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Lir

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

Sorry for boring everyone again with this guy, but I'd like to work with him. I've just been through his contribs and I can see there's some useful stuff there to help the encyclopedia - the problem is his disruption and trolling. I'll be honest from the start - I'm not his biggest fan. I would however like to work with him and act as his mentor, but obviously under strict instructions as follows;

"Lir is placed under community parole. If any of his edits are seen to be trolling, uncivil, assumptions of bad faith or any other form of disruption, he may be blocked for upto one week by any administrator. After 3 such blocks, the maximum block length is extended to one year/indef. He is placed under the mentorship of Ryan Postlethwaite and is expected to abide by his jurisdiction. Further, he is limited to one account and anymore evidence of sockpuppetry will result in an immediate indefinite block."

I realise that he's been an idiot with the socking, but there does seem to be some good in him and hopefully I can knock it out of him. I'm not scared to block him myself, and I would expect him to follow exactly what I say. Anyway, just putting that out there. Ryan Postlethwaite 04:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found his lack of restraint in the last attempt to be very frustrating, but I support trying again. If somebody wants to seriously write article content, as Lir does, we should try whatever we can. That being said, if he screws this one up, he should be blocked for at least a year before he gets another try. Everyking (talk) 06:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've watched this for years, Lir might be the first time I ever heard about ArbCom. You can try, Ryan, and I know that Lir has submitted great content. My philosophy in this case is the motto, "If you go looking for trouble, you will find it." Collaboration and compromise is not censorship and that's something he has to accept. That's really all I have to say about that. Keegan^talk 06:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even as I think that we ought to keep an eye on Lar—I've always been a bit leery of adults who like LEGOs—I think the instructions read better were they directed at Lir. Joe 07:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Keegan^talk 07:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Joe! You blockhead, how could you say such a thing? As for the confusion about instructions applying to me? It's always been said I don't follow directions well, and there was confusion about Lir/Lar as far back as my RfA (see question 6) All that said, and with a tip of the hat to Ryan for willingness to try, no, I don't think this unblock would be a good idea. ++Lar: t/c 23:05, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan notice that I offered to unblock him if he agreed to a similar set of terms and he refused instead telling me i should unblock him and take my case to arbcom to get authorisation. That completely disregarded the fact that I didn't block him in the first place. He has also treats DR like a quasi legal system. However if you can get him to agree to those terms, I don't see why he shouldnt be unblocked - they are very similar to some I provided. However, make sure he really understands the terms, or I will be first to reblock. Viridae ^Talk 07:21, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say, Ryan, I think you're being highly optimistic. I have no hope at all that Lir can become a useful editor again. I did have hope when it came to the lifting of the ban recently, but he did nothing to suggest that he has any intention at all of helping the encyclopaedia. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 11:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. Is there an section where I can put in my vote on this or whatever? Seriously, why do we want to unblock someone that's caused enough hassle to have been blocked for three years? All that will happen is that a month down the line we'll be back here again discussing whether to ban him again. His ban was so long in the first place because he kept on socking, vandalising, disrupting etc. And he comes back and we want to keep him? Good grief. No. No content is that valuable that we need people poisoning the environment and causing drama as much as that. The harm he's done to the Wikipedia over the years far outweighs any possible good content we might get out of it. -- Naerii · plz create stuff 11:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. This is a bad idea. I can't think of a single instance when one of these admin-led quasi-paroles was successful, and I can think of at least one where it was demonstrably unsuccessful, to the point of disruptive. Mere days ago he earnt himself a re-indef-block, mere days after finally expiring a multi-year ban lengthened repeatedly by his own interminable intractability. There is no evidence that an unblock will cause anything other than further heartache, and before long we'll have yet anohter thread here discussing the block, with someone claiming they thing just one more chance is all it takes. The end of the road was back there somewhere. Enough is enough. Wikipedia is not therapy; for anyone. Splash - tk 13:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The contents of this edit (removed inexplicably by the 'single purpose tagger') are interesting. Splash - tk 13:52, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting certainly but why would someone create a sockppuppet account in order to accuse others of being sockpuppets? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure this is a such a great idea. Ryan, I know you've worked miracles before, but Naerii is right. We can do without Lir. Any worthwhile content he might contribute is not worth the price we will have to pay - the disruption he will inevitably cause. Moreschi (talk) 14:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Um, no. When an umpteenth chance lasts less than 48 hours, there is no chance umpteen+1. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please no, I'm getting flashbacks. I don't think this is a good idea at all. And the idea of having to cycle through three one week blocks is rather "sigh-some". I was all for giving Doc's unblock a go but all he did was prove that he hasn't changed one iota since his banning. I would be really surprised if Lir even agreed to this or took it seriously beyond seeing it as an opportunity to resume his trolling and disruption. With utmost respect, Poss - you know I adore you - but this just seems to me like a very bad idea. I think that people who haven't been around all that long and don't realise how much disruption Lir caused back in '04 and '05 should look through the Arbitration pages and his old talk page archives and see that his recent behaviour is pretty much what led to his Arbitration case. It's not like he just came back feeling disenfranchised and pissed off and will get over it with a touch of mentoring. This is what he does and how he behaves. Sure, he makes a few good edits to mainspace articles but he is too disruptive and has made it clear time and time again that he has no intention or desire to do anything but troll us. Sarah 14:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer: I'm the one who reblocked Lir after Doc's attempt at giving him yet another last, last chance. If you do go ahead and unblock, I would recommend that you arrange in advance a complete prohibition to claims of censorship, one of his favorite trolling baits. — Coren ^(talk) 16:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would oppose Ryan's proposal, if only based on the statement "knock it out of him". I doubt that, given my relatively short familiarity with Lir's personality, any method that includes any suggestion of force will achieve desirable results.

Aside from that, it doesn't seem like Ryan actually has very much in common with Lir. On the other hand I share interest in the discipline, propose collaboration on articles, and integration of Lir into an editorial team, and a Wikipedia Project. Aside from the fact that there is way too much writing to do within the project to worry about all the other issues, there are competent admins in the Project that are able to deal with any situations which may arise, and be able to evaluate Lir's probation over a period of 6 months, which I think is a significantly longer period to evaluate a person's intentions and abilities then a day.

Coren, while I appreciate your statement, I think the approach used in mitigating Lir's behaviour, and in community's ability to emphasize, has been less then ideal. While several editors above have expressed Lir's return from a negative perspective, I think a bit of positive thinking would not go astray, right? Here we have an editor who returns after a very long ban, and he starts to immediately contribute to an article! Surely that seem to indicate good intentions? He also starts to express his opinion on Wikipedia on his user page. So what? Do you think New York Times reporters are going to use Lir's user page for an expose on Wikipedia? I looked at it when I first read his declarations on the article talk. So the guy has issues with authority, tell me something new! The page had nothing to with the article, so I wrote to him. Lo and behold, beyond the facade was an editor with actual knowledge of the article subject, good sources, and willing to, even impatient to contribute! For crying out loud, does every 'tree' need to be uprooted to 'plow' a Wikipedia field?! I for one would be shocked if anyone returning from such a long ban had no feelings at all to express on the experience. Bitter and twisted people often suppress feelings and thoughts, and lie low, hatching plots. I don't see Lir doing this at all, so enough with amateur psychoanalysis, characterisations and labels. This isn't some TV drama. --Shattered Wikiglass (talk) 22:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here we have an editor who returns after a very long ban, and he starts to immediately contribute to an article!

Wrong. His very first edits were as an IP , and they were to build his User Page as a billboard against The Evil That is Wikipedia and How I Have Been Done a Great Wrong. His very first edit was "I am the Lir. What I've realised is that the Wikipedia has been overrun by a bunch of morons. I used to care -- now I don't. The idea of a Wiki is a great idea, but the Wikipedia is überghey...", and his very first article edit doesn't come until after nearly three months of soapboxing. He's not really here for the editing. --Calton | Talk 04:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What Lir did as an IP is another matter. However, lets try an experiment. Lets ban you for a year for a reason you don't agree with, and see how you feel about it later. I am not supporting Lir's behaviour, but I do understand it as typical of individuals in similar circumstances in the real world. Believe it or not, but Lir's behaviour since his most recent unbanning was normal! You just failed to recognise it as such. Did you expect a placid angelic-like Lir singing praises of those who banned him? If he did, that would have made him a liar, and anyone able to lie to oneself, can lie to others, those being Wikipedia readers. I would rather an editor called me a moron a hundred times then he/she write one lie that will be read by a thousand. Seemingly Lir's other "problem" is that he doesn't lie. I can live with that. Chill out Calton. Allow me to explain to Lir why calling people names, and living in the past is not healthy. Until this is internalised by Lir, voluntarily, it seems to me he can not be banned because currently he is still running on fight/flight instinct.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What Lir did as an IP is another matter.

That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Lir = IP, and its editing is his editing. The rest of your comments make even less sense: he was blocked for a year, yes, and his behavior is what led to the constant reblocking and the additional 19 months of block time.

Seemingly Lir's other "problem" is that he doesn't lie.

I'd say trying to hide your identity through sockpuppets counts as lying, but let's leave that aside. You believe that jackass behavior and trolling is okay if you're sincere, do I have that?

Until this is internalised by Lir, voluntarily, it seems to me he can not be banned

So his not understanding why he's doing something wrong is a reason NOT to ban him, do I have that? You've officially gone through the looking glass. --Calton | Talk 05:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you constantly hit someone over the head ("constant reblocking") to prevent behaviour, but behaviour change is not internalised as justified, the only thing that will change is the punshment avoidance strategy (not to get hit). You only joined Lir's vicious cycle, solving nothing.

Using sockpuppets (in this case) is not lying, but rather evading being constantly hit over the head.

Well, I didn't know there was anyone watching me...officially. Is 1984 your favourite book?

Lir understands very well what he did wrong, but seemingly others like to constantly remind him of this and make a point, a very large point, of showing him they don't have any intention of letting him forget. There is all this great talk of "Wikipedia community". Do you know what a community looks like, or do you live in front of a screen? A community is not judged by its firewalls alone. Community also welcomes, appreciates, understands, etc. All I have heard is "defending community". Let me spare you the time; lets have a welcoming interrogation committee so no-one will ever get banned. May I remind Wikipedians that we are a part of the freedom of information community, so lets not become the paranoid brigade.

What has Lir done wrong? He decided to create a user page that may be seen as undesirable? You Calton live in a country notorious for public scandals over deeds by public officials. You come from a country where morals of presidents have been found wanting. On a scale of Wikipedia "sins" within the thousands of user pages, does Lir rate public enemy #1? You (plural) have treated him as one, and he obliges every time. What a surprise. You'd rater have editors writing articles who will cower every time they are challenged...not. (Japan excepted; a different culture there)

Have you banned Lir because he consistently shows POV, uses OR, never cites sources? This is what I am saying, did you ban an editor, or his personality? If it the later, its only because you failed to 'connect', and seemingly never tried. You are the community "shoot first, ask questions later" cop. I had to connect, because I have the intention to collaborate with him. It all comes down to purpose and motivation. It seems too me Lir's most recent banning was snowballed, so please lets take a pause now that Lir has, and consider all sides of the argument for and against unbanning Lir. All he tells me he wants to do is edit articles. If he is lying to me, then I will be the first to support his indefinite banning and you will never hear from me here again. --mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 07:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are talking such rubbish because you don't know Lir and we do. He tells he only wants to edit articles, he is lying and you are naive. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 12:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You only joined Lir's vicious cycle, solving nothing. - Actually, banning him outright seems to have solved everything neatly, without Wikipedia having to act as his therapist. As for the rest of your strange and tangential moralizing -- well, it was hard to read, what with my eyes constantly rolling. --Calton | Talk 15:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. No unblock. I had my doubts about letting him come back after reading his history, and after this past weekend, it's obvious he's too unstable for Wikipedia. Blueboy 96 12:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that he is threatening to sock (in an email to me) but they all threaten that. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lir joined Wikipedia in the early days, back when there were few rules, only Jimmy Wales could ban people, & we tried to talk the problems & disputes out. Lir couldn't handle even that permissive environment. People with a lot more patience than I tried hard to mentor Lir; it didn't work. So he was banned, & the only reason he wasn't banned for good then was that the software didn't permit it. I'm honestly amazed that he avoided getting blocked again as long as he did this time around. -- llywrch (talk) 22:13, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep him banned, forever. Lir has much to contribute by way of trolling and headache, but nothing useful besides that. His antics predate many of the users on this page who now so naively want to unban him, not realizing what they are getting themselves into. Much as he might need one, Wikipedia is not his therapist. Raul654 (talk) 01:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't recommend it. How much are you willing to bet that as soon as he strays from the confines, he'll start yelling for the restriction not applying to him without arbcom sanction, yell and shout as soon as he's blocked about censorship and cabals? — Coren ^(talk) 14:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What the heck was Lir banned for in the first place? It seems that the RFAR was a mess, and he was only re-banned after he sockpuppetted, but I've got to tell you, I would sockpuppet too if I was unfairly blocked and no one was listening to me. It seems that Lir constantly talk about corruption and the cabal. THE CABAL EXISTS, there was evidence in that secret mailing list story that I just read. Of course most of these admines responding keep him banned are probably part of the cabal. I can say that Lir seems to have thrown some personal attacks but most were misconceptions and several personal attacks have been thrown at him too. Therefore, a new RFAR seemsto be in order. I would personally do it myself but I don't know that much about the case. Editor of the wiki 19:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, let's see. This is going to be nowhere near the complete history, but it should give you some idea of what his wonderful personality is like: He edits with an extremely distorted view of reality. He got into many, many edit wars, ruining a number of good articles, frustrating other legitimate users involved in them (causing several to quit), and Lir used many sockpuppets (in the days before checkuser and finding them was hard) to do so. When banned, he would use sockpuppets to duck the ban. He lies constantly - having conversations, then claiming he did not have them, then somehow remembering that he did in fact have them; claiming to have several adminsitrators and bureaucrat sockpuppet accounts, etc. On one occasion, after one editor (User:168...) had left because of Lir's constant harassment and trolling, Lir registered a near-identical username (User:168..) and pretended to be the original 168... returning after quitting in disgust. When confronted with sanctions for his behavior, he would claim censorship and demand due process (as defined by him). When banned by an arbcom decision written primarily by myself, Lir came back under sockpuppets, and created an article about my advisor. The article was complete fiction made up whole cloth by Lir, and was extremely libelous (claiming that my advisor was involved in Woo Suk Hwang research scandal). Oh, and Lir also filed a false police complaint against Phil Sandier (aka Snowspinner), claiming that Phil's fictional stories on his blog showed he was unstable and posed a danger. The police gave Phil a hard time, but after a story on boing-boing appeared showing their harassment, they went away. I'm sure I've omitted lots of stuff, but that should give you an idea of the kind of person you are dealing with. Raul654 (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this decided by consensus? ( I would be one of those opposing). Dapi89 (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Communuty bans are typically decided by the lack of admins willing to unblock. So far no admin has been willing to do that and my recent experience with lir leads me to believe that he is still very much the same problematic user that he ever was and would strongly advice against unblocking at the present time. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I agree. Dapi89 (talk) 21:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed community ban of Mantanmoreland and Samiharris

I propose a community ban of

Mantanmoreland (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log)
Samiharris (talk · contribs · global contribs · logs · block log)

The Mantanmoreland ArbCom case is apparently about to close, with 4 net votes to close in place. Therefore, I propose that the community act to tie up the loose ends here, by enacting a community ban of Samiharris as a disruptive sock and POV pusher, and Mantanmoreland as a disruptive sockmaster and POV pusher. I am willing to enact the ban myself after discussion. (but not until the case actually formally closes) As a reminder, despite ArbCom findings not specifically acknowledging it, the community has already found the evidence of sockpuppetry compelling, as documented in the RfC. I was debating where to propose this but this seems the best place. ++Lar: t/c 17:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody ought to leave the occasional comment, lest this notice get archived. R. Baley (talk) 18:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notice that: The motion to close the RFA/Mantanmoreland has been opposed by user:Newyorkbrad (for now) in consideration that this thread at AN/I may attract discussion. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? --Newbyguesses - Talk 20:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They have closed the case because there are still a sufficient number of votes to close. This thread appears to be winding down, as threads do when they reach such considerable length. Jehochman ^Talk 21:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not over till we say it is. (quote from Animal House) SirFozzie (talk) 21:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As of this moment, you're on double secret probation. (from same movie) - Dean Wormer 21:52, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I had wondered where ArbCom derived the wording of its remit from... serious question, how long does a topic have to be inactive before the archive bot does its thing? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AN threads are archived 48 hours after no edits, ANI 24 hours. To check this (or indeed change it - oops, WP:BEANS....) look at the archivebot template at the top of each page (you need to click edit to see this). In this case, Miszabot and the time periods I stated. You can fool the dumb bots though by putting a "future" timestamp on this section (or indeed no timestamp, though I'm not sure about that). What you can't guarantee is that some human won't try and manually archive the subthread and manage to lose everything... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 23:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nonstsndard sigs will also throw the bot, as what happened on 16 April 2007 with Quadell's one-post-only topic that wasn't archived until I manually redid the timestamp to be standard. hbdragon88 (talk) 04:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I was a member of the Deltas... but at da tech, not Faber_College, Also for the record I think this is the longest AN thread I've managed to start, so far. Not that I was trying for a record, mind you. ++Lar: t/c 23:10, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, following recent developments (block/unblock of Mantanmoreland), I am presuming there is another thread on this matter, somewhere? --Newbyguesses - Talk 07:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for clarification on WP:RFARB. -- Naerii · plz create stuff 20:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cough LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight

Firstly, I'd like to say that I appreciate the Australian Collaboration of the Fortnights work here, but I've had concerns for a while about their use of {{Current Australian COTF}}. They always place this template on the main article page, several users including me have tried discussing this on the collaboration talk page because these collaboration/project tags belong on article talk pages. Article space tags inform the reader of problems with the article whilst collaboration templates belong on the talk page. I've pointed out Wikipedia:Template namespace#Usage which states "Templates used in pages from the article namespace provide information to help readers. These can include navigation aids, or warnings that content is sub-standard. Templates that provide information only of service to editors belong on an article's talk page." yet the participants seem unwilling to comply with this. I'd appreciate opinions here about how we should handle this issue, and come to a consensus once and for all. Ryan Postlethwaite 02:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure how you could deal with a whole project; on the one hand, they are ignoring a guideline, but on the other, a casual reader seeing the template on an article (and it's only on one as I write) may well contribute and improve that article. I'm wondering if it's such a big deal? --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the template looks awful - readers to the page want information, they don't want adverts about editing. Our major concern is the reader, hence why we keep notices limited to article information to main space and we always put collaborative tags on the talk page. Ryan Postlethwaite 02:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As an Aus project member, and infrequent contributor to ACOTF, I don't particularly like the placement of the template on the article page either. But I imagine there are arguments for and against - helps to get people involved, introduces people to the concept of editing... looks messy, too much internal information for the casual reader, etc. I guess you need to ask whether we want everyone who reads the article to edit it also? I do. It's kinda the point. But I don't like templates! :) I'm overall pretty neutral, and don't know that this requires admin intervention. ~ Riana ⁂ 02:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just move it. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Riana - didn't want admin intervention, just wanted to open it up to more users. Ryan Postlethwaite 02:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article protection template(s) appear within article space. They don't assist readers in any way either. If something isn't broken, and is actively helping to bring attention to promote article expansion, why knock it? -- Longhair\^talk 10:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can another admin do it? Ryan and I have complained about it previously on Wikipedia talk:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight, and they've argued that we don't have an accurate understanding of what the community's consensus is on it. If there truly is consensus to leave them on talk pages, I'd appreciate another admin/trusted user moving it; if Ryan or I do it, they'll just argue that we're biased, and revert. Ral315 (talk) 03:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If its going to be on article pages, at least use {{ambox}}. Mr.Z-man 03:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have a village pump, and the ACOTF talk page, for discussions re. this. Why limit discussion to administrators? dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 06:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They're not following policy after being advised of it. Move the template to the talk page, if they revert, block them since nothing else seems to get their attention. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it and was immediately reverted by Matilda (talk · contribs). Anyone want to get the cluebat out? ➨ REDVEЯS is a satellite and will be set alight 10:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This whole situation is blown out of proportion and absolutely ridiculous. It's been discussed several times before and no good reason was come up with to remove it. As it stands, the template sits on an article for two weeks. I'd object if it were longer, but I think that it serves a useful purpose and talk of blocking is more disruptive than the template itself - I'd question the merits per WP:BLOCK of any such action. Orderinchaos 10:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Placing this kind of notice on an article page, rather than a talk page, is a significant departure from normal practice and must therefore be well justified. The justification I have seen here appears to be "well, why not?" and the idea that it is temporary. I have issue with the idea of its being temporary -- while it may be temporary on that article, it will soon be moving over to another article. The notice will always be on some main-namespace page. Secondly, it is ugly. Thirdly, collaborations are quite obviously a inwards-facing operation rather than an outwards-facing operation; they are functions of groups of established editors. There is an invitation to edit every page; singling out one particular page is somewhat bizarre. Talk of blocking is, of course, premature to the extent of being somewhat absurd. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 11:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It may be ugly (I agree), but anyone is welcome to improve upon its' presentation. -- Longhair\^talk 11:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not surprisingly the purpose of the template is to highlight that the article needs improvement and to encourage people to work together to do so. This is the same concept as {{refimprove}}, {{wikify}} or a host of similar templates which are also added to the article mainspace and not the talk page. I appreciate that readers are looking for information and not templates, but if these other tags in article mainspace don't distract people I'm not sure why an {{ACOTF}} tag on a grand total of one article at a time is a disruption. It should be noted you do not need to be a WP:AUS member or an Australian to edit an ACOTF, so I don't understand why it is considered more "inward facing" than any other improvement tag.

On top of this, the ACOTF template is usually successful in getting editors to make major improvements to articles. If templates are in article space are a problem then surely the place to start is with the backlog of wikification, copyediting, merging or referencing tags that sit untouched on tens of thousands of articles for up to a year.

I hope this does not seem overly aggressive - I just think it's tilting at windmills a little. There are surely more important issues with article appearance and tagging than this. I also think this is a better conversation for the ACOTF talk page or village pump as suggested by Dihydrogen Monoxide above.Euryalus (talk) 11:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a substantial difference between this kind of template and a wikify one. The latter has a specific problem that it seeks to fix. This template is general, non-specific and focussed entirely around the users who are to be editing it, not around the problem that needs to be fixed.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc? Perhaps it would be more reasonable to say that there is often substantial improvement to an article after it is identified as the Australian Collaboration of the Week. The addition of the template probably has negligible, if any, effect.

Yes, there are more important issues. However, that does not mean we have to ignore this one. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 11:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty clear this has divided opinion, and so I'll try and appeal to both sides here - just to be complicated. :P

I think that SK makes a good point above - this isn't the venue for discussion about this template, and I'd pretty much rather see it at the project talk page or something of the like (even though this has already been attempted, I think...) and admins don't really need to be the only group open to this discussion, as DHMO points out above. Yes, it's ugly, but then that's probably it's purpose - to catch attention and make people click the "edit this page" button - it is after all the only reason we're here for. I would however prefer to see better interaction between the users, Ral and Ryan say above they have contacted others about this before, now whether or not the outcome of that conversation was to place on the talk page or not, shouldn't those they contacted at least respect that decision and talk back to them instead of just reverting it immediately? Of course, it's starting to sound like I'm in some sort of fantasy world here, I pretty much promote Utopia but as we know, that'll never happen, ever. With that in mind, I think it's best for the template to be redesigned, removed or deleted and a better form introduced, something like a little icon box in the see also or external links sections or maybe even just a little text in the top right hand corner of the page. Whether this is implemented or not is another question, but at least we are having a go at debating this now before it leads to something else. Rudget . 11:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If SK is me, I didn't make that point, though I do endorse it. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 11:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've converted it from the ugly and unprofessional bright yellow to an {{ambox}} notice in blue. ➨ REDVEЯS is a satellite and will be set alight 11:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a wider audience is now aware of the debate (which is appropriate) and given there seems no immediate need for admin tools in resolving it, could I suggest this discussion continue at the ACOTF talk page? Euryalus (talk) 12:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't going to get sorted on the talk page - it's clear you simply ignore concerns when they're raised as "they've been discussed before". A sifnificant group of non collaberation members have seen this and dissagree that it should be on the article page. It's completely out of norms of how we tag articles and should be on the talk page. I suggest the whole collaberation finally listens to this point. Ryan Postlethwaite 14:10, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry? Not sure who you mean by "you" - Australian editors are not a Borg collective and I've personally never said this should be ignored because "it's been discussed before". I don't think any concern raised by a longstanding and reputable editor should be ignored, and I don't think I've ever done so. My point was I don't think a genuine consensus has been reached on the location of these templates and it might be worthwhile to continue the pursuit of consensus at somewhere like the talk page, Wikipedia:Collaborations or the village pump where even more people can have a say. I still think this is a minor issue and I doubt I or anyone else will die in a ditch if there's a decison to relocate the templates elsewhere. Euryalus (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The general point also is that this is only one of many collaboration templates. Whether collaboration templates should be on articles or talk pages should be decided at a unified Wikipedia-wide level, not by individual wikiprojects. Specifically, those who read Wikipedia should get some say. Carcharoth (talk) 15:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the removal of the template from the article page (Gundagai) because the issue has been discussed before at Wikipedia talk:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight and the consensus reached there is that the template is placed on the article page. The template was removed without discussion by someone who has never contributed to the Gundagai article (or to any similar article) and as far as I am concerned was disrupting wikipedia to make a WP:POINT. Did User:Redvers discuss the removal with anyone, eg on the article talk page, at WP:AWNB, on the template talk page (or even check that page) - no. Australian wikipedians collaborate overtly. I fail to see any evidence of the assertion by User:Ryan Postlethwaite that a sifnificant group of non collaberation members have seen this and dissagree that it should be on the article page. User:Ryan Postlethwaite contributed to the discussion on the template talk page but there weren't many others there sharing his view. --Matilda ^talk 06:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting that nobody thought it necessary to contact me directly by email or my talk page about this discussion, but I'm probably the person who has added this template to articles most often. I like the {{ambox}} style, thankyou to Redvers for that - I had wondered why there didn't seem to have been a change to the collaboration template when most other maintenance tags went to a new style, but I hadn't spotted what it should be when I had looked. The template is part invitation to improve the article, in a similar way to other maintenance tags, but it is also partly a warning to readers that the article may be changing more often than usual, so they might want to check back again if they're using it as a reference for anything else. For the record, I support the long-standing convention that the template is displayed on the article itself. --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have again reverted the move of the template to the talk page. I still see no evidence here in favour of the move against the preference of Australian collaborators (sounds worse than a cabal). Perhaps somebody can arrange some discussion in a usefuul place to gain a consensus view or otherwise. Please note I do not like the threat above of if they revert, block them since nothing else seems to get their attention. You have our attention. We are discussing here and will go elsewhere with our discussion if invited to do so. --Matilda ^talk 21:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The point is, you've now made it clear that you aren't willing to listen - I think I'n right in saying that every non collaboration member here has said the template should be on the talk page, yet you go and revert? It's obvious you guys are going to want to keep the template on the article page - it's your collaboration. You should listen to what the uninvolved users say, what the guidline says and attempt to get a consensus yourselves that this is ok. "You have our attention. We are discussing here and will go elsewhere with our discussion if invited to do so." - we clearly don't have your attention. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where is this being discussed project-wide? This appears to be Ryan trying to enforce his own view on a group of active editors seeking to improve the encyclopaedia. Ryan has dropped in a few times and removed the ACOTF template, with help from Ral315 and this time also Redvers and WAS 4.250. Every time, it has started by unilateral removal of the template, followed by reversion and a discussion leading to overwhelming support to leave it on the article - one article for about two weeks. Much of the support comes from well-respected Australian editors and admins. This time, the discussion seems to be here, presumably in an attempt to get a majority of non-Australian support. I don't see the same issue in the history of The Betrothed or in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels/Collaboration. Was the real concern about the colours, not the placement? This has now been altered. Beryl Anthony, Jr. and List of United States Representatives from California have had an equivalent notice (collaboration of the week) on the top of tthem for over a year, with no comment or attempt to move it to a talk page. Ral315 used this as an example of an accepted exception to the "rule" in January, while arguing that the ACOTF template should be moved. The longest the ACOTF template has been in one place over that time is 26 days, and it's only supposed to move every second week. Is it any wonder we feel a little picked on? --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with this general summary - captures my thoughts pretty well. Orderinchaos 05:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:LAME much? Does it really matter if an article has a banner on the front encouraging improvement for a fortnight? Is it really that big a deal? dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 23:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again? Surely this has been done to death previously without any consensus reached. Ryan's idea of "listening" seems to mean "agreeing with him". And threatening to block those who disagree with the self imposed consensus? Priceless... -- Mattinbgn\^talk 06:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"one article for about two weeks" - actually, as I've pointed out, there are many collaborations, and so it is more likely several hundred articles for anything from a week to several weeks. I might actually support such tags on the article pages rather than the talk pages, but there are lots of talk page tags that should never go on the article, and we need to be clear as a project where the boundary lies, not just allow it in some cases because one wikiproject wants things done that way. Carcharoth (talk) 09:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou for raising the discussion to the general case. I don't know how many active collaboration projects like this there are, but I would support each one placing an {{ambox}}-style notice at the top of their current article (not candidates) for the reasons stated above. I don't have time now to go through Category:Wikipedia collaborations to determine how many of the not-quite-200 are active. Undoubtedly this conversation should be continuing somewhere else - feel free to move it and leave a note here. --Scott Davis ^Talk 22:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With a view to seeking community consensus, I have raised an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Collaborations#RfC: Should the collaboration template appear on the article page . Happy for someone to suggest a better place for it but I thought that project page covered collaboration projects in general. I note also that the project page currently states General practice is to have the template marking the current collaboration at the top of the article in question while leaving the candidacy templates on the talk page. which I would regard therefore as the community's current guideline on the matter.--Matilda ^talk 00:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Now at Wikipedia talk:Template namespace#RfC: Should the collaboration template appear on the article page --Matilda ^talk 01:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding User Mhsb

Mhsb (talk · contribs)

OK, in regards to the previous discussion, this user nominated ATI - Aero Transporti Italiani for speedy deletion under section A1 which I find highly disputable considering the article and the users record. They have now gone on a Speedy deletion spree and nominated dozens of articles in a few minutes with the same tag and same reason "It is a very short article lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article.". For example the article Blåbärskullen transmitter was nominated by them for Speedy deletion under A1 but this tag is incorrect as the page needs to be translated and the appropiate tag should be "notenglish". I could be wrong but I think this is absolutely bizarre behaviour. I'm not happy. --James Bond (talk) 14:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the many inappropriate speedy tags, deleted the few articles that were suitable for speedy deletion, and left some advice for the editor. I hope this resolves the matter.DGG (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prediction: dude will be an admin within 15 months. :D Mr. IP (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I would like to express my concerns in creating a record in the Admin Noticeboard without notifing the users involved. Both users did the same: Admin SatyrTN and --James Bond. The warning messages at the top of this page cleary states that:

"As a courtesy, please inform other users and editors if they are mentioned in a posting, or if their actions are being discussed."

When acting as administrators, they are also expected to be fair, exercise good judgment, and give explanations and be communicative as necessary. I didn't see any of this happening with these two users I mentioned. They created an incident with my username without notifing me. They created an incident in the notice board, without investigating what in fact happened. The User:SatyrTN, didn't have time to investigate the issue and rather being communicative, he prefered to open an incident in the wrong place. The User :JackSchmidt noticed a page move I made on my page and asked User:SatyrTN to investigate my recent actions, which he found weird, and it really was if someone doesn't communicate and investigate what in fact happened. SatyrTN replied back saying that he didn't know what was going on (he didn't talk to me) and, in his own words, he didn't have the energy to deal with it. Again, he failed to communicate with me and posted an incident here, again in the wrong place.

The second user, not admin, James Bond, again, failed to communicate and rather by talking to me, he instigated propaganda against me by calling the User:Opinoso to the discussion, the same user I was having problems with edit warring, one of the reasons of creating the first incident report. He didn't call me to present my defense.

I would like to protest against these two users SatyrTN and James Bond. One misused their admin privileges against me. This page is not the place to raise disputes over content, or reports of abusive behaviour. They failed to communicate, clearly violating an admin conduct policy. User James Bond instigating propaganda against me by calling another user (with whom I previously had a dispute) to prove his point, is this a vendetta just because I added a speedy deletion tag to the article he created?

Please, I would ask you to talk to me or investigate what was going on before you post an incident against me. Again, you are posting an incident in the wrong place, I am not a Wikipedia disruptor to be listed in this page. If you have any issues with my actions that you would like to discuss please, use my talk page. Don't misuse admin privileges, you guys are here to help. Since those incidents are being reported in the wrong page I kindly ask you to delete this section. Thanks.

--Mhsb (talk) 01:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First off, I would like to apologize to Mhsb for failing to notify them in regards to my entry. The reason why I did not notify them was because, (since I was picking up from the this recent discussion) at the time of my entry, EdJohnston had already notified Mhsb of the discussion that was taking place and because it's my first time here, I was unfamiliar with how things worked. In regards to Mhsb statement, and I quote "he instigated propaganda against me", I don't think I follow. I notified Opinoso regarding my post here has he was mentioned in the previous discussion that had been archived and I believed he was relevant. Again I quote "User James Bond instigating propaganda against me by calling another user (with whom I previously had a dispute) to prove his point, is this a vendetta just because I added a speedy deletion tag to the article he created?" I was not aware Opinoso and Mhsb had a previous edit dispute, I was only aware that, from the previous discussion that Mhsb, according to SatyrTN, misused AfD tags, therefor I believed it was relevant to my entry. Just for the record, since it dosn't seem to be clear, I have no Admin privileges, nor have I ever had any. In regards to the issue of the incidents being reported in the wrong place, I cannot comment for SatyrTN, but in my case, they were about deletions and specifically the use of speedy deletion tags, therefore they should have been under Incidents - My mistake. --James Bond (talk) 04:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the previous ANI thread commenting on Mhsb for eccentric editing, it would be good for his reputation if he would confine himself to uncontroversial work for a little while. (An editor at ANI proposed that he be blocked for 36 hours). It is also a concern that he archived all the previous warnings from this Talk page, some of which were quite serious. Otherwise he will increase the general impression that he is very intelligent but does not know how to work with others. EdJohnston (talk) 23:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's OK EdJohnston, I acknowledge what you said. I will forfeit myself in editing controversial issues for while, since this has been damaging my reputation, in that point I must agree with you. Regarding archiving my talk page, I don't share the same idea, what is the advantage in not archiving my talk page if everything written there is damaging my reputation? Furthermore, there is no Wikipedia policy that prohibit me from doing that. So I am not sure if I followed you when you say "It is also a concern that he archived all the previous warnings from this Talk page,..." Quite honestly, I'd rather had been blocked than being constantly challenged by my previous actions. I had already asked apologised the user User:Dúnadan‎, I explained my past action to other admin users and I don't want to spend all my time here having to defend my self since from my point of view I didn't do anything wrong, and if I did have some mistakes, I assure you that I was acting in good faith.

--Mhsb (talk) 02:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC) --Mhsb (talk) 02:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:DemolitionMan

Resolved

– WP:1RR restriction replaced with topic ban on British Raj articles. To be reviewed in two months Ronnotel (talk) 13:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I'd like to change the 1RR restriction placed on this user, following this discussion and confirmed above, to a topic ban. In my opinion his disruptive behaviour has not changed and has simply moved venue from the article to the talk page. The talk page is a cesspit, and I'd invite all those commenting to read it, as well as the RfC on DemolitionMan, but choice comments in the last couple of days include:

some impressive bad faith
attacking the admin trying to resolve the dispute
and again (on another user's talk page)
more bad faith
and still more.

I suggest a topic ban for DemolitionMan would do a lot to get that talk page back to some kind of order. It'd also force him to edit outside what is obviously an emotional subject for him. As things stand he seems to be headed straight for a ban. Leithp 15:20, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I said on my talk page, it is difficult to find evidence to use to defend DM's behavior. I note that his outright racial animus has subsided. But I am beginning to suspect that he sees himself as the modern-day equivalent of the rebellious Sepoy seeking (150 years after the fact) to overthrow imperialist rule with Indian Rebellion of 1857 as his mutinous assembly ground (he will no doubt take my use of the terms mutinous and Sepoy as evidence of my imperialist tendencies). However, I note that he describes himself as "holding the fort" until re-enforcements arrive. I am losing whatever hope I had left of seeing him reform. Ronnotel (talk) 15:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I get banned for 3 months. I serve that ban. I am restricted to a 1RR rule. I abide by that too. I have not indulged in edits on that page; merely voiced my views. Comparing Ronnotel to a God in the Indian pantheon is attacking him? Warning a user about violating the 3RR is attacking him? And this has nothing to do with bad faith. It is an observation. I think Assuming Good Faith works both ways. Admittedly, exchanges on the page have been heated.

Shouldn't this qualify as attacking too?

"I feel that this page is being held hostage by user:DemolitionMan and user:Desione, who are insisting on edits that go counter to anything that is considered remotely reasonable in the current historiography of India. First they had insisted on adding the Hindi script; now, finding they can't push that, they're wasting everyone's time with ludicrous claims about the "First War of Independence." - Fowler&Fowler

"How cute.
Anyway, as said by Fowler its actual sources that count. But if you really want to play this game still; 60 million in the UK, 20 million in Oz, 30 million in Canada, 5 million in Eire, 5 million in NZ, 250 million in the US, 70 million in Nigeria, 45 million in the Phillipines, 13 million in South Africa....
And this is with the inflated numbers of English speaking Indians, the assumption that they are all Hindu nationalists and completely ignoring the well educated Dutch, Germans, etc....--Him and a dog 16:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)" - Josuquis[reply]

[[1]]

—Preceding unsigned comment added by DemolitionMan (talk • contribs)

Making the comment "beware of Ronnotel - he will do everything in his power to get you banned" [2] is attacking him, as is "how could I possibly take over this page with Ronnotel hovering over my head like Shiva doing his Tandav" [3]. You may think that you have "merely voiced [your] views", but what I see is a series of ad hominem attacks. Leithp 17:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounded more like a joke rather than an attack to me Desione (talk) 18:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did not read like a joke to me, more like a rather bitter whine. [[Slatersteven (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

The 3RR rule had slipped out of my mind and personally I am glad that user DemolitionMan gave me a friendly reminder about it. The discussion is "heated" and words have been flying out from all sides. In this case user DemolitionMan can hardly be singled out. As best as I can see it this is purely an attempt to get DemolitionMan banned in order to sway the opinion towards a perticular point of view. 18:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Desione (talk • contribs)

Also, for those of you who haven't noticed, please note that user DemolitionMan has awarded an "IndiaStar" to user Fowler&Fowler very recently despite the fact that they have been having heated arguments. This clearly shows DemolitionMan "sportyness" and "good will" beyond the apparent differences in the discussion on FWoI. Desione (talk) 18:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He may have awarded me the "India Star," but that doesn't take away from the fact that his contributions to the Indian Rebellion page have been extremely divisive and his talk page discussion full of venom. Looking at his contributions (DemolitionMan (talk · contribs)), what worries me is that there is precious little other than "Indian Rebellion of 1857," and, there, his edits—during the last month that I have had occasion to observe them—have been entirely focused on whether the rebellion should be called the "First Indian War of Independence" and with what qualification. Even so, had he shown any grace, any respect for scholarship, any ability to distinguish between what helps build an encyclopedia and what doesn't, I would have had more sympathy for him; unfortunately, he didn't. He needs to cool off. He needs to realize that in the world of modern scholarship on the 1857 rebellion, the rebellion itself is not being re-enacted—with the scholars lining up under "British" and "Indian." Finally, he needs to be less arrogant about his own expertise, especially since the quality of edits he has made both on the Indian Rebellion of 1857 page or the Talk:Indian Rebellion of 1857 page, rise to nowhere near the level of discourse presented, for example, in the high-school book chapter Rebels and the Raj: The Revolt of 1857 and its representations used widely in Indian schools today. In my opinion, a topic ban is in order. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fowler, stop treating wikipedia as your personal blog. Solicit views from others (specially Indian editors whose views you seem to be allergic to) while contributing to articles on Indian History. Most people are usually too busy fighting off your bias wasting time which would be better spend improving articles such as British Raj and Company rule in India. Not to mention the fact that anyone who attempts to write in these articles is quickly reverted by either you or one of the members of your fan following (who usually come from the same island as you do). Again, this is not your personal blog and I really hope that this is not your full time job because it certainly appears to be so. Seek out and encourage contributions from other members and specially Indian editors (who are clearly in a great minority in wikipedia articles on Indian history) whose views are naturally inseparable from articles related to Indian history. If there was such a thing as a negative India Star, I would have definitely given four or five of them to you by now. Good luck. Desione (talk) 05:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nor is it (DemolitionMan (talk · contribs)) personnel blog, were he may post, unchallenged, any opinion or accusation he feels fit without let or hindrance. The Indian POV is not automatically considered suspect, what is considered suspect are sources that appear to have little or no academic credentials, and yet user DM sees fit the question those sources which have, demonstrably, academic respectability (and when this is pointed out resorts to blatant racial slander). It is not his POV that is being challenged; it is his attitude and tactics. Moreover, yet again, we see the wining about being outnumberd, this is patent rubbish, as a lok at the posts will show.[[Slatersteven (talk) 17:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

Have you seen [[User::Fowler&fowler]]'s edits on British Raj and Company rule in India. A blatant and highly offensive attempt to portray British Raj in a benign positive manner while excluding, threatening, and belittling any sane attempt to correct such biases. What do you expect will happen when such users are treating wikipedia as their personal blog. Obviously you will get sharp reactions. The only reason his edits are going through is because Indian POV is in minority as compared to those people who for some strange reason tend to think that British Raj was god's gift to this world. If User:DemolitionMan is banned Fowler is going to have a free run. At least there is some control right now. Desione (talk) 19:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are discusing the Indian mutiny page, you do not carry personel vendetas from page to page. Two wrongs do not make a right. Because another user behaves in a poor manner does not give any one else the right to. If you have issues with user [[User::Fowler&fowler]] then report him, and stop making accusations that you do not back up with action. It dos not matter how others behave; the issue here is DM, not anyone else.

You make a claim that the Indian viewpoint is in the minority; whilst in the talk page for the Indian mutiny you claim it’s the majority. Most of [[User::Fowler&fowler]] recent edits on Company rule in India appar to be adding pictures, please provide some links to blantent and hightly offencsice claims he is making. Nor can I find any overtly (and diliberatly) offensve comment on British Raj, nor is he alone in these edits. Again pleae provide some examples, rather then making vaugue accusations.

If DM was the only Indian editing the page you might have a point (though it’s debatable how much of a problem this would be). He is not, and I suspect that Regentpark will keep a close eye on things. Please stop trying to pretend that DM is a lone voice of reason in a ranging cacophony of ignorance; he is not (you yourself are proof of that, and the fact that at least one other editor has chosen to stop editing is not anyone else’s fault but his own). [[Slatersteven (talk) 20:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

To user:Desione. You say: "At least there is some control right now." I don't understand. user:DemolitionMan, who has been on Wikipedia a lot longer than I have, has never edited either British Raj or Company rule in India, whereas I have been editing them both, especially the former, for over a year. My style of editing has remained the same throughout. Why would he suddenly exercise control when he didn't earlier? Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that User:DemolitionMan is trying to contribute to the topic in a meaningful way and that he definitely brings a perspective to the article that it is currently lacking. It is important to understand that the reason he is singled out as disruptive is because, and these are not my words, he brings an 'Indian POV' to the article. I'm not sure why an Indian POV, whatever that might be, is automatically considered suspect, especially considering that the event in question is Indian. It is also useful to understand that scholarship in this field was based mostly on non-Indian sources during the first fifty to hundred years after the rebellion and it is only now that Indian sources are coming to light. Wikipedia is better when it behaves as an inclusive encyclopedia and worse when it tries to exclude one or more point of views - and attempting to incorporate some of the sources he points to would make this a better article.
However, I also feel that User:DemolitionMan has a serious problem with the discussions on the talk page. His behavior is often aggressive beyond what should be considered acceptable in wikipedia (or elsewhere) and is not conducive to finding a consensus. He doesn't seem to understand that bringing newly released material into an article requires a level of diplomacy and tact that may not be essential when adding material from established sources (diplomatic and tactful are clearly not DM!). Therefore, I support a short term topic ban and encourage him to consider working on a few neutral articles during the period of the ban. Some perspective on what wikipedia is and what it isn't will certainly be useful for him.--RegentsPark (talk) 21:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

but exclusion of one point of view goes both ways. Much of User:DemolitionMan has either involved unrealted topics (such as the Mau Mau rebelion), attacking sources based on nationality, or (as I precive) decite. Any and every tactic has been used by User:DemolitionMan to attepmt to force a particular POV onto the artical, and to crowd out any facts that do not fit into that POV. He has attempted to intimidate and I belive, provoke other editors.[[Slatersteven (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

It's not attacking the guy though I can see why the first part can be construed as attacking. However, why did you only post half the post? The entire post said that I am not convinced about his intentions. And the Shiva/Tandav bit was a stab at humor. Anyone who knows about Shiva and the Tandav would consider it funny. DemolitionMan (talk) 21:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate user:RegentsPark's empathy for user:DemolitionMan, however, it is inaccurate to say that user:DemolitionMan is being singled out because he brings an "Indian POV" to the discussion. There has been plenty of superb scholarship on the 1857 rebellion and early colonial India by Indians in the last 30 years. Gautam Bhadra, Tapti Roy, Rudr. Mukherjee, Seema Alavi, Ranajit Guha, T. Khaldun, and Rajat Kanta Ray are a few examples. There is nothing in the contributions that user:DemolitionMan has made to the Indian Rebellion page, that is worthy of being called an "Indian POV," if by it we mean the POV of Indian scholarship and not the POV of DemolitionMan as an Indian. Wikipedia doesn't care about the latter POV. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See [4] and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DemolitionMan for 'Indian POV' allegations. The larger point is that he is trying to bring less established sources into the article and some of the material, IMHO, enhances the article. We should be discussing how to appropriately address that material in the article but instead, and I completely blame DMs style for this, the discussion quickly devolves into personal attacks and edit wars. --RegentsPark (talk) 12:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to clarify that I have never had a problem with an Indian POV and have stated so publicly and in private emails. What I have a problem with is a hostile Indian POV, and the disruptive acts that DemolitionMan has used to pursue it. I agree that all points of view should be represented in the article, but that does not mean that we can ignore inappropriate and disruptive behavior when a particular POV fails to garner WP:UNDUE weight. Ronnotel (talk) 16:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ronnotel, I would agree that you have been pushed inappropriately a little bit by User:DemolitionMan although I think he sees that. In my opinion such issues can be resolved without going for a ban. The main source of the problem here, in my opinion, is the POV pushing by pro British Raj enthusiasts. Desione (talk) 20:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What evidence do you base that on, given that even after 3 month a Desi edit ban and then a 1 edit limit he continues to engage in the kinds of actions that have led to this (and the previous) complaint. It seems to me that he does not view his actions as wrong, and indeed views himself as the victim (as it seems do you). [[Slatersteven (talk) 21:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

Ronnotel, I don't mean to imply that you're picking on DM. As far as I'm concerned, you've been a very fair admin and have, in fact, often gone the extra mile in trying to keep User:DemolitionMan contributing within the system. I have no doubt of the Wikipedia:Good faith that underlie your actions and those of several others (including User:Fowler&fowler). However, I do also tend to think that User:DemolitionMan's contributions are often dismissed as being on the fringe, or outside the fringe, because of an assumed Indian POV, mainly because much of what he brings here is not in the mainstream. I'll try to explain this on the article's talk page but let me categorically state that, IMHO, your actions have been exemplary. --RegentsPark (talk) 22:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there is a place for such less accepted, less established sources in the article however they should be a minor point and it should be clearly said that they are a minority viewpoint and where people do believe them, etc... The way demolitionman is trying to have things is saying that these sources are absolute fact and that what the world's scholars widely hold to be the facts about the events in question are not worthy of even being included.--Him and a dog 14:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And perhaps you would like to state your views on V.D. Savarkar here - an Indian freedom fighter, whom you derided on the talk page. DemolitionMan (talk) 08:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What does that have to do with anything? And a lot of people aren't particularly fond of the chap who killed Gandhi, freedom fighter or no, so its hardly beyond the pale to express a negative opinion on him. Relata refero (talk) 09:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gandhi was killed by Nathuram Godse. Savarkar was implicated but exonerated. His bust was unveiled in Indian Parliament a few years ago. Generally, he is well respected in India. His legacy is kind of like Bose - anti-British but violent unlike that of Gandhi and Nehru who were anti-British and non-violent. 125.99.102.80 (talk) 21:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have just reviewed that talkpage, to which I am an occasional contributor, and am afraid that I can't find evidence supporting the belief that DM's worth the trouble he puts us through. I still can't get over "The British Military? The guys who are yet to apologize for murdering women and children in Amritsar? As stated, degrees acquired in the UK hold no merit in this discussion." It's not the cheerful link between current conditions in the British military and the Amritsar massacre - which was in 1919 - but the cheerful dismissal of anyone who has published in, has ever had a teaching appointment in, or obtained an advanced degree from Britain. There are many more such instances on that talkpage. ("It is utter nonsense to state that ALL historians agree that "WoI" is a not a correct term. Unless ALL means those who stand up to "God Save the Queen.") The user's done nothing since his return but agitate about the name of the page and the relative placement of various such terms; he has publicly announced that his only interest is in maintaining some level of control till enough Indians get online and come and support him; he hasn't made a single useful edit. Not one. Why are we keeping him around? Relata refero (talk) 09:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because, as a community, we tend to fall into the trap of confusing "Assume good faith" with "Ignore bad faith". — Coren ^(talk) 16:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we have given DM a huge amount of 'assumption of good faith' even when he has used tactics that boarder (and crosover) on decite. [[Slatersteven (talk) 17:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

The final effect of any ban on User:DemolitionMan is going to lead to a free run propagate pro British Raj (and related issues) bias. And that fact is the key to understanding this. Good luck Desione (talk) 19:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DM is not the only Indian editing the page, nor does he appear to be the only person pushing his POV. I suspect that Regentpark will keep a close eye on things. So it is not a fact, it is a POV assumption, like so much of DM’s ‘facts’. If you believe that an Admin is acting I bad faith report him, please stop making veiled accusations.[[Slatersteven (talk) 20:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

Try not to put words into peoples mouth, either mine, or administrators, or Regentpark. Rest later (because i am putting more time into wikipedia than i am comfortable with). Thank you Desione (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

then why did you seem to imply that there was an attempt to silence debate? If you do not wish inference to be drawn from your words then say what you mean.[[Slatersteven (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

I am probably the only Indian resident editing this page. DemolitionMan (talk) 04:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have no idea whether that is true or not.

Note to all: this is exactly how this editor operates. Non-stop speculation about motives, locations, and ancestry.

Can someone close this now? I see no uninvolved editor arguing for an extension of DM's editing privileges. Relata refero (talk) 09:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware that living in another country changed you nationality or race. Is DM seriously susgesting that only Indians living in India can understand and appreciate their own history.[[Slatersteven (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

"DM is not the only Indian editing the page" - who is the one who brought nationality into this debate? It certainly wasn't me. Err - don't you see Desione arguing for an extension of my editing privilege? Doesn't he count? 18:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a clear implication in the language used that both yourself and others believe that the problem is a lack of Indian editors (or too many British ones). That the Indian (actually DM’s, it has not been demonstrated that his is the majority view, and certainly not the only, view in India) POV is in a minority. This is at the hub of the many (self) justification’s at the heart of DM’s defence. [[Slatersteven (talk) 19:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

Yes, except for maybe some minor exceptions, but I don't know if that is more disappointing or the fact that the large number of overwhelmingly British editors on that page have not shown any inclination to solicit and incorporate the "other side of the story" in their "scholarly" attempt to write history. In any case solicitation and analysis of diverging viewpoints has never been a strong point of history in general (as opposed to "POV pushing" and "glorification") like what one would normally expect in say physical sciences. So in that respect I think you are doing more than a great job of "holding the fort" (although the part that lands you getting banned, etc. can definitely be avoided) Desione (talk) 19:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you agree or disagree that user demolitionman is the only native Indian living in India editing the Indian mutiny page? Moreover there has been no attempt to stop his POV being inserted, only that he obeys the rules, respects opinions (and allows) the of others, assumes good faith and stops racist and aggressive language. His language and attitude is one (or appeas to be) I am right and everyone else, no matter what sources they bring, are wrong and I shall not allow any source that contraticts my logic. Moreover he has continued to diplay double standerds that boarder on willfull deception. [[Slatersteven (talk) 19:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)]][reply]

Steven, I would appreciate not being called a "native"; I find it derogatory and insulting. Please see WP:CIVIL. DemolitionMan (talk) 05:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There HAS DEFINITELY BEEN a consistent attempt to miff his voice and the voice of ANY OTHER EDITOR who ever tried to post the story as it is known in most parts of India. Just to let u know I myself lived and studied only 1500 kms away from DMs place and I completely agree with his views. There are some Indian editors (Actually only One Suresh Ramasubramaniam aka Hserus alone) who LIVES in India but surprisingly disagrees. But then he is only limited to DISAGREEING/DELETING/REVERTING/FILLING IN FOR SS OR JOSQUIUS TO SAVE THEM FROM 3RR against anything called Indian POV by his personal definitions. And for that matter, I dont even live in India for more than a decade now, and in a place I live, I have more Pakistani friends who ALSO happen to recite the same version DM speaks. So I am a bit surprised that a mere absence of ENGLISH LANGUAGE LITERATURE is all that is enough to kill an editor who has done more research on anything even remotely related or relevant to this particular section of Indian History?

Demolitionman is not worth the trouble - we need a free run over the page with our personal POV? I thought we are supposed to be accomodating all views to make it a perfect NPOV?
Ban him and Regentspark will do the job - we only need a token editor, if regentspark or desione tomorrow react, there's one less to argue their case too. And I thought Wikipedia was not restricted to a group of users?
I have to reluctantly agree - actually i would love to see him screwed for having gone against what my Grandma taught me, but I have to show that I have a neutral point of view. And I thought we were supposed to assume good faith.
Each editor / administrator talking loudly here, has IGNORED that the RFC page is still open and no conclusion could be drawn there. So I assume that when Ronnotel started losing grounds in Cawnpore, he called reinforcements to open a Lucknow front here? --213.42.21.62 (talk) 21:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion

Okay, I'm not seeing anyone other than Desione arguing that a topic ban isn't appropriate. Unless anyone has anything further to add, I'll change DemolitionMan's 1RR restriction on Desi articles to a topic ban on British Raj pages. It'll be scheduled for review on May 4. Leithp 19:33, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, well - I have something further to add: There isn't a consensus yet. As I see it and as Ronnotel explained so well - since at least 2 editors feel that I add value to the page - i.e. Desione and RegentsPark - let's hear from some other Wikipedia admin. DemolitionMan (talk) 20:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RegentsPark expressed support for a short term topic ban above [5], which is why I didn't count him. I'm happy to wait for further input though. Leithp 22:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didnt know Wikipedia was a number game board. So Mr. Leithp, the new maestro of Wikipedia NPOV a la Brittania, here's ONE MORE NUMBER in addition to Desione's voice. - My name is Bobby Awasthi who is STILL WAITING FOR AN ANSWER TO MOST QUESTIONS RAISED ON THE SAME RFC PAGE which you have used as A TOOL in your opening session of this crusade against an Indian perview of the story. User:Bobby Awasthi

Leithp should now revert whatever action he has taken since there is a third editor who feels THIS PARTICULAR GROUP OF EDITORS (and possibly linked Administrators) IS PERSONALLY BIASED AND CLUBBED AGAINST USER DEMOLITIONMAN so they do not look at the CONTENTS added by DM in his arguments, but are more worried about his tones/overtures. As far as I remember, any faith teaches that knowledge should be welcome, no matter what the source is. Here instead, it appears that knowledge should be discarded if it does not match your school teachers POV even if this has to be done in the garb of democracy or neutrality; however questionable the end result be. Bobby

By the way, case started, fans witnessed, lone witness ignored, conclusions drawn, judgement passed - doesnt all this sound like a KANGAROO COURT? Was just wondering. --213.42.21.62 (talk) 21:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bobby, take a short break :-) . I am sure your views in opposition of ban have been noted. Desione (talk) 21:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC) 21:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting absurd. Every single account speaking up in DM's defence has edited the same problem article tendentiously in a manner identical to DM's. What part of "uninvolved" are people having trouble with? Relata refero (talk) 23:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And what about those who are speaking against DM? Have they been miraculously freed of their sins (so to speak). At least I don't deny my biases unlike some who have a ridiculous notion of "i tell as i was told" or actively use sockpuppets. Desione (talk) 00:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh* so I have a bias now, do I? Which is what? Oh, never mind.

And are you implying I actively use sockpuppets? Come on, try not to lash out randomly, it only makes you look worse. Relata refero (talk) 11:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Refero, it could be argued that those posting against me are the ones who have edited the article tendentiously. From the entire bandwagon which indulges in pushing the British POV, the only one who makes legitimate points is Fowler - so I wouldn't say he edits tendentiously. As for the others, it is my personal view and shared by a few others that merely the British POV is being pushed here. DemolitionMan (talk) 05:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Believe me, I wouldn't say that you're the only POV-pusher on those articles, just the most unhelpful and disruptive. Relata refero (talk) 11:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Leithp I agree with your conclusion and support a topic ban on the mentioned user. Rockybiggs (talk) 09:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, no input in DM's defence except from identically tendentious editors. Relata refero (talk) 11:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After reading the above discussion, I also support a topic ban on User:DemolitionMan. Besides I will also propose to carefully watch the edits by User:Desione. A block may in order for the later user for violation of 3RR. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 11:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Desione is currently blocked for 3RR. Sanctions for this pack of disruptive editors look entirely appropriate. Moreschi (talk) 11:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, following the discussion above, DemolitionMan's restriction is now changed to a topic ban on British Raj articles to be reviewed in early May. Leithp 12:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

A case of merge and delete and the GFDL

Bryan Derksen's Summary

I've just got into a bit of a dispute with another administrator so I'm taking it here to get wider participation. A long time back I wrote a little article at Tucker's kobolds about some fictional monsters from Dungeons and Dragons. It just went through AfD and got merged into Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons), which I'm fine with. The problem is that Tucker's kobolds was then deleted, which removed my authorship attribution from the database. As far as I can tell this is a violation of the GFDL, and it means that the material at Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) is now a copyright violation. User:Nandesuka is insisting otherwise, though, and re-deleted Tucker's kobolds when I restored it as a redirect. Opinions? Bryan Derksen (talk) 23:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article should be restored and then redirected. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(aec) We are not infrequently too strict in our construction of the "attribution" requirements of the GFDL, but it would seem that your text constitutes a significant portion of the new article, such that attribution is appropriate (for a discussion of the relevant issues, one may see, e.g., WP:MAD); I cannot, further, in view of the potential usefulness of Tucker's kobolds as a plausible search/redirect from an alternative name, imagine why one would delete the redirect (contrary, it should be probably noted, to the outcome of the AfD) or, having deleted the redirect and been apprised of the reasons for its restoration, would delete again. Nandesuka's explanation evidences a misunderstanding of practice, if not policy, that is, by virtue of its breadth, a bit disquieting, but we probably need go no further here than simply to restore the redirect (and its history), which restoration should be entirely uncontroversial. Joe 23:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nandesuka's Summary

I recently closed an AfD as delete. During the AfD, someone merged the content into Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons). After the article was deleted, the original author of the article, Bryan Derksen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) undeleted the article and left a note on my talk page claiming that to not leave the article history in place was a copyright violation. When I queried him about this -- this theory is certainly novel to me -- he responded in detail on his talk page, saying in part:

"That text, which I hold the copyright to but have licenced to Wikipedia under the GFDL, is now in the Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) article. However, if you look at that article's history, you won't see my attribution under it. Wikipedia "gets away" with this by considering itself to be a unitary work, so the fact that my attribution remains under the old article's history means it's still compliant. However, the moment you deleted Tucker's kobolds my contribution was no longer attributed to me anywhere in Wikipedia. That meant that Wikipedia was violating my license terms, making the article Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) into a copyright violation."

In response, I have re-deleted the page under CSD G4, removed the allegedly copyvio text from the Kobold article, and left a request on Danny's talk page, asking if this novel interpretation of the GFDL is one that the Office supports. I'm putting my actions up for review here, and asking for admin input on this issue. Thanks. Nandesuka (talk) 23:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh geez, there is really no need for any of that, this is what merging histories is for.

Delete Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)
Undelete Tucker's kobolds
Move Tucker's kobolds to Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)
Delete Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) again
Undelete all the revisions on Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)

Problem solved with all contributions attributed. — Κaiba 23:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that quite right, although generally we need not merge histories where the page from which content is merged can reasonably/sensibly be redirected to the page to which a merge is undertaken (to be most careful, one ought generally to note the origin of text in an edit summary when he/she merges a non-trivial amount of information in order to incorporate the history by reference). In any case, since Danny no longer works for the Foundation and, um, probably isn't the WMF's favorite person about now, he's almost certainly not the one to ask. You (Nan) might try, for instance, User:Mike Godwin, but there really is no "novel interpretation" with which to quibble here; the practice that Bryan details has, AFAIK, been common here for years. Joe 23:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The copyright policy very clearly states that Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used when copying content to another website. I can't even imagine a logical argument that this can be ignored when copying content to another Wikipedia article. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Merging the histories does seem like the best solution here. It's an interesting question because, as Bryan says, when material is merged, it means that something editor A has written is no longer attributed to him. What is worse, I feel, is when editors copy and paste material into other articles without attribution (i.e. not in a deletion situation), because then it appears they have written it. I've had editors lift almost whole pages I've written, writing that took me hours if not days, and just copy and paste it onto another page, with their name in the edit summary as though they're the authors. I have to not mind, because this is Wikipedia, but I always wince when I see it.

Having said that, we do agree when we join up that our writing effectively ceases to belong to us. When other websites use our material, they credit Wikipedia, not the individual authors. If Bryan's interpretation of the GFDL is correct, they're all in violation of it, so I don't see how that interpretation can be correct. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you do want to copy something from one article to another, what is the proper way to go about doing so? Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 11:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no practical objection to the merge, but the GFDL claim underlying it has to be addressed. If Bryan is right, the deletion policy needs to be updated. We have thousands, if not tens of thousands, of articles with text from deleted articles that are in violation of copyright if he's correct. That's why I'm making it an issue (my personal interest in kobolds is, to be frank, pretty minimal). Nandesuka (talk) 23:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I would certainly agree to that. I've occasionally gone digging through old deletions looking for merge-and-deletes to fix, but it's a bit big of a task (and rather unrewarding) so I'd welcome all the help I could get. Bryan Derksen (talk) 00:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have thousands of articles withe text from deleted articles in violation of copywright, which further suggests that in such instances, the deleded articles should indeed be restored and redirected. If the articles existed in the first place and material from them was mergeable, then the deleted articles must have been a legimatime search term and there's no real reason why they shouldn't be restored and redirected. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 23:59, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's precisely my thinking, and, moreover, what I always understood to be the thinking of the community. Joe 00:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One might very reasonably make the case that websites that credit Wikipedia but do not link to our article and the history associated therewith and to the GFDL do violate the copyrights of the authors of the material. As to us, although I, for one, have suggested that we finesse an argument that Wikipedia exists as a single encyclopedic entity, such that we might need credit only five principal contributors, I think the community has long recognized that there are prudential concerns (most prominently, those related to the lifting of one's contributions about which you write) that counsel against our wholly disassociating contributors of substantial material from that material. I may be entirely crazy, but isn't it our usual practice to redirect an article after text from it has been merged, whether per an AfD or not, to another article? I thought this to be a settled issue, but I may well, I suppose, especially if Nandesuka's supposition that we have many articles that incorporate significant text from deleted articles is correct, be wrong. Joe 00:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I recall in previous discussions I've read about this sort of thing, when people just attribute "Wikipedia" and include a link to the article they're technically in violation but it's let side because one can click the link and get a list of contributors. If they were to host that list of contributors directly on their own site they'd be fully compliant and since clicking a link is transparent to the end user it's effectively the same thing. Having the list of contributions hidden in the deleted article database is rather more problematic.

In this case, I would think that a history merge would be unnecessarily messy; I generally only do such things when the revision histories don't overlap with each other (for example correcting an old "cut and paste" page move). Leaving a redirect would keep the histories tidy and furthermore actually improve peoples' ability to find the content that used to be there, so why not? Bryan Derksen (talk) 00:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bryan's interpretation is correct; incidentally to SV's point- the only justification that can be made for those others just attributing to Wikipedia is that people can then go to the original Wikipedia article to get the author data. JoshuaZ (talk)

(ec) Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks says that other websites must at least acknowledge the main authors, and notes the theory that a link back to wikipedia suffices. If we send notices to WP mirrors about copyright violations, we do so as an individual with a copyright on certain contributions to a page. I think Nandesuka has a point here. In my experience, it is pretty standard practice at AfD not to delete articles which are merged, but to redirect them if any significant text is merged elsewhere, although it's not done every time. Gimmetrow 00:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bryan is correct. See Help:Merging and moving pages: "Merging — regardless of the amount of information kept — should always leave a redirect or, in some cases, a disambiguation page in place. This is often needed to allow proper attribution through the edit history for the page the merged text came from." In practice, such merging can happen before the AfD (in which case the AfD isn't really needed), during the AfD (frowned upon) or after the AfD. If the AfD closed as merge (or keep), there are no problems. If the AfD closed as delete, things are a bit more problematic. Technically, the material that is or was merged should not have been merged. It can be removed from the article, but once the original addition has taken place the attribution needs to be there somehow, usually by undeleting the original page and having the history in the form of a redirect. If the page name is problematic, the edit history can be shuffled around to a neutral title and handled as before. Carcharoth (talk) 01:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to everyone for your input. I've restored the article history and replaced the material. Nandesuka (talk) 01:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And thanks for restoring it. I haven't looked around in the deletion guidelines for a long time, is there a good spot in them to mention this GFDL caveat? Bryan Derksen (talk) 04:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Merging seems the place, perhaps with a prominent link to Wikipedia:Merge and delete. —Cryptic 16:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, I've added a note. I had no idea there was an essay on this subject, fantastic. I wonder if it'd be a good idea to get Godwin to look it over for legal correctness and maybe make it a guideline. Bryan Derksen (talk) 17:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/High Admiral (Honorverse)

Resolved

-- Material in article; GFDL concerns eliminated. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Black Kite closed this discussion as delete, but because the article has been merged, the deleted article should be restored and redirected to the article to which the information was merged. I have notified him of my post here on his talk page and her replied on mine. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It would be very helpful if people would conduct mergers according to the procedure set out at Help:Merge, which might help prevent source articles being deleted improperly. I will notify the editor who merged the material how to proceed next time. Meanwhile, if you encounter situations where people are merging out of process, please make sure they know that they are to note the merger with a wikilink to the source article in the edit summary of the destination and to note the merger in an edit summary at the source article as well? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All right. I've notified the merging editor & noted the merger in the edit summary. The question is whether it's better to restore the deleted article, since nearly the entire body was copied & pasted into the destination article and we must maintain history for GFDL compliance or do a history merge and delete the remaining redirect. Alternatively, of course, we could selectively delete the merge, but we'd have to delete subsequent edits as well in order to ensure that the text doesn't pop up in later edits. Given that one is a dummy edit to note the merge (mine) and the other the placement of some tags, that might not be undoable. I suppose we'll wait and see how the closing admin wants to handle it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems from the above discussion, that if we are in fact keeping the merged material in, we should restore the old article, but redirect it. I indicated that to Black Kite here, but have not yet received a reply. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have asked him at his talk page how he'd like to handle it. He has not been on recently, and I'm sure that he'll weigh in when he is. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Regards, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Dougweller has undone his merge of material from High Admiral (Honorverse) to Grayson Space Navy — as he indicated (twice) he would during the AfD. This would appear to make the retention of the history of High Admiral (Honorverse) unnecessary. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, the comments attached to the AfD decision by Black Kite stated that the decision to delete was made on the assumption that the material was now at the Grayson Space Navy page. Otherwise the decision would have been to merge, as per the original decision that he made. Having Dougweller remove the material now seems to be problematic, given that decision. - Bilby (talk) 11:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had not seen the tweak to the closing. The intent to undo in the event of a delete result was User:Dougweller's in the first place. See my section below, where I express my concern about merges during an AfD and their potential to derail a discussion. As things stand, nothing's gone, so anyone can resurrected the material in either location. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The editor who merged the material has removed it. Both the merged material and the redirect have been deleted. This will prevent the accidental restoration of the merged material at some future point and prevent accidental copyright violation. As I have told the editor who merged the material, the information can be rewritten without copyright concern. Just to avoid further issues, I think I'll do that myself and place a copy-vio free version of the information on the talk page of the destination article. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Completely rewritten material is now in the article, which satisfies the conditions of the AfD without copyvio concerns. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re both examples

In both cases, Tucker's kobolds and High Admiral (Honorverse), the article was under discussion at an AfD and during the course of the discussion, some bold merging was performed. This seems to amount to gaming the system to preclude a deletion; further, the longer-term effect is to enable the resurrection of non-notable articles at a later date when the evil deletionists have moved on. Such strict interpretations of licensing will lead to never being able to delete anything; once some bit of cruft gets typed into this site it'll never fully go away. Sure, a few folks can perform history merges in a few cases, but wikipedia is huge and the new/anon editors are legion. There are serious scalability concerns involved. Picture wp:2010 with 2 million tv episode articles, another 2 million tv character articles, &c. — for D&D, and Starwars, and a million other pop-cult 'verses. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any admin who can close an AfD as delete can perform a history merge. It's daunting the first time or two, but not that difficult. :) On the other hand, if admins are nervous about this, perhaps it would be appropriate to create a new section at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old to allow closing admins to list articles as "Needing history merge", which would allow admins who are more comfortable with those to merge & then delete the resultant redirect. (This is, presumably, for those cases when a redirect may be undesirable. Sometimes the redirect is useful as a search term.) In related,I do agree that merging content during an AfD is gaming the system. In many cases it will be a good faith error, no doubt, but it would help if we could somehow publicize that this is frowned upon. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We would still probably be best off to just restore and redirect the article anyway as the AfD was really a no consensus and the term seems a legitimate search term. As for Wikipedia in 2010, it would actually be nice if we are as comprehensive as possible. We are not a clone of Britannica, we are generla and specialized enyclopedias and we have the editors and disk space to be as comprehensive as possible. There is no valid or constructive reason for us not to have millions of articles on tv episodes and characters. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD closed as delete. This is not the forum to argue that AfD closures were procedurally incorrect, and it certainly isn't the forum to debate delationism vs. inclusionism. :) The legitimate concern of GFDL compliance has been addressed. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that it was more a merge closure. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 01:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has BhaiSaab exhausted community patience?

BhaiSaab (talk · contribs) was banned by ArbCom for one year, per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Hkelkar. Since then, he has had his ban reset 12 times, and has now been reset across two calendar years.

Frankly, from my perspective as an uninvolved administrator, I believe it is ridiculous to reset a ban timer this often. If that is necessary, this user obviously has no intention of honoring it. Accordingly, I have grabbed this bull by the horns and extended his block indefinitely. I now ask that this be endorsed as an indefinite ban. Blueboy 96 13:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like a clear-cut case indeed. — Coren ^(talk) 15:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Give me a reason not to ban this user, and I'll oppose. Otherwise, support ban. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 21:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concur; indefinite does not mean infinite - although of course it becomes de facto a ban if no admin proposes(that is what it says in WP:BAN) an unblock. The onus is on the account to then determine what the block becomes. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. BhaiSaab's previous resets were due to CheckUser misidentification of sockpuppets of User:His excellency - apparently they lived in the same metropolitan area (one of the world's largest) and used the same ISP. BhaiSaab's ban was, to begin with, unduly harsh, seeing as the Hkelkar case only arose due to Hkelkar's incessant socking, which BhaiSaab warned about, but was ignored. I say this as one who has dealt with some disruptive aspects of BhaiSaab's behavior - e.g. tag-team edit-warring - but I don't see him as remotely unreformable - he struck me a decent fellow, albeit one with whom I usually disagreed, who played according to the prevailing climate (edit warring was the norm on Islam-related articles throughout much of 2006, and continued to be on Islam-Hindu/India-Pakistan articles). He was banned, supposedly, for expressing to Hkelkar, who was posing as a Jew, the opinion to that Israel shouldn't exist - one with which I very much disagree, but one, like it or not, is held a significant proportion - perhaps the majority - of Muslim editors. This is minor trolling by WP standards, somewhat mitigated by Hkelkar's dishonesty - of which BhaiSaab was aware, and attempted to bring to the attention of the community - and hardly worthy of a year-long ban. I wouldn't hold him up as a model editor, but from ArbCom to the resetting of the ban after CheckUser errors - a.k.a. false charges, unretracted by those who made them - he's gotten a raw deal. And re Hkelkar, BhaiSaab was right where Dbachmann and a sitting arbitrator were wrong. I would suggest to invite him back on a tough revert parole - say, zero reverts except vs. vandalism - but allowing creative edits and talk page posts.

Also, it would be appropriate if someone informed him of, and, ideally, allowed him to participate in, this discussion.Proabivouac (talk) 09:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above in opposing an indefinite ban. I don't believe BhaiSaab was handled particularly well during the H.E. sock saga. Why the resets to his ban weren't rectified when it was discovered that many of the listed sockpuppets actually belonged to His excellency (talk · contribs) (such as Falcon2020 (talk · contribs) or MinaretDk (talk · contribs)) remains a complete mystery. His ban was also changed to indefinite during a community ban discussion in March 2007 and then, when there was no consensus for the indef, the ban was erroneously reset to 1 year from that point onward (despite no new cases of sockpuppetry from BhaiSaab).

Had these resets been rightly retracted, then this latest case would not even constitute block evasion (assuming this really was BhaiSaab) - although I concede that this point may be a bit trivial. Given the number of times he's been mistaken for H.E, I don't believe BhaiSaab has exhausted community patience. ITAQALLAH 01:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Katja Kassin problem

I've been contacted third-hand by an editor I trust (Vinh1313) about a problem with the German language edition of Wikipedia. They've printed the real name of Katja Kassin and have used the German language edition of IMDB as the reference source. Katja's complaining to Vinh (from Vinh's comment on my talk page) that "her parents having to deal with harassment from zealous people." The folks in the WikiProject Pornography have decided that IMDB's bio pages don't meet the WP:RS requirements since they're reliant on user-contributed info, so I can't see how the German version of the same pages can be considered any more reliable. As well the German edition has a privacy policy which would apply to this problem as well. Who should I point Katja to over at the German edition in order to have her real name redacted? Tabercil (talk) 15:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Though I don't know who over there you should talk to. I'm certain de:User:DerHexer would know. --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 15:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you... heading to him now. :) Tabercil (talk) 16:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, why does googling "Katja Kassin real name" give me a name in bold, sourced to en.wikipedia.org? I don't see it on the article, or in history going back to January, and if there's a privacy problem, perhaps there's something we should be doing? Relata refero (talk) 16:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Permanent protection' for China

On a trawl through CAT:EP I came across China, an unlikely candidate to be fully-protected to say the least, but I was quite disturbed to see the tag at the top of the talk page (permanent link to wording). User:Nat fully-protected China on 15/01/08, expiry indefinite, and every indication is that the protection was indeed intended to be indefinite. The protection was subsequently commuted to six months, which still seems extremely long. Nat claimed in the protection log that this action had support, and notes that it was brought up "many times" on ANI. I've dug a bit and found the most recent ANI report, which makes no reference to an indef protection.

I know that I don't know the situation, or how bad the vandalism has been, but I do know that regardless of prior discussion, this protection is not only unjustified by WP:PPOL, but also a violation of our fundamental ethos, not to mention WP:DENY etc. To my mind, this is the only way the vandals/puppeteers/trolls can actually win - they've prevented editors from working constructively on the article. I would advocate lifting this full protection immediately, probably converting to semi-protection, and letting those who do want to contribute constructively do so, even if every fifth edit is vandalism. That's what we have rollback for :D. Happy‑melon 22:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually set to expire on July 17th. - Revolving Bugbear 22:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. Protection is a short-term response to an ongoing problem. Semi-protection can last longer. But other remedies are available for problems that range beyond that. Article should be immediately unprotected. Ronnotel (talk) 22:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are we a wiki or aren't we? Long time semi-protection is objectionable enough, but full protection? Undo it immediately.--Doc^g 22:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good call - such lengthy full protection is totally out of order in dealing with vandalism. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your concerns, and I seriously recommend you look through the entire history of the reason why we had to place a long term full protection. I would suggest starting with this: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Peter zhou and this: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/JackyAustine. This problem is, or at least was, that this particular individual has been building a supply of sleeper socks since 2006. The checkuser may have dug up 30 to 40 of them, but we believe that we only discovered the tip of the iceberg. Several sysops, including myself, have attempted many options before I locked down the article. A few of them being, indef blocking the socks, using checkuser to find the socks, etc. and this had been going on for months and months and months upon months. It was frustrating. So we came down to two options, lock down the page until the individual is no longer interested in Wikipedia and trying to push his POV with his socks, or range block several IP ranges. As option 2 would take out half a city, the full protection option was our only option. Granted, it was indef. but this was done so that we can make sure that the individual gets the message that his actions will not be tolerated and that we do not provide the individual an avenue to continue his disruption. As there has been no sign of the individual and his socks, I will unprotect the article. But understand that there was a very valid reason why I took those actions. Regards, nat.utoronto 01:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You missed option 3: revert vandalism, block sock, and ignore until the vandal gets bored. Locking the article for six months is NEVER an acceptable option - that's defeat. We might as well say "vandals win, close the database". If you can't be bothered with the constant reverting, then unwatch and let others do it.--Doc^g 02:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The action doesn't close an avenue of disruption, it permanently disrupts normal editing operations. I concur with Doc that this is absolutely a situation for revert, block, ignore. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is another option that hasn't been explored as well. Those who did the CU have the IP address and access times necessary to engage the ISP of the offender. That isn't being done and for our hardcore vandals, it should be. It's pointless for drive-by vandals, but for someone bothering WP for months, it's hardcore. And telling the ISP their customers will be blocked from WP does make heads turn with them. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

RBI just didn't work in this case as I've stated already so option 3 was not viable at the time. nat.utoronto 14:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The approach we have adopted on the Evolution article to deal with User:Tile join (see Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Tile join and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Tile join to get an idea of the scale of the problem) is to semi-protect indefinitely, and full-protect as soon as one of the socks edits the article. We then checkuser the sock, block the associated sleeper accounts, block/rangeblock the IP, and then move the article back to semi-protection. This has been going on for about a month. I'm hoping that eventually the vandal will run out of IPs. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prolific sockpuppeteer

Resolved

– No administrator action required at this time. Jehochman ^Talk 23:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Rws killer got blocked indefinitely for repeatedly posting a teacher attack article Ms. menna, and he evaded his block 11 times by resetting his router and getting a new IP address whenever he would get blocked, and so far he has at least 12 sockpuppet accounts. They have since got all blocked forever, but recently he threatened by e-mail to me that he would make another account, which I suspect he did. He did not get blocked yet, I think. Is there a way to stop this cycle of block, get new IP, create sockpuppet? STYROFOAM1994^talk Review me! 02:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Only by blocking the IP range, or reporting the abuse to his ISP. Can't even consider either of those unless a recent IP is known. I was going to suggest salting the article he kept recreating, but I see that was last done almost a year ago. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I protected the page, I'm surprised that wasn't done first... Grand master ka 02:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There will be a suspected, recent IP address in category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Rws killer. STYROFOAM1994^talk Review me! 02:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On further research, I found that many of his usernames are very similar with in http://wowhordefallen.proboards105.com/index.cgi. Perhaps we can get a lead from here. STYROFOAM1994^talk Review me! 15:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, I have heard rumors that User:Rws killer and his sockpuppet accounts have another, administrator account from the same place, and operated by the same person. Can you find out who it is? The person also threatened to block me with the administrator account by framing me, and said so by e-mail. Looks like a case of personal vengeance after I helped people ban the user in question 12 or more times now. STYROFOAM1994^talk Review me! 22:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

File a suspected sock puppet report when you spot any new sock puppets. Reverting, blocking and ignoring the troll usually takes the fun out of trolling, and they eventually go away. Wikipedia does not kick in doors and confiscate computers. If you find that the editor comes from a particular ISP, we can file an abuse report. Jehochman ^Talk 23:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removing topic ban on Blow of Light

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive353#Request input on topic ban

Blow of Light (talk · contribs)

This ban has now been in effect for three months. I have kept a close eye on Blow of Light in the time being, and it's clear he has addressed all of the concerns raised in that thread. He had developed into an excellent editor and has shown a willingness to learn from constructive criticism.

I propose to remove the topic ban, as it has clearly served its' purpose and it is now an unfair restriction on an otherwise-good editor. To avoid confusion, this proposal does not include Gp75motorsports, who has not had a similar level of success in developing as an editor to a stage where such forceful guidance is no longer required.

I welcome all input into this, so we can hopefully reach a speedy conclusion. Respectfully, Daniel (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason not to give this a shot, provided BoL knows that he will still be under some sort of supervision. Not that I think he'll start playing up again. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 03:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that Blow of Light realises that should he lapse back into the pre-ban editing habits, it will be quickly reimposed. Daniel (talk) 03:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only concern I have is that he still doesn't have the proper maturity in dealing with issues related to vandals which was one of the reasons for the topic ban. It's not at the level of obsession like it was when the ban was put in place, but just 3 days ago I had to talk to Blow of Light about his taunting of vandals. Metros (talk) 03:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, related to that vandal 3 days ago, BoL gave a personal attacks warning to the user for this edit. Incivil on the vandal's part? Yes. A personal attack? I don't see one. So I just have a bit of a concern about these kinds of issues. Metros (talk) 03:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that these are concerning, but it seems to be a one off case, and (at least, in my eyes) we should try and let it go in favour of what will be better for the project. And if it turns out not to be, then we re-instate the ban. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 04:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I don't think it's a big, huge issue, but it definitely will need to be watched if the ban is lifted. Metros (talk) 04:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree; I don't think anyone supports removing this and not watching him. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 04:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am in favour of lifting the ban, on the condition that we continue to keep a close eye on his behaviour. BoL has certainly made a lot of progress since the ban was first imposed and this could help him further, however, if the ban is lifted, I urge him to take it slowly for a while; if he has changed (I'm confident that he has), he'll know how to finally be in the good books with the community as a whole. :) Spebi (talk) 03:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I support removing the topic ban, but BoL's behavior should be monitored over the next few weeks or so given his continued tendency to taunt vandals. BoL should be informed about WP:DENY and WP:RBI. If he hasn't changed, we can come back here and reinstate the ban. --Core desat 04:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also support removing the topic ban. He's really matured since it was put in place, and I'm really pleased with his progress. If he lapses, of course, the ban should be reinstated, but he should definitely be given the chance. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 04:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support lifting the ban, but he will still need watching. Mr.Z-man 04:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add my support to the removal of the topic ban, but I would remind BoL to continue to be careful in his reporting vandals and taking usernames to UAA, as a BITEy inclination to revert edits that are emphatically not vandalism and to warn users for such edits, as well as to report new users at UAA unnecessarily (if not plainly incorrectly), seems to resurface from time to time. Joe 04:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I guess lifting the ban is fine, as long as he knows that he's still under strict supervision. GlassCobra 06:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I Don't Know if my Uploaded Photo is Restricted

I recently uploaded a photo. The link is Image:Sim Family Watching T.V..jpg‎. The thing is, it is from The Sims. The makers of this PC game allow owners to publish their videos and pictures taken from the game on media-sharing sites like YouTube and Photobucket. I assumed it was same for Wikipedia. I just want to be sure I'm correct.

what is thast cat doing? And why is there a midget in a suit under the chair? Viridae ^Talk 04:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't ask, you don't want to know ;-) in response to the matter at hand, unless the publishers completely release all rights to the content or explicitly state that the images can be used for anything, anywhere there should be a fair use rationale. - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Caribbean H.Q., that cat is definitely directing traffic. El_C 07:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that there is a paranormal apparition that the cat sees that the humans do not. We need further investigation as to whether or not this is proof of ghosts. I advise we set up a new noticeboard. Keegan^talk 07:14, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You shall not puss? El_C 07:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

groan* I like the concept that the cat is surreptitiously fighting evil forces while mere centimetres away the family is unaware of his continuing efforts to save them from harm. The midget in the suit is perhaps the originator of the evil with which the family pet grapples. Viridae ^Talk 09:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When you say evil forces, you mean something very specific and organic, right? Relata refero (talk) 10:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That evil coloured clud thing. Viridae ^Talk 11:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, though, this is the third or fourth image-rights question I've seen on the main noticeboards in the last few days. Is there a centralised location where these should be brought? If not, that might be a useful new noticeboard. Considerably more useful than some of the recent ones that haven't taken off, I should add. Relata refero (talk) 10:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I HAS SEEN GOSTES?!? caknuck _° is kinda hungry 23:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Media copyright questions.Geni 12:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, of course. Well, I'll move all further instances of questions of that sort there. Relata refero (talk) 12:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One for the patient explanation squad

Uconnstud (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was blocked for edit warring over his addition of links to material of questionable copyright. Since then he has:

filed three retaliatory 3RR reports against the editors that reverted him
filed a complaint about the admin who closed the 3RR complaints as frivolous
filed a complaint that his complaint was not taken seriously
complained about being warned about the above
been blocked for said disruption, block posted at ANI and reviewed on his talk by an uninvolved admin
started an RfC against the admin who blocked him (me), which was deleted

Sooner or later he is going to have to stop escalating this trivial dispute, and somebody really does need to point that out to him. My impression is that he will simply expand the dispute to encompass whoever tries to help, but it must be worth trying at least. Guy (Help!) 11:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still a relative newbie, though he may be a returning user or a former IP. I ran into him in the course of giving a WP:3O on an edit-war, and he seemed rational enough there after a bit. I'm sure if he's ignored for a bit, things will be fine. In the meantime, I'd suggest walking away from the tantrum. Relata refero (talk) 12:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note left on talkpage. De-escalation recommended. Relata refero (talk) 13:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:John Reaves

Resolved

– user has apologized for a trifling offense, no harm no foul Ronnotel (talk) 18:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could somebody look at recent edits, particularly the edit and edit summary here and also this one and indicate whether this is normal behaviour for this editor, or if the account is possibly compromised? Relata refero (talk) 12:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This sure looks like a compromised (admin-enabled!) account. This is completely out of character for John. If this is the case, should we request an emergency desysopping? A ecis^Brievenbus 13:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd think so. If anyone's on IRC, or if a 'crat is watching this page...? Relata refero (talk) 13:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm beginning to wonder. Old editions of his talkpage have also had that strange message on top. Recently he replaced the old version of his talkpage, and then again put that message on. I'm not sure what's going on. Other people familiar with John should perhaps weigh in. Relata refero (talk) 13:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Crats can't desysop - you need a steward on meta for that. I don't use IRC, but the meta page says that the channel is [here. I haven't come across John Reaves (talk · contribs) much but those edits don't match what I'd expect. There may be an explanation, but just in case, ~~a quick removal of the buttons to be on the safe side might be in order~~. Old versions of the talk page have that message on only because it's the current version of the transcluded sub-page, not because the sub-page has been like that all along (it hasn't). Bencherlite ^Talk 13:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Yes, I just worked out the transclusion myself. You're quite right, we need a steward to step in just in case. Relata refero (talk) 13:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Could a block be in order? Rudget . 13:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)~~[reply]

Since he hasn't made any more edits or made any log entries in the last few hours, I think that some close attention is warranted but not yet an emergency desysop. It could be someone playing with his computer when he waled away. If any unexplainable admin actions start to happen, or a string of strange edits, then a temporary desysop might be warranted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. let's just wait a bit. I've emailed him ( hopefully his email has not been compromised too) Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has a CU been run? Rudget . 13:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ECx2) It seems like he's rather irked about something. If the account's compromised, the person is doing precious little with it. Anyone tried email/talk page? (I see Theresa has). Watch and wait... -- Flyguy649 ^talk 13:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stewards informed, watching the situation. Relata refero (talk) 13:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

His e-mail's disabled. Maxim_(talk) 13:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't use wikipedia email. I emailed him independently. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 14:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Let's not be too hasty here: John may simply be feeling pretty pissed about something-or-another, on- or off-wiki. I don't think it would be reasonable to desysop on the grounds of account compromisation (equating incivility with account hijacking is not backed up by sufficient evidence) or otherwise, unless the sysop. tools begin to get used for project disruption. All reasonable measures have been taken here: people are keeping an eye on Special:Contributions/John Reaves, the Stewards have been informed and are watching... "Wait and see" is our best bet, until things become demistified. AGK § 13:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Largely what the stewards feel, specially that its been 4 hours since the suspect edits. Though they think that a CU might be helpful, so if anyone can contact on on short notice... Relata refero (talk) 13:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, it appears that he does use such language in his edit summaries. E.g. see [6] Ronnotel (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One self-directed swear word when removing an accidental self-block isn't quite the same as an expletive targeted at all visitors to his talk page... but (changing mind) let's wait and see given the time since last edit. Bencherlite ^Talk 14:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest everyone just wait and keep an eye on things here. No harm whatsoever has been done, simply an alteration of a comment on his talk page which could have lots of explanations. I don't see any grounds for performing a checkuser at this point. Will (aka Wimt) 14:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, what about penis vandalism? Right here, after doing this. I think we should desysop now, and ask questions later. If it really is him, he can confirm his identity to us. Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 14:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a comment on his own talk page five hours ago. It does not constitute vandalism at all. Will (aka Wimt) 14:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The message he deleted with the offensive edit summary wasn't even to his own talk page either - it was to User:Prodego's [7]. --Folantin (talk) 14:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He changed "Sign and date your entries by inserting (four tildes)" on User talk:John Reaves/talk to "Sign and fuck your entries by inserting (penis symbol)". If that isn't vandalism, then what do you call it? Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 14:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incivility. As I say, keep an eye on things, but we have a privacy policy for a reason and we shouldn't just go around checkusering people and desysopping them five hours later because they were rude in an edit summary. Will (aka Wimt) 14:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What would change it? He's not active atm—there's no emergency. Why don't you wait for him to explain it? If there'll be an emergency (e. g. he misuses his rights) he still can be blocked/desysopped. But he hasn't even misused them in this case. —DerHexer (Talk) 14:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is what worries me, but as others said, he hasn't been very active lately anyway. Enigma ^msg! 15:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser shows that the account is unlikely to be compromised as the edits are made from his regular IP and computer. As his user log shows no dubious admin actions, I'd say thing are okay and folks should calm down just a little - Alison ^❤ 15:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been on an unannounced break for the past week or so due to vacation and time-restraints (the vacation can probably be verified by Alison's CU report) and when I logged in last night (St. Patrick's Day weekend, if you catch my drift) and saw something I didn't particularly like...well all I can say is sorry and I'll go clear a backlog or something as penance once I'm back in the swing of things. John Reaves 18:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

per Occam's Razor, WP:EUI. Ronnotel (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ten people weighed in and not one remembered its St Paddy's weekend? And Alison's Irish, too! Relata refero (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The last time this happened (when another user was overly celebrative), it was much more exciting. Only ASCII penis vandalism? I'm disappointed. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 06:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Topic Ban: User:OffTheFence

AdHoc has topic-banned me for 7 days on homeopathy-related articles [8]. It gives the impression of being more to satisfy a pro-homeopathy editor who effectively asked for censorship of the discussion on a Talk-page [9] rather than to have a reasonable basis in its own right, indeed I specifically refuted the grounds cited.

The fact of a 7-day ban is clearly not of earth-shattering importance, but I'd like the matter of principle looked at, please.

Thank you. OffTheFence (talk) 14:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with the article "Breast"

Resolved

– glitch

This protected article has been vandalized.

Weird thing is that the article's history shows that it has been reverted to the proper version by ClueBot, but still the vandalized version comes up when trying to view the article. 91.153.68.110 (talk) 14:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You probably need to bypass your browser cache to get the latest version of the page; looks OK here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 15:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) Where's the vandalism? There's a photo of a woman's breasts, but that's what the article is about... I did a quick read through and did not see anything else. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As he said. Cluebot undid it. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 15:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried opening the page with another browser, one that has never opened the said article, and still all I get is this line:

"The term breast refers to the things i like to suck day and night. Also i like stickin my knob in my girlfriend's cleavege and cuming inside her mouth."

I'm sorry to report this if it is indeed a problem in my end, but I fail to see how that could be since it can't be a problem with cache. 91.153.68.110 (talk) 15:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All I can imagine is that you're looking at a mirrored version complete with old vandalism; that wasn't even the recent version that has been corrected. As it stands now, the page here is fine. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 15:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC again) To be sure, I've purged the Wikimedia cache. It should be ok now. Otherwise you may need to bypass your browser cache (CTRL + shift + R in Firefox). -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems it was the Wikimedia cache that was giving me the wrong version. The purge cleared the problem and I now get the proper article. Thank you! 91.153.68.110 (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fempiror History

Resolved

– Article deleted -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this article to be blatent copyright infrigement, it seems to be directly copied from [10] which gives the copyright notice "The Fempiror Chronicles in its events, characters, history, language, peoples, and situations is based on the book The History and Language of the Fempiror Race and the Felletterusk Empire by George Willson, copyright 2005 and WGA #1124419. All rights reserved.". The page is the current subject of an AfD discussion but I believe that speedy deletion criteria G12 aplies. I've had it tagged for several hours, would someone mind taking a look. I did blank the page but it has since been restored. Guest9999 (talk) 15:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick response. Guest9999 (talk) 15:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Itihaaskar (talk · contribs)

I am the user Itihaaskar and I was blocked by requests from Shshshsh (talk · contribs). We we were engaged in a debate on the historicity of Jodhabai being the wife of Akbar. I have been writing that modern historians like Irfan Habib, Harbans Mukhia (http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/book.asp?ref=9780631185550) etc categorically dismiss the idea that Jodha was the wife of Akbar. Shshshsh (talk · contribs) on the other hand contends that this is not the case. I requested User ShShShSh many a times to come up with a reference from modern historians to support his POV. Till date he has been unable to do so. On the other hand I provided unanimous agreement of modern medieveal historians that Jodhabai was not the wife of Akbar.

You can see the debate here where Shshshsh (talk · contribs) does not even know the names of modern historians whose reference he wants to overturn by his POV: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jodhaa_Akbar&diff=193312471&oldid=193307992

Even if historians say that such name did not exist, they are just hisotorians. Their opinions do not constitute a fact. Also, there is no sign of them being notable at all. Who are they? Are they prominent?

Then he was told: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jodhaa_Akbar&diff=193460993&oldid=193460581

Please be a bit more serious. Irfan Habib is a well known historian. You not knowing him is irrelevant to this debate.

. . . . .

Leading scholars of medieval history, Irfan Habib, Satish Chandra and Harbans Mukhia, categorically dismiss the idea that Akbar had a wife named Jodhabai.

It is high time you show us some references to back up your POV. Otherwise it is blatant POV pushing from your side! WP does not entertain such behavior. Sorry.

Till this date he has not shown us a single reference from a peer reviewed historian that Jodha is the wife of Akbar.

Yet he wants to own the aricle and wants to have only his POV be written:

Even now the article tries to give an impression that movie is "historically accurate" when infact the name in the title itself, Jodha, is historically false.

Mediveal historians have consensus that Jodha was the wife of AKbar's son as the genealogical records from the house of Marwar (the princely house in which she was born) clearly indicate: http://uqconnect.net/~zzhsoszy/ips/j/jodhpur.html

20 Raja UDAI SINGH 1583/1595, born 1539, married and had issue, 17 sons and 17 daughters. He died 1595.
- Rajkumari Man Bai (renamed Taj Bibi but better known as Jodha Bai), married 1588, Shahzada Salim (later Padshah JAHANGIR, Emperor of Delhi), born 1569, died 1627. She died 1603.

I have a couple of questions:

a) Can a user write there POV without citing a single reference?
b) Can you get others blocked because you are friends with some powers that be?

I have only edited from my IP address and my user name yet I cannot edit using my username for last many days.

What should I do?

124.125.208.35 (talk) 05:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What are you asking admins to do / look into here? Orderinchaos 10:56, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is the taking away of my editing privilege justified? Secondly please guide how to deal with a person who does not cite any peer reviewed references and just wants to write there POV as is the case with Shshshsh (talk · contribs).

124.125.208.35 (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reblocked for sock evasion. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 00:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean sock evasion? I hope you understand how DHCP works. ISP's provide you a dynamic IP address in internet cafes. 124.125.208.* is what I get assigned. I cannot control the last octet. This is really high handed ness on your part to keep accusing me of sock puppetry. 124.125.208.35 (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone else please look into why Blnugyen is blocking me repeatedly? 124.125.208.35 (talk) 06:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I request some admin to look into why I am being blocked from editing. All I have done so far is cite references from peer reviewed historians. Please see the beginning of this thread. I repeat I have only editing from my IP or as Itihaaskar. 124.125.208.35 (talk) 16:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blnguyen is a checkuser, and I presume he is certain that this account also edited as User:Chaffe sep, though it would help if he said so on the record. Judging by the user's talkpage, he has not been aware of what policies he is breaking in editing while not logged in. I think the reset of a one-week block to a month for asking this question here is a little OTT, especially as this editor's points on sourcing, if not wording, appear correct. (I am amused by the edit comment of the person who was accusing him of vandalism: "It doesn't matter. I didn't remove that, but except for historians' views, there isn't any factual approval of her not being Jodhaa". Ha. The only people who disagree are historians, and what would they know...) Relata refero (talk) 18:16, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this user has edited as Chaffe sep (talk · contribs) and probably also Tirem (talk · contribs) in addition to Itihaaskar. He also edits a lot while logged out, although I can't tell if this is a deliberate attempt at obfuscation or not. And he is evading the block to post here. I can't speak for Blnguyen but if you think you can educate this user and get him to follow the rules then I suppose you could try. Thatcher 23:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No I have not edited as Chafe sep or Tirem. Only used my IP when I forgot to login or my login name. My editing this page is not an attempt to evade the block it is just to raise a concern that my editing privileges have been taken away when all I was doing was using references from peer reviewed historians who are considered authority on mediveal history of India which I thought is what wikipedia encourages. Please restore my editing privileges if possible. I am also very surprised by vandalism accusation from user Shshshsh when he has till date not cited a single source / reference to support his POV.

124.125.208.35 (talk) 16:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cut and Paste Move

Resolved

– Page histories merged. Kralizec! (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Holy Blood (band) was cut/pasted to Holy Blood (see [11][12] for the article and [13][14] for the talk page). Seems like a sensible move but could someone fix the cut/paste? Guest9999 (talk) 17:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done! --Kralizec! (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick response. Guest9999 (talk) 18:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure! --Kralizec! (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletionpedia

Picked up at DRV[15], according to its description Deletionpedia is an archive of deleted Wikipedia pages.[16] They 'rescue' the full edit history of pages.

An automated script does the following:

A Wikipeida user tags a page on Wikipedia as a candidate for deletion.
They upload all pages which have these tags to a temporary store.
They check Wikipedia's deletion log, which lists pages which are deleted from Wikipedia.
If the page which was deleted is in our temporary store, they upload it onto the Deletionpedia wiki

I checked a recent deletion of mine and found the deleted page. User:H2g2bob might be able to fill in more details, e.g. if it requires an account on wikipedia. Sorry if I missed a related thread and you all were already aware of this.--Tikiwont (talk) 20:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this is a problem. If something doesn't meet Wikipedia standards, we get rid of it so that it isn't waisting space on our servers. If this site wants to keep junk articles, they are free to do so, the articles were, after all, freely licenced. The one problem might be if they were using an admin account to look at deleted articles that were deleted for legal reasons. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

deletionpedia.dbatley.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Interesting, going to add this one to COIBot, this is not exactly something that is useful as an external link to have in articles for those that did not make it into this 'pedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Taking the whole history avoids copyright problems, but I can see this becoming a problem in terms of attack pages, especially attack pages against Wikipedia editors. J Milburn (talk) 21:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it is not a problem; the articles were freely licensed under GFDL, and anyone anywhere is allowed to use them, as long as they attribute it back to the source. In this case they have gone the extra mile and retained even the contribution history, which would not be required. We only require something like "some content has been taken from from Wikipedia" to appear on the footer of the site, along with the GFDL licensing information. So we cannot censor other people's use of our content just because we decide that we don't want that content anymore. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 21:50, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I can confirm this is my website. The idea behind it is that a lot of pages on Wikipedia can (and should) be deleted because they're not encyclopedic. But they should be kept somewhere because they're interesting, and because someone has often put a lot of work into making the pages. Another advantage is having the full edit history available for pages held on mirror sites (avoiding possible gray areas with the GFDL).

Uploading attack pages is not my intention: I'm willing to CBlank or delete any that I find, or introduce something to the scripts if there's any good way to do it. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To answer Tikiwont's question, it does not have an account at all on Wikipedia (but it does use the api --h2g2bob (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be easy for you to at least not upload pages in either Category:Attack pages for speedy deletion or Category:Copyright violations for speedy deletion? Someguy1221 (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ecx3)They're already kept, just with the history hidden. Trying to make other sites comply with the GFDL is a hiding to nowhere. And you will be over-run with crappy, idiotic and libellous pages, to which you will have a responsibility to some degree. Good luck to you. ➨ REDVEЯS is a satellite and will be set alight 22:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redvers is right. If anything, focus solely on the XfD pages. Things that are speedied are speedied for a reason. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:21, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someguy1221 - checking my code, I'm only looking at 'Importance or significance not asserted pages for speedy deletion' and 'Contested candidates for speedy deletion' (in addition to PROD and AFD). Contested could include attack pages, so I'll add a check against the deletion reason. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the current Deletionpedia main page "Page of the Month" is one that was speedily deleted under G12 for being a copyright violation.... not sure that's the wisest speedy criteria to be harvesting. Bencherlite ^Talk 22:33, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, my initial post was to share that this exists. It is clear that any problems with the contents are not ours. Nevertheless, it adds a new level of transparency to our deletions since one can search e.g. for topics or deleting admin [17]. with the deletion discussion conveniently linked and reposting of content a piece of cake. So if the site scales up, it may develop into a significant change in deletion as we'll be having a public trashcan with all its potential and drawbacks and actually a step towards Pure Wiki Deletion. (Since I don't think the resolved tag is applicable to this thread and it discourages taking notice, I removed it. This can be archived if there isn't anything else to say.)--Tikiwont (talk) 10:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

with respect to reposting of content, it will have an side effect that will be a benefit--it will enable any editor, not jut an admin, to check whether an apparent reposting is indeed essentially the same content and thus justifies a G4 tag for speedy deletion. We should thus be able to get rid of the unchanged repostings more easily and more accurately.DGG (talk) 15:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, someone should report this to Coren, his searchbot should include this domain and tag articles accordingly .. :-) .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you man that he is searchbot should not tag them. If it was posted here under GFDL, and was not originally a copyright violation, reposting is not conceivably a copyright violation. DGG (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should I be terribly happy or terribly sad that something I deleted is featured as the list of the month?. :) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This does not seem to be a problem for Wikipedia, but the person doing this might think twice. DMCA may (or may not, not tested in court) protect Wikipedia from certain liabilities by shifting them to contributors, but anyone who reposts Wikipedia articles assumes that liability, and anyone reposting them wholesale assumes all manner of actionable liabilities embedded in the articles. But anyone reposting articles which were deleted for a reason assumes an even greater concentration of higher-risk liabilities. Quatloo (talk) 16:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet, my internet rep rises everytime Deletionpedia archives non-notable resumes like this one, soon I should have enough power to overthrow Jimbo as chairman emeritus. <evil smile> - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge help needed

Hello! I hope this is not an inappropriate place to post this notice. I was doing some cleanup work with our Cameroon-related articles, and I noticed a couple of articles that should be merged: 2008 Cameroon protests and 2008 Cameroonian anti-government protests. The former is far more comprehensive and well-developed (if I do say so myself), but the latter is probably better titled. I would therefore seem that the sensible thing to do would be to merge 2008 Cameroon protests to 2008 Cameroonian anti-government protests, basically replacing that page, but using the longer title. However, the page histories should also be merged, I think, to preserve everything for the GFDL. Can someone assist? Thanks a bunch. — Dulcem (talk) 00:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No responses. Should I post this somewhere else? — Dulcem (talk) 04:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears from the histories of these two pages that they have been standing on their own and developed independently. A history merge only applies to cases where a cut&paste move has been performed; there is no cut&paste move here, so there's nothing to fix, hence no need for a WP:HISTMERGE. You may use the normal editorial merge and note your merge in the edit summary, or give a link on the destination article talk page. That should be enough for GFDL. :) For the record, requests for history merging should go to Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen, but I understand that this noticeboard is often considered a preferable venue as it is watchlisted by more admins anyway. :) --PeaceNT (talk) 05:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help! I think I did everything all right . . . . :) — Dulcem (talk) 03:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Liberalism/Additional reading on Liberalism

Resolved

The title Liberalism/Additional reading on Liberalism is malformed per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions). The content also bothers me:its a reading list. Should it be AfD? Renamed? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 06:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Additional reading on Liberalism or Talk:Liberalism/Additional reading both seem to be pretty easy alternatives, if this is to be kept; if not, {{prod}} or {{afd}} are probably the way to go, gives it a chance to be spoken for. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved it back to Additional reading on Liberalism per Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Do not use an article name that suggests a hierarchy of articles. As for the content, per Luna. Bencherlite ^Talk 11:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It was exactly what I was thinking. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 14:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unknown importance?

I'm not sure where to raise this issue, so I'm bringing it to the place where the brightest, best-informed people in all of Wikipedia seem to be found.

I notice the article Muhammad has a lot of category labels. One of them is Category:Unknown-importance Islam-related articles.

It seems to me absurd to say that the lead article about the founder of Islam is of "unknown importance" among Islam-related articles. Is this a case where I should be bold?

Thanks. Wanderer57 (talk) 13:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, it's labeled as "core" on the template. It just seems to be labeled as such because there isn't a cat for Core-importance. Anyways, bringing this up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam they should fix it. --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 13:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

wiki software prob

the last bracket shouldn't be blue (often cataloged in a reference work such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings) Mccready (talk) 15:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm.... weird. Try reporting at WP:VPT. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 15:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GT4

Resolved

– Vandalism reverted by ClueBot, notifying IP directed to WP:AN/I for future issues.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 17:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:24.45.153.28 (IP) Spam http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gran_Turismo_4&diff=197813478&oldid=197640990 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.104.138.120 (talk) 16:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AfD throttling?

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Astrid Peth

This AfD was closed by Edokter (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - an admin active in the relevant WikiProject - only 77 minutes after being opened. He closed it "early" (an extreme use of the word!) on the grounds that no reason for deletion was asserted. I'm at a loss to follow that reasoning (AfDs often result in a "merge" or "redirect" conclusion, and this should be no different), and as nom, would ask that it be re-listed for some actual discussion to help reach the conclusion? After one comment by an involved user and less than 80 minutes' of "publicity", I don't think that an involved admin should close. Any thoughts? —TreasuryTag—t—c 18:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You asked as nominee that it be merged, not that it be deleted. if something is desired to be merged it shouldnt come to afd in the first place. Se WP:PM for the correct procedures. DGG (talk) 18:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't, actually, I said that the character failed WP:NOTE and intended a discussion to take place in which people voted keep, delete, merge and/or redirect, as per the usual procedure at AfD... could we not let this take place, then if/when people say merge we can merge? Why shouldn't we? —TreasuryTag—t—c 18:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the character obviously doesn't fail note, considering the 37 references. With that, any suggestions of merging or moving belongs on the talk page, not in afd.--ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 18:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Closer's comment) I closed the AfD indeed because no reason for deletion was asserted, and TT basically suggested a merge with Voyage of the Damned. As deletion was not going to be either a desired or likely outcome (Nom suggests a merge and article is currently a good article nominee), I decided to close the AfD, as AfDs should only be started when actual deletion is desired. Good faith nomination, but I just think a duscussion for a merge is better suited elsewhere. — Edokter • Talk • 18:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Treasury, what you are trying to accomplish can be accomplished with appropriate merge tags. See WP:MERGE, or as DGG said, Proposed mergers. If you feel the outcome will be/should be "merge", AfD (D stands for deletion} is not the right place. You need to initiate a talkpage discussion. Yes, it's true, that sometimes a result of an AfD is merge, but it shouldn't be the stated nominator's wish. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand the actual practice here, it usually goes as follows: if you think the content though appropriate as content within an article is not worth a separate article, you should propose a merge. If consensus at the article talk page disagree, and think it is appropriate for the article to be kept separate, and you still think it does not meet our general standards for articles, then bring in back to AfD , with the intention of removing it altogether. If at this point the consensus should be a merge, the general discussion at AfD before a wider audience gives sufficient consensus for overriding the discussion at the article talk page and carrying out the merge. (alternatively, it might confirm that the article is justified as a separate article, or decide to delete, usually on the grounds that sufficient of the content is already present in the general article.) But why involve all of us of the general body of editors participating in AfD if the people working on the topic can reach a satisfactory decision by themselves? I do not favor keeping fragmentary articles when there's a better alternative--such ought generally to be merged & I think most people usually agree on that, at least as a compromise that can get a ready consensus--but we would bog down altogether if every one of the tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) that need it had to go to AfD to get it done. DGG (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you disagree with the way an AFD was handled, you can always request a deletion review. A ecis^Brievenbus 22:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested moves

Wikipedia:Requested moves is building up a hearty backlog. Some attention and assistance would be appreciated. Thanks! Vassyana (talk) 18:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It so often is: I've never understood why that page is backlogged so often. As far as admin tasks go, I would have thougt that that one is fun, and requires engagement with the material. Relata refero (talk) 23:55, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Orangemike Speedy Delete of Bernard Spitzer

Resolved

User:Orangemike has placed a speedy delete on Bernard Spitzer and earlier deleted the article arbitrarily against policy. Given that there are 16 references and a book about Spitzer who built the largest apartment in New York City. However you can read the comments on my talk page and you will see that he wants it deleted because it is not of interest outside of New York. I have asked him that if he wants to delete he should put it up for a standard afd nomination and he has refused. I am concerned that a speedy delete will destroy considerable information without a proper process. As mentioned he has already done this before on this article. I am personally surprised given some pleasant interaction between us before. This is not personal. I just want to protect the article of which there is immense interest. Americasroof (talk) 18:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Take it to deletion review. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This belongs at deletion review as suggested above.--Hu12 (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article still exists so no need for deletion review at moment. I have contested the speedy deletion as I don't think it meets the A7 speedy criteria. It is significantly better than the previous versions of the article that were speedy deleted. Suggest anyone thinking it should be deleted should take it to AFD. Davewild (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. That's really all I wanted. If the issue pops up again I will bring up the history. Thanks again for speedily resolving this. Americasroof (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ImageResizeBot‎

Due to the recent controversy over image bots, I thought I'd alert you to the request for approval of ImageResizeBot, which can be found at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ImageResizeBot‎. Please comment there to keep discussion fairly centralized. :) Thanks. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 19:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New\alternative template for requested moves page.

I just thought i would mention that i have created a template as an alternative to {{RMlink}} at {{RMlink?}} which is for those who are undecided over the new name. It is to accompany {{moveoptions}}. Just thought i would leave a note here. Simply south (talk) 19:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Harassment

Ongoing harassment by

Jbutera (talk · contribs)

including use of several sockpuppet IP addresses. User is removing tags from certain pages, spamming a commercial website that sells products. Rather than discuss the revisions, the user makes personal attacks in the revision comments, and makes personal attacks on my talk page. 74.228.158.68 (talk) 19:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide some diffs? I've had a brief look at his contribs, and have found some civility issues in his edit summaries, but I haven't found the behaviour you're talking about. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here are two from my talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A74.228.158.68&diff=198770773&oldid=197577160 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A74.228.158.68&diff=198908588&oldid=198770773

Look at the revision comments for this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chicago_Gaylords&action=history

The talk page is the most obvious. 74.228.158.68 (talk) 21:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Civility issues are obvious and Berian warned him, suggest block on next occurrence. Pls give spam diffs, I don't see them. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A Chat with the Executive Director (and other wiki folk.......)

my 'spam sense' is tingling somewhat, but I shall nervously point your attention in any case to Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly where we've just published what I think is quite an interesting conversation with Sue Gardner, our Executive Director - you can also listen to the previous chats with Danny Wool, and hear what interesting wiki types like Durova, and Raul654 sound like in the 'real world'. Oh - and if you think I bang on 'on-wiki' - you 'ain't heard nothin' yet! - Privatemusings (talk) 04:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kneesthey unblock request

Resolved

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

User Kneesthey vandalized Wikipedia:AN/I twice, replacing it with a redirect to Genital wart. The first was [18] followed by a reversion by C.Fred. Kneesthey again redirected Wikipedia:AN/I to Genital wart: [19] . I noted the reversion by C.Fred and the final warning on Kneesthey's talk page, reverted the second incident of vandalism by Kneesthey and indefinitely blocked Kneesthey for abuse of editing privileges, in that his two edits indicated he is no inexperienced editor. Kneesthey then requested the block be lifted [20] on the grounds he did not vandalize after the final warning by C.Fred, [21] which was placed after the second of the two acts of vandalism. Should I lift the block or reduce it from indefinite to a shorter block, because the final warning did not precede the second vandalism? Edison (talk) 04:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless if the account was given a final warning or not the edit pattern displayed obvious SPA, vandalism-only tendencies, I support the block. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good block. Reason for requesting unblock is not convincing, since he is clearly an experienced editor. EdJohnston (talk) 04:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would bet money this is a sock. Lots of money. Endorse indefinite block. Tanthalas39 (talk) 04:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(EC)Looks like a fine block to me. Tiptoety ^talk 04:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The user was here for no good reason. Good block. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 04:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Need help with dispute with Spellmanloves67

There seems to be a problem regarding the relevancy of materials being posted on several articles about WebCT, University of California, Irvine, Capella University. Another user, Spellmanloves67 continues to place materials about a lawsuit that does not seem relevant to the articles. When I've tried to chat with him, he seems to get very angry. I've noticed that he has been warned many times before as evidenced by the archived versions of his talk page. He also continues to erase his talk page so it is not possible to continue a discussion. I really am not sure what to do but wanted to ask for help here. Thank you very much.Sxbrown (talk) 04:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolph Valentino page

Im sorry all I am good with on Wikipedia is editing; I dont know all this admin stuff so I hope someone can help and sort this out. Its a bit of vandalisim; a bit of an edit war; and in need of protection as well (new users and vandals like to get their hands on this page). I like to keep an eye on and edit silent star pages. One such one is the Rudolph Valentino page. A new user who seems to have been involved in several edit wars before named User talk:Kevin j started adding lots of little information in hundreds of small edits; citing a fan site the first time. He left me a dirty message when I reverted one edit as it wasnt citeable and did not fit where he put it (I however left his other ones). I responsded calmly and rereverted the same edit.

The next day there was another series of small edits; he left me another nasty message before he did them saying his source was such and such book. I looked at the new edits and found them acceptable but in need of a little copyediting. So I moved some paragraphs around to flow better and took out one unciteable and hard to prove statement (whether he would have transitioned talkies or not; for certain that users statement is untrue for Valentino by his recordings had a strong Italian baratone voice). He left me ANOTHER nasty message trying to goid me into a talk page mud sling with him but I didnt reply. He then reverted my edits saying they were 'crap' and 'not cited' though all I had done was cleaned his very edits. I reverted them again but HELP please!

I have worked on many obscure pages and beefed up many silent star pages including Olive Thomas and Jack Pickford. This guy seems to do nothing but annoy people. I want some protection to the page, him to quit harassing me, and another editor to take a look at the edits that have been made and feel free to judge for themselves. Thank you. --Thegingerone (talk) 06:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the time to examine this in great detail right now, so to kick things of for other admins, this diff seems to set the tone between Kevin j (talk · contribs · logs) and Thegingerone (talk · contribs · logs) with regards to this article. While I have not yet checked all sources added here, one that jumped out at me was this one by Kevin j as a citation to describe Valentino's voice: the source discusses a seance that Valentino apparently took part in 36 years after his death. At the moment I cannot play the audio file on this page, but I cannot help but be a little sceptical about the validity of such a source.

By looking at both users' talk-pages, it should also be noted that neither participant here has an absolutely clean record in disputes like this. - 52 Pickup (deal) 10:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification

Since LeithP was the one who recommended that I face a topic ban on this noticeboard, how can he have the final say in the matter. As I see it, the community was divided - with Desione and Bobby Awasthi siding with me. If the decision had already been taken unilaterally by LeithP, what was exactly the point of this entire circus? DemolitionMan (talk) 07:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This refers to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#User:DemolitionMan thread above, if anyone needs background. Leithp 07:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears Ronmotel closed that, not Leithp. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be precise, LeithP declared the topic ban, and Ronmotel officially "closed" the thread about 45 minutes later. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Possible COI Spamming

116.71.250.162 (talk · contribs) has been adding links to inthenewspapers.net into multiple articles. On a quick glance, it does have links to a group of newspaper articles on the subject at hand, but it doesn't seem to be a very wide range of reports (for example, "Benazir Bhutto" only brings up 7 links). Bringing this here for more eyes and because admins can roll back all contributions by this IP a lot more effectively than me. Thanks. Risker (talk) 10:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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