'm not convinced, not opposed, just curious. RHaworth do you have more you can share with us? ++Lar: t/c 01:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's common practice to protect prohibited file names like this. See Category:Commons prohibited file names. That's why the infobox/license template has that protection notice. Rocket000 10:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Why would we not simply protect the page with no image there (does that work?) or use Titleblacklist (does that work?) Protected for now, but I'm investigating these possibly more efficient methods... – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 10:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Titleblacklist will work nicely for patterns (looking through that category now). – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 10:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I couldn't get Titleblacklist to work. Any admin knowing regex could try to fix mine, or I'll come back to it later. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 12:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Template ngw

I need some help of administrators to come to a proper agreement for the use of my images, all taken from www.ngw to wikipedia commons. There is a lot of discussion now on a template, which has been blocked, to my opinion wrongly. I copy below the discussion on the page of 'Nick' [22] : Hi, I see that you protected the template ngw. I think that is not correct. The template, after long discussion, was made in such away that I made it copyright free, provided that people notify me, see my talk page on commons. I also changed it in such a way that only my own images are under this template and not other images. This GijsVdL obviously does not agree and calls it vandalism, but if he continues, I would like all 6880 images that are taken from www.ngw.nl to be deleted on commons. I do not want this, I went for a good solution, which was obviously agreed upon by other members in the discussion, as none reverted or added more comments on the talk page. Only GijsVdL, who obviously does not want to discuss this. I never made the template and I never changed my optinion. The date tag that is now added on the template is therefore rubbish. Please have a look at the template how I made it last night and protect that one, to avoid vandalism by GijsvdL.Knorrepoes 06:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As Knorrepoes knows, there was a discussion about the Knorrepoes revocation at NL.wiki. Knorrepoes gave his permission in Dutch, as anyone understanding Dutch can check easily by following one of the hyperlinks in the template. At 2008-2-26 Knorrepoes started to change the template to 'non-commercial', but of course he cannot revoke permission for already uploaded images. That's why I added the note about the upload date to

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (see disclaimer on https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/) or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to the original web page on https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/.. GijsvdL 06:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC) I try to get in contact with Gijs about this, he has not yet called me. Still, I have never uploaded any of the images myself, others have done so during the years, all taken from my site, with the disclaimer there already present for many years and all without asking me. When I entered wikipedia about 1.5 years ago I noticed that over 6000 images from my site were taken into wikipedia and since then I have been fighting to get recognition as the author of my own images (the majority is NOT from me and is scanned. For those images I yesterday created the template ngw2). I thus changed a lot on many images to provide the proper source and added a small permission text on the Dutch wiki. This text to which Gijs refers does not state specifically commercial. That is also a bit my fault, I never realised that images on commons can always be used for commercial purposes. As there has recently been a lot of (mis)use of my images from either my site or wikipedia (that is obviously not clear) I stressed the non-commercial point. I did not create the ngw template ! Still, I wait for Gijs to contact me.Knorrepoes 07:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC) Nick, Gijs refuses to talk to me even though I invited him to do so... Therefore some more things. Already for years (at least since 2000) the disclaimer on www.ngw.nl states : Use of the images in Wikipedia is allowed with reference to this site and/or the original source as mentioned on the site. It is not allowed to use texts of this site on Wikipedia without permission ! For commercial purposes permission of the council as well as the webmaster of this site is always needed. The webmaster of this site is not responsible for commercial use of the material provided. In spite of this, thousands of images have been uploaded to wikipedia (Commons and local) by others, in many cases without providing the appropriate link. There is thus nothing like revoking my permission, I have never changed my opinion. I noticed the ngw template last February and thus immediately changed it according to the disclaimer on my site. Like I said, it was/is my oversight to not notice that wikipedia provides free commercial use, but I never uploaded images until rather recently and thus never read the guidelines... I don;t want to have all images removed, but to come to a proper compromise. I think the template I made yesterday, with a free copyright sign (not the green one) and the text is a good compromiseKnorrepoes 07:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nick"

I have tried to get into contact with GijsVdL to discuss this, but he basically threatens me that he does not want to call me "as it is useless. Do I need to write this in capital letters to you ?", see copied text below in Dutch (from "http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:GijsvdL"): Kan je me eens even bellen, dit wordt nu te gek (Ralf Hartemink <knip>, delete graag na overschrijven/bellen). Knorrepoes 8 apr 2008 08:59 (CEST) Daar heb ik helemaal geen zin in. Het zou je hoe dan ook niet helpen. GijsvdL 8 apr 2008 09:12 (CEST) Waarom niet, dit kost iedereen tijd en ik wil een paar dingen : 1) erkenning voor het feit dat het mijn plaatjes zijn, 2) misbruik voorkomen en 3) tot een goed compromis komen. Ik heb het volste recht om al mijn plaatjes (het is en blijft mijn werk) van wikipedia te laten verwijderen. Dat wil ik echter niet, dus ik wil tot een compromis komen. Dit moet eens en voor al goed komen.Knorrepoes 8 apr 2008 09:18 (CEST) Dat recht heb je helemaal niet. Verleende vrijgave is niet in achteraf terug te nemen. GijsvdL 8 apr 2008 09:22 (CEST) Bel nu even, dat is makkelijkerKnorrepoes 8 apr 2008 09:23 (CEST) Nogmaals, ik bel je niet. Is het zo duidelijk, of moet ik het nog een keer zeggen met grotere letters? GijsvdL 8 apr 2008 09:27 (CEST)

It is simple, I would like to keep all images on wikipedia, get (when needed) recognised as the author of the image and be notified when someone wants to use my images commercially. In practice I always give permission (and sometimes get royalties) that is why I added the copyright-free sign on the template. But I do not want to have people misuse the images. I want a compromise, GijsVdL obviously not. Otherwise I would like to opt for a mass deleten of all images ever taken from www.ngw.nl as all of them were taken with the discleimer already present... a search showed that over 6000 images are taken, which would mean a huge action, that, to my opinion is not needed at all. We can come to a conclusion, but I need a proper moderator to help/contact me on this. Please feel free to call me (contact me off-line to webmaster@ngw.nl for a phone number) to discuss this. Knorrepoes 07:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Knorrepoes, as I already said several times, non-commercial is not allowed. You also cannot revoke a given permission years after the opload. It's even a question if you could claim a copyright at all for digitalizing PD coats of arms. GijsvdL 09:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify some ground rules for bringing this to a conclusion. Images which have licensing restrictions such as "non-commercial use only" or which require notification or compensation are explicitly forbidden at Commons due to our project scope which is to be a repository of free media. Furthermore, licensing cannot be revoked, and attempting to do so is considered disruptive. However, requests to be notified or paid, or to avoid commercial use of images (which are non-binding) are acceptable. The template may not revoke rights previously granted, and must not have unacceptable restrictions. Once an agreement on wording has been reached, the template would be unprotected, and the agreed-upon wording changed. Please try to work together towards this aim; nobody is helped by revert wars. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 11:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

At the moment Knorrepoes participates in a discussion at NL.wiki. At the moment there are good changes we can come to an agreement. I'll keep you informed. GijsvdL 11:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Prombelm solved with the template as shown above.Knorrepoes 13:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Icon.jpg

I thought it would be an insult to your intelligence to explain why I wanted Illustration.png (see above) protected! Please deal with Image:Icon.jpg in the same way.

Even if Titleblacklist works, I think it may be better to have an image actually in place - gives a clearer message to a newbie. -- RHaworth 08:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Protected. By the way, titleblacklist does not work for uploads, apparently :( – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 10:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately. We could simple put [create=sysop] on these titles, but actually uploading these placeholder images and then protecting is preferable because it gives the uploaded a nice little message when they try uploading with crappy names. Rocket000 17:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Exchange file

Please move Image:Pl-Białoruś-new.ogg to Image:Pl-Białoruś.ogg. Reason: New, clear voice (Is it good page to please about that?) Sh33run 18:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, we can't move files. Did you want to replace the old one and have it deleted? If so, simply mark it with {{dupe}} & someone will take care of it eventually. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Details of images

Since when has it become the norm to remove images which are details of larger ones? I see no harm in showing part of an image as opposed to the whole thing, and indeed, this is often necessary when discussing art. Every week, I have to remove a deletion notice from Image:AliceBattenberg.jpg for no apparently good reason. Yes, it is a smaller version of Image:Prinzessin Victoria Alice Elisabeth Julie Marie von Battenberg, 1907.jpg but the large version has lines of text bleeding through across the entire frame and the name of a magazine in the lower left corner. I prefer the cleaned-up version. I do not see why I should be forced to waste time by trying to clean up the other 60% of the image when the essential information is already shown in the detail. Would it be possible to protect it from further notices? DrKiernan 10:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Gay pornography vandal

The User banned on Wikipedia as the "Gay pornography vandal" and who inspired this Block here on the Commons is once again vandalizing and obsessing over gays and pornography here on the Commons. Could we please have another IP range block? --DavidShankbone 03:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Maxim & I have blocked the two active IPs for a while. I am not a fan of range blocks so for now I am not prepared to place one. If it gets worse then there are plenty of competent admins here to deal with it. Can I urge folk not to feed the trolls - if we starve them then as a species they die out! --Herby ^{talk thyme} 06:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

<personal threat removed>

I've started range blocking with these now - in my view the disruption is increasing & is time wasting. I'm using /24 ones for a day & only having checked the range for legit contributions - thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Still blocking /24s but if anyone is bored with this a short block (1 day max?) on 72.76.0.0/20 is probably pretty safe, cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

What's going on here. What's with all the removing of comments? Rocket000 17:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The IP is trolling. Nishkid64 (talk) 18:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just informed of it. Thanks. Actually, I edit-conflicted with you removing the comment. Rocket000 18:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Regrettably I think we may need to look at 72.76.0.0/16. It is a toss up - disruption v closed access. If folks have issue with/want info on range blocks please email me etc etc. This is a trolling **** who is an interruption to our work here. Offline mostly now - flak/issues/criticism to me by all means but please don't feed trolls & don't stop legit people from contributing. Thanks to all for the help --Herby ^{talk thyme} 21:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok - enough 72.76.0.0/16 now blocked for a period - will catch up in the morning! Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 23:00, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts

Ok - thanks to all who helped out dealing with this. The problem with range blocks is there may be collateral damage. In practice there are virtually no legitimate edits from the range this troll is using so my natural reluctance to range block has been overcome. However they still need to be kept as tight as possible.

That preferably means /24 which blocks 256 IPs. Taking examples from above 72.76.1.0/24 will block 72.76.1.0 to 72.76.1.255. However this stalker was ranging over the whole of 72.76. so I placed a 72.76.0.0/16 block. This takes out 65K Ips! However they then moved to 72.68 as a range hence the continuing idiocy. The IP is dynamically allocated and to get a new one they need to reboot their router (which takes time) until they get an unblocked IP (hence periods of peace & quiet).

We need to weigh up the "cost" of wide range blocks against protecting admin (& other pages). I don't like protecting pages anyway but actually all that happens is they edit another page (as they did after this one was protected for the third time). It would be good to get other peoples views on this idiot intrusion on our work (I'm feeling polite at present!) - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 07:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

In terms of persistence, hostility and utter lunacy, this goes way beyond other cases of wikistalking that I've come across, and I think beyond what we can and should address by ourselves. Unless this individual gets themselves checked in somewhere where they'll make sure they get their medication, I can only see this escalating from here. Has anyone contacted law enforcement or at the very least Verizon? (From my experience, abuse@verizon.com redirects to /dev/null, so a more personal and direct approach would be needed.) —LX (talk, contribs) 07:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

This IP never creates accounts, right? (is violating WP:BEANS...). Softblock, with account creation enabled, a bigass range...give them no chance. Create a template (eg. {{ShankboneBlock}} or something like that), and use that as the block message. It should state clearly what's going on ("jerk in your neighbourhood is harassing one of our best contributors") and explain that you can create an account, but you can't edit from this range as an anon. Worth a try? giggy _(:O) 08:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'd like to point out that despite this person's claims, I don't know who they are, which is why this person is unable to give you any information about me outside of what is publicly available on the Internet to everyone. They are taking their cues from the Wikipedia Cyberstalking article, which includes false victimization and false accusations. They are your run-of-the-mill cyberstalker. In fact, they are an encyclopedic example. They have been trolling gay pornography articles for over a year, which is why they are known as the "Gay pornography vandal" on Wikipedia:List of banned users. They have attacked at least five or six editors on Wikipedia. --DavidShankbone 14:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with a range softblock, account creation disabled. Unfortunately, this will have to do for some time. We could have a template for IP range blocks, but let's not make it specific (deny recognition). Patrícia ^msg 14:22, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Fully support. As I've outlined on my talk page, there are few to no contributions (at least anonymously) from the entire 72.76.0.0/16 range that is not from this person. I would fully support AO/ACB. I know the person used another smaller range; I cannot talk about that range in as much detail. However, I support a range block for several months, as the trolling has been persistent. Anyone can request unblock to create a new account if necessary, as the template ought to state. Patstuart (talk) 21:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Support as well. ++Lar: t/c 22:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Just created User:Giggy/Shankbone Template as a potential block template (I think that's the idea that's getting support! :). Feel free to comment on it here or on its talk page, and feel free to edit it too. giggy _(:O) 09:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Works for me & thanks. Use it on the next blocks I place would be my thoughts, cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Probably better to move to Template: namespace first (suggested location was {{ShankboneBlock}}). giggy _(:O) 09:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Lambeau-field.jpg

Full-protection for Image:Lambeau-field.jpg please. It is currently being transcluded on over a thousand pages on the English Wikipedia because it is part of this high-risk, fully protected template. Thank you! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 21:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Semi protected editing, full protected moving, watchlisted. Will jack up if necessary and if blocking won't cut it (highly unlikely - we generally full protect in cases of upload wars and the like). Hope this helps. Cheers, giggy _(:O) 11:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that will do great! Cheers. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 07:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Plan.gif

Please protect per #Image:Icon.jpg above. -- RHaworth 14:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done, thank you. →Christian.И 15:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I did Image:Plan.jpg, too. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Creator

I rarely ask for full protection for something (guess it's a product of being non-admin): but this page seems to have well over 10000 inclusions. The documentation is now offloaded to a /doc subdirectory. Please protect this. Patstuart (talk) 19:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Maxim_(talk) 23:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Unprotect category "Galleria degli Uffizi"

Category:Galleria degli Uffizi needs to be unprotected. An admin protected it to keep up a dubious warning about pics taken without consent. --Rob 14:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone did this already. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 23:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons talk:Upload/es

The talk page Commons talk:Upload/es is frequently edited by users that add many spams without use that have to be reverted. Please semiprotect it, or protect it. Thialfi 03:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Semi-protected for a month (was last done for a week and that didn't work), please come here again if it restarts. Thanks. :) giggy _(:O) 03:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Convert to SVG

Please protect {{Convert to SVG}}; it has many thousands of transclusions. I'd protect it myself were it a template on the English Wikipedia. Nihiltres^(t.c) 02:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This has been protected numerous times...I'm going to ping those who've been involved in protection so we can try and agree on something. giggy _(:O) 03:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, giggy. If this was the English Wikipedia, I would agree with such protection too. But this is Commons. We have a lot less vandalism, a lot less admins to keep up with template maintenance, and receive many many useful edits from IPs. Especially with the translations! And if we protect this template it only makes sense to protect Template:Convert to SVG/lang as well. There is no sign that this template attracts vandalism. It's not that high use, where a trivial edit once in awhile would overload the servers. I mean, we got many templates that are used more, that aren't protected (examples: {{Tlx}}, {{BotMoveToCommons}}, {{Cs}}) because there's just no reason to. Protection should only be used where it's absolutely needed and not where people think we should use it (usually based on experiences elsewhere). I guess I'd be fine with semi-protection but only because I'm compromising to a request, not because it's needed. Rocket000 11:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I just realised it's not move protected and have done so; I think we can all agree that there's no real reason to move it. Otherwise, I tend to agree with Rocket. giggy _(:O) 23:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Image:Symbol.jpg

Please protect as per Plan.gif above. -- RHaworth 08:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

You cant overwrite a copyvio-version!! Copyvio-revisions HAVE TO be deleted. I deleted that revision and protected the file. -->  Done abf /talk to me/ 08:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Block request for User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske)

User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) is, according to the page, owned by User:Magnus Manske. The bot has been making mistakes for weeks in transferring images from other Wikipedia's, especially in the transfers in the informationtemplates. The templates are modified and getting very confusing, see for instance Image:R2-D2 reservoir.jpg and Image:Tim Sluiter door E. Vaartjes.jpg. May I also add, that the bot is getting al the deletion requests for the uploaded images, but does not notify or in any other way handle these notifications. I tried to point out these things to its owner, but he seems not to have been active since the 27th of april. I really do think that a block would be appropiate, at least untill Magnus is back online to fix the errors this bot is making. It is very frustrating to say the least and costs a lot of time to correct.

For previous discussions about this unflagged bot, please see Commons:Bots/Requests_for_flags#File_Upload_Bot_.28Magnus_Manske.29-_removing_of_bot_flag_requested. Ciell 22:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

 Agree Bot should copy the name of the original uploader exactly in the way it was given at the original upload. Of course this is not a major concern and in most cases it will be alright, but in every tenth case the uploader will be unhappy with it. I don't see why it should alter the information about the uploader. Let's block it until the owner is back to fix it. It makes people unhappy and we don't want that on a project working with volunteers. Woudloper 22:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I dont believe blocking is the solution. Local wikipedia admins should check if the picture arrived ok here at commons before deleting the local image. Multichill 22:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Local admins are busy enough without having to correct all those templates. Ciell 22:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The bot isn't really controlled by Magnus; the bot is controlled by many users. It is the users' responsibility that files have sufficient and accurate information before using the bot. No block. 哦，是吗？(висчвын) 22:35, 15 May 2008 (GMT)

I am sorry, but did you even read the previous discussion linked? The bot has been used for vandalism, it is impossible to trace who ever told the bot to make an upload and his master has been offwiki for weeks... Really guys, you are getting the sh*t from our wiki on commons, with even images nominated for deletion being transferred by this bot. Ciell 22:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There are 3 different responsibilities here: 1) user instructing the bot: should check all info whether it's sufficient and accurate 2) bot itself: copying local information and correctly and uploading info & file here 3) local admin checking Commons copy before deleting local one. For 2) especially copying local info correctly the bot seems to be failing. Because there is no way local user doing 1) can be identified, and the bot is not perfoming 2) correctly, this places an extra burden on local admins and/or Commons users to correct these mistakes. Seeing that the bot makes one-click anonymous "fire-and-forget" uploads possible, while adding errors of its own during the process, the very existence of such a service should be at least debatable, if not undesirable. NielsF ^{? (en, nl, fr, it)} 23:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

(reset) User Sterkebak is complaining over IRC that attribution is not being properly copied from nl.wikipedia. Namely, there seem to be links to Flickr that are lost. Apparently, Magnus is currently unresponsive towards requests to fix this bug. I asked Sterkebak to come and confirm this here when possible (he's currently having access problems).

For what it's worth, I favour a block until the bug is fixed, as long as this does not compromise the toolserver, of course. Patrícia ^msg 23:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

User Sterkebak lies about this pictures. They were transfered correctly. There is not a bug in the bot, there is a lack of understanding in the mind of Sterkebak. GijsvdL 23:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow GijsvdL, please do not bring disputes of other wiki's into Commons. Lying is a serious complaint... Ciell 23:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sterkebak brought his false information to Commons IRC. For the dispute it is very important that everybody knows that this is false information. GijsvdL 23:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read any sound arguments yet against blocking the bot. Why would you keep a bot running on your project that is irritating people? Let the owner fix it and after that it can run again. Just my 2 cents. Regards, Woudloper 23:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

 Oppose the time it saves is very much more than the time it costs. I would like to see a solution to block anonymous use, but just blocking would be a very bad idea. GijsvdL 23:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Please see Commons:Bots/Requests for flags/File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) for some recent discussion. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Some background information. The last couple of months new pictures get either transfered to commons or nominated for deletion at the nl wikipedia. Sterkebak uploaded some picture's and added "please dont uploaded this picture to commons". The pictures got transfered to commons anyway (using Magnus his bot) and Sterkebak didnt like that. Now Sterkebak's only goal seems to be to get the bot out of service. He's already complaining about it on irc for about 3 days. Multichill 08:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Please do notice that Sterkebak himself has not even been on this page yet. I find it to be ridiculous that a bot that causes this many different problems is still running. It has been you yourself Multichill that filed the bugrequest on some of these problems on the 4th and 5th of december 2007 already: it still does not look like anything has improved though. But hey, let's take a look at the deletion requested images, that User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) got notices for yesterday.... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Nice one. Ciell 09:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

After some talk yesterday over IRC, and with the help of a nl sysop, I realized that there was no technical problem with attribution upon bot upload. I'm afraid Sterkebak doesn't understand the layout of the author field after the file has been uploaded here (with a "original uploader", and an "author"). If someone could explain him the differences, in dutch, that would be good (there is some degree of communication problem in English, and this really is my last online time before Monday; I tried yesterday over IRC, but it was a bit chaotic). So ignore my support for a block, since there is no technical reason for it. Patrícia ^msg 09:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Mijn doel is dus niet dat de bot uit de lucht gaat. Mijn doel is dat de bot goed functioneerd en de licentie precies overzet zoals het hoord. Sterkebak 18:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(status) 15:32, May 16, 2008 ABF (Talk | contribs | block) blocked File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of indefinite (autoblock disabled) ‎ (Malfunctioning bot. I know this is a hard step, but bugs where reported to me on irc. Bot is uploading copyvio stuff and really much nsd stuff. it also creates images with incorrect templates.) (unblock)

I think this was a very bad idea. The bot is not malfunctioning that I can see. While there are issues which need to be addressed, blocking the bot is not the way to go. Unless someone can point me to an actual malfunction I will unblock this bot soon. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(hist) (status) 15:52, May 16, 2008 ABF (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) (Talk | contribs) ‎ (see my talk) – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion there are two problems with the bot. One is that arguably the author field is copied in a confusing manner. Instead of the current "Original uploader was Sterkebak at nl.wikipedia (Original text : P.J.L. Laurens)", I think the format "P.J.L. Laurens. Original uploader was Sterkebak at nl.wikipedia" is preferable. What bothers me much more is the fact that anybody can upload images via this bot without being accountable for it. Allowing anybody uploading anonymously without even an IP address is in my opinion a very bad idea. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I have reblocked the bot:

• It allows users to upload images to Commons anonymously without any accountability whatsoever.
• It does not always in a clear way copy the author. (I realize that this is arguable and not a reason for a block in itself)
• It does not properly copy OTRS templates which are critical in determining the validity of the license.

I also strongly echo NielsF comments above about Seeing that the bot makes one-click anonymous "fire-and-forget" uploads possible. I realize that CH is a very valuable tool for Wikimedians and I am not very happy with the block itself. I think however that the bot is currently creating more problems, and more important annoyance to users than desirable. The problem of course with the fact that users have to upload manually is that there is a more than significant chance that they copy the description entirely wrong and we should decide in the coming few days whether the advantages outweight the problems. -- Bryan (talk to me) 19:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I think I agree... this anonymous uploading needs to stop. I mean, we make users register before uploading for a reason. This bot allows anyone to easily circumvent this little precaution we have to help slow the flow of copyvios, unsourced files, and outright vandalism. I look at the Flickr upload bot, and ask why can't something similar be put into place. It's not the bot's fault (and definitely not the creator's). Bugs aside, it's a tool that's simply being misused. But when that happens it's time to do something to stop the abuse or it becomes our fault. Rocket000 21:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sad to see it blocked, it's a valuable tool. That said, I have also run into numerous problems with licenses being garbled or license details being changed or dropped during transfers, a serious problem. I correct the problems manually but many people do not. I've left many notes on Magnus' talk page about these problems but he seems unresponsive to fixing them. Kelly 14:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sad to see the bot blocked as well (and let's not wheel war over blocking/unblocking, OK?). Is there any way to get Magnus, an exceedingly clever person, to participate in trying to understand and if necessary correct the issues? ++Lar: t/c 15:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be fantastic if CommonsHelper instituted a token system like Flickr Upload Bot, in which the person doing the upload creates the image description page prior to the image being uploaded. I think this would solve a lot of the accountability/notification concerns. But, as a non-bot-savvy person, I have no idea how complex this would be to implement. Bryan? Kelly 15:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It is not something very easy to do -- Bryan (talk to me) 17:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Fumbling through the source code, CommonsHelper uses Eloquence's perl upload script. Because of this and some other issues, yes, it is very difficult. 哦，是吗？(висчвын) 17:33, 17 May 2008 (GMT)

I have not seen this discussion before I blocked, but thanks for blocking. Bryan. abf /talk to me/ 15:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

eh, ok.. So now we don't have commonshelper AND we don't have BetacommandBot ? Well, this should be a quiet couple of days. :D TheDJ 15:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

CommonsHelper is still there; the real change needed is to disable uploading using this bot or have some kind of accountability mechanism. 哦，是吗？(висчвын) 17:02, 17 May 2008 (GMT)

Maybe CommonsHelper can do an edit to an on-wiki logpage in operators local browser? That edit would provide the username of the operator, or, if he didn't log in, his IP. GijsvdL 18:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What does BetacommandBot have to do with this? AFAICS it has not been blocked. Siebrand 23:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

This is too bad because the commonshelper is a real time saver. I do a lot of transferring; often I upload dozes within a half-hour. Here is a thought for the solution. Do you think it is possible to do the tranfer via commonshelper in two steps? First, a user uploads a file using commonshelper. It may not have a correct description page, but the original file is still there. From time to time, we run bots to correct those descriptions pages later. That is, bots copy description pages in wiki-projects to commons and puts duplication tags in the original description pages. Commonshelper generally screws Japanese characters, and this procedure would correct that problem too. -- TakuyaMurata 23:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I very strongly protest this bot being blocked. I was planning on using it to transfer some of the thousands of images on enwp that should really be on Commons, but without this tool, it takes too much time and effort to transfer images. Manual uploading is too much of a pain to justify the benefits of transferring the file to Commons in the majority of cases, which is probably why there's that many images still on enwp in the first place. If the accountability problem is really such an overriding issue — and I doubt it is — why not have Magnus add a feature to allow the bot to log in under your user account (or a specialized File Upload Bot user account)? Sure, people might use this bot to upload bad content, but they can do the same without the bot, so I don't think that's a good reason to block the bot. This bot isn't like other user accounts or even other bots. I implore that Commons administration staff reconsider this block and allow this useful tool to return to Commons very soon. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 03:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Manual uploading takes some time and effort, but it doesn't really take that much more time and effort than using the bot in a proper way, which involves checking and correcting the information it provides and fixing the categorisation. I'd rather you transferred a few dozen files manually and properly than thousands sloppily.

The accountability issue is a problem. Magnus' bot has uploaded some 2000 copyright violations, which have since been deleted. Any user caught doing the same would be permanently banned. I'm convinced that there are people systematically abusing the bot to hide behind it when uploading copyright violations. If we can't identify and block those people from using the bot, our only recourse is to block the bot itself.

The bot is broken by design, and the block was bold but very appropriate and long overdue. I've never heard a good explanation as to why it's not held to the same standards as other bots and users and why it gets a free pass to act as an IP anonymiser and public-password account all rolled up into one.

It's welcome back when it implements some form of authentication and stops transferring images with incomplete source information (and no, PD-self is not an assertion of authorship). I'd also like to see new bot uploads tagged for a 7-day speedy deletion unless someone edits the page, removes the tag and fixes the information, which is always needed. —LX (talk, contribs) 08:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

One advice for everybody who used to use this robot: it still partly works. You can use it as follows:

1. Save the picture to your harddisk.
2. Run CommonsHelper, but unselect Directly upload file, which is the last option.
3. Check the generated new description page and change it if needed.
4. Click 'Upload at Commons' to open a Commons upload form with the generated description page.
5. Get the saved file from your harddisk and choose 'Upload'.
6. Press your browsers 'Back'-button two times to get back to CommonsHelper.
7. Press 'Add {{NowCommons}}' and save the local description page.

This takes more time than direct uploading, but not dramatic. You can still transfer quite fast this way. GijsvdL 11:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not dramatic for those who have high speed broadband (ADSL2+, FTTH, FTTN ect) but for those who don't have ADSL such as those who still have dial-up or have a slow broadband connection (Like my self who has 256/64k ADSL connection which takes ages to upload). Bidgee 11:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I've been busy the last few days, and was just pointed to this discussion. As far as I can tell, there are two separate issues here: Lack of identification of the uploader, and some templates not being transcribed correctly. The former concerns the actual upload bot, the latter is about CommonsHelper, which are two different things (my Flickr transfer tool uses the bot as well).

The problem with "anonymous" uploads via the bot stems from the toolserver policy which does not allow tools to ask for passwords on Commons. I've been thinking about a separate user system for the toolserver only, which would be "synchronized" with a Commons account via a single edit. I"ll go implement this in the next few days. It will be generic, so other tools may use this system if tool authors and users both wish to.

As for the template issues, I've fixed lots of those over the years CommonsHelper has been running. With new templates, template constructs (think "self" tmeplates), and languages, this became more complicated, as code gets entangled with special cases. I"ll keep fixing what I can, though; however, responsibility ultimately lies with the people who use it.

Once I have some user verification in place, I will unblock the bot for testing. Don't be alarmed ;') --Magnus Manske 15:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

This is really good news! I hope you succeed with this implementation. GijsvdL 15:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. I haven't integrated the check in CommonsHelper yet; maybe tomorrow. --Magnus Manske 19:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added TUSC verification to CommonsHelper, and I've been delighted to see that some of you have already signed up :-) I've kept the bot blocked, so please try to "upload" something directly via CommonsHelper (won't work because of the bot block) and tell me if that is sufficient.

The verification should work for all Commons users who sign up, except for blocked accounts. Note that you can still sign up while blocked, it just won't let you upload.

Another note: The same "bot" that is blocked also manages transfers from flickr through another tool of mine. This tool will only transfer images from flickr that have an appropriate license. Is that enough of a filter, or does it need TUSC as well?

Please tell me soon so I can restore these services to people. --Magnus Manske 20:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd say flickr2commons is fine as-is. Thanks a bunch for this authentication script - I imagine it will become used by other tools in the future, which is a good thing. Have you taken a look at the template issue(s) and/or making attribution clearer for CommonsHelper? – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't get around to altering the template issues yet - stuff's piling up around me... Funny that this discussion thread is the first I hear about an attribution problem, after over 130K file transfers. Anyway, I hope I'll have time tomorrow to fix at least that issue. As for the bot, I'd prefer if someone other than me would unblock it; otherwise, I'll do it tomorrow, unless I hear differently. --Magnus Manske 22:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

No, they both definitely need it. We need to be able to block people who make a habit out of uploading other people's works to Flickr to transfer them here. —LX (talk, contribs) 23:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not something critical but something should be done about it I agree. I suggest Magnus unblocks the bot himself once he is ready with it. -- Bryan (talk to me) 09:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please require it for the Flickr one too. Not doing it will encourage even more Flickr-washing. And thanks, it works great so far. Rocket000 10:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I've added TUSC to flickr2commons and unblocked the bot. I'll try to fix the attribution issue now. Please keep me informed on issues that might arise with the new system. --Magnus Manske 19:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Magnus, thank you so much for taking your time to solve these issues, and the patience to put up with our complaints and to address them. Hopefully, we're coming to a point where we're all happy with the way the bot works, even if it means making life a little bit more complicated for the uploaders. In the end, we're all working towards the same goal, and that's what's important. Patrícia ^msg 19:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Magnus. giggy _(:O) 07:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)