Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:06, 28 December 2006

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A page called "Audrey Wyler's"

I need to request that any Administrator able to do so please change the name of a Wiki Article titled "Audrey Wyler's" be changed to "Audrey Wyler."

Thanks for your help. (By the way, and apologizing in advance, I am sorry if I am in the wrong Administrator's Forum to ask for a Page Change of this sort to be made.)

Thanos777 18:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't require an administrator to move most pages. You can just click on the "move" tab on the top of the page and follow the instructions. I'm not an admin but I've moved this one for you. Newyorkbrad 18:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

ALLtheTrue and filmography external link dispute

After noticing a comment by at the Village Pump I introduced myself into a dispute between 2 users and ALLtheTrue who has been adding an external link to 'dreamingwith.com' to several porn bio articles, a site containing the filmography for the actresses/actors. I tried to come across the point that IMDB is far more reliable source rather than the site he/she provides, which appears as a personal website, hoping that my input added upon the other users would pursue ALLtheTrue to stop reintroducing the external link. ALLtheTrue view on the situation is that IMDB filmography is wrong and the external link he/she provides is far more reliable/better. The extent of my conversation with the user is located at Talk:Kelle Marie and he continues to hold his/her point of view on the situation. I would like to get a suggestion on how to resolve this dispute or another user to try solve this conflict of opinion. - Tutmosis 02:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

You might want to try the Mediation Cabal or other means of dispute resolution. He/She is entitled to her opinion, no matter how...controversial it is. --physicq (c) 02:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I dont wish to go to such measures for such a small dispute, they are already busy as it is. I do understand the user is entitled to their opinion, I came here since he/she is not really clearly violating any policy therefore I would wish to see more eyes on the matter, taking in account that I may be wrong. If all else fails and the dispute escalates I would consider mediation and RFC. For now this seems solvable through discussion. - Tutmosis 03:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The site clearly fails the unverifiable research and confilct of interest qualifiers at WP:EL, and therefore should be removed. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed I tried to explain as well as others to the user but he fails to listen and re-reverts the site. Would warning the user of a possible disruption block if he continues be best at this point? - Tutmosis 03:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a request for mediation? User:Zoe|(talk) 03:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

mediation cabal case created. - Tutmosis 04:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The question is Misplaced Pages have rules for big websites and others rules for small websites, isn't it ??ALLtheTrue 12:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages has a guideline on linking at WP:EL. In general, we don't link minor porn sites. Guy (Help!) 20:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

By this way you say Misplaced Pages links reserved only for big websites ? Then, why is 💕 ?

I think what the main problem here is the fact that it contains porn, not the fact that it is a smaller website. That's what I gather from this discussion. --KindGoat 03:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Then what you gather is incorrect. Misplaced Pages is not censored. We have tons of articles about porn topics and actors. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

When that arrange you you use the rules (small websites) but for others to be unaware of them to you (big websites)ALLtheTrue 17:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I just saw this come over the recent changes page. Is this some sort of upside down world?

This was posted at the user's page:

What's up with the block, User:Yanksox? Isn't it odd when the administrators are doing the vandalism and then blocking someone else trying to fix it? See the histories for Somatopleure and Splanchnopleure. --NotYetFree 20:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Any thoughts what could be going on? --NotYetFree 20:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm, "spiteful vandal," take your choice of vandal or sock. Case closed, thanks for playing. Yanksox 20:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand. Are you saying you decided to support a vandal over a sockpuppet? This just raises more questions. --WeAreTheOnes 20:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

This one's blocked. --Deskana (talk) 21:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I blocked a whole sockfarm, and two IPs. If it continues, let me know. Essjay (Talk) 21:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

This has actually been going on a long time since you did the 2 December checkuser, Essjay. Every day another half dozen usernames get added to Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Cplot.--Kchase T 21:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Oy, Cplot. How lovely. Keep them coming to the RFCU and we'll keep blocking. Essjay (Talk) 21:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me, because I don't mean to stir the pot. The matter has been settled, and I have no wish to re-open it. However, if I could get some clarification on the issues it raised (I haven't looked at the user's history), it would be helpful to me. My understanding is that sockpuppetry per se isn't an actionable offense as long as the sockpuppet is not abusive. I know that it can't be used to evade a block or ban, but isn't kind of a poor man's "right to disappear"? I understand wanting to nip problems in the bud, but if a user appears to be editing constructively, even on articles he/she has edited in the past, what's the harm in letting them go on for a bit just watch them? I ask because I have seen a couple of these questionable calls lately, and I don't really understand. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 16:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I mean block the sockpuppet if necessary. But why go vandalize the constructive edits the sockpuppet made? -- Tbeatty 17:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

<comments by sock of banned usere removed> User:Zoe|(talk) 23:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

See the policy on Banned users. Banned users are not welcome here, period, and all their edits may be reverted on sight. Waterboarder (talk · contribs) first two edits were not trolling, but then he goes right back to where he left off the day before with Listen to the music now (talk · contribs). We've had enough, and he's not welcome. Thatcher131 23:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

keep your eye on ShoYoAss (talk · contribs), who has started out the same way as Waterboarder. The user name might be problematic, as well. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up to Vandalism on Main Page

This post is a follow-up to the vandalism recently seen on the Main page. Unlike the other template vandalism seen recently, this one was because a page transcluded onto the Main page was left unprotected when it shouldn't have been. Discussion of this seems to have taken place mostly at the following three locations:

• Talk:Main_Page#Vandalism
• WP:AN#Main_Page_vandalism
• WP:ANI#Vandalism on Main Page

Following the vandalism and discussions described and linked above, I thought I'd look ahead through the templates and see how far ahead the protection extends for the content of the five templates with changing content, I've come up with the following regarding protection status:

• Misplaced Pages:POTD row is transcluded in the form of a page with the title]. These pages are created for each day, and have currently been created up to and including 24th January. They seem to be edited for a bit and then protected. The current status is that they are protected up to and including 11 January 2007. Pages have been created for 12-24th January, but haven't been protected yet. I've left a note at Wikipedia_talk:Picture_of_the_day#Protection_of_PotD_row.
• Misplaced Pages:Selected_anniversaries is transcluded in the form of a page with the title ]. It looks like these pages already exist for the entire year and are reused each year (ie. they do not need to be created). They are currently protected up until 31 December. As this is a cyclic system (unlike the POTD and FA systems), the pages seem to be unprotected as soon as they leave the main page, so they can be edited for the next appearance and for where-ever else they appear (other pages and via the random featured content generator).
• Misplaced Pages:Today's featured article is transcluded in the form of a page with the title]. These pages are created for each day, and have currently been created up to 31 March. They have been selected up to and including 27 December, and are protected up to 31 December.
• Misplaced Pages:Did you know and Misplaced Pages:In the news are collections of short items that are added directly to a template, and so there is not a succesMisplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Shadowbot2sion of pages to protect in the same way as is done for the other three sections. The main concern here is remembering to protect images used in those templates, just as for the images used in the other three sections.

So, following all this, what is the best way to make it less likely that one of these images or one of these pages is not left unprotected again in the future?

The current systems seem to operate in three ways:

• (1) A team of people working on it. The team then has to have a way of indicating to others on the team that a protection has been done, but when protection is not done and no-one notices, then vandals notice instead.
• (2) One person takes primary responsibility, as with the Featured Article. From what I can see, Raul, as Featured Article Director, selects the featured article for a particular day and updates the template and protects it. As long as the person responsible doesn't forget, this works fine.
• (3) Anyone adding an image to a page or template that will appear on the Main page is expected to remember to protect it. Not sure what fail-safes are in place here.

One proposal at the moment is to have a bot generate a list of transcluded items on the Main Page (and the featured article) and say whether or not they are protected, and then alert someone if they are not protected. See Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Shadowbot2.

I posted this here, because I don't think Talk:Main page is appropriate. If there is a more suitable location for this to be discussed, please copy this there and direct discussion there. Thanks. Carcharoth 22:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, and I don't know how to even check to see if a template is protected, but if there is any grunt work to be done that I can help with I'd be happy to, reply here or on my talkpage. I can do a bit each day or whatever. Anchoress 22:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A few other administrators and myself used to take responsibility for this; I usually logged in right after the day changed in UTC and protected the next day's images and templates and unprotected those now off the Main Page. After a few months, the other administrators had taken some of the slack, per se, and I stopped my routine of protecting and unprotecting. This method of having a few people taking care of doing protection and unprotection worked well, as it was rare that one of us wouldn't be able to do the job. I think this method would be still be acceptable and should continue: human oversight would always be there. (Anchoress and other non-admins: if you ever notice a template or image not protected, you can notify an administrator immediately, hopefully in a non-discreet manner.) However, a bot assisting us in this capacity would make the process easier and more failproof. While I'm not too sure having the bot actually protect the page is a good idea, given vulnerabilities for technical mistakes, etc., a bot could easily double-check the work and alert certain whitelisted administrators via email if a current image or template was not protected. (See the bot's proposal page.) On a related note, I will also attempt to help out more often now and return to my routine of protection and unprotection; the more eyes, the better it is. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Flcelloguy: Thanks for posting the 'hopefully in a non-discreet manner' comment, because I have a (general) response. When, early this morning Pacific time, I saw the first warning about the image, I had been watching my watchlist (which lists most of the major admin pages) and had noticed that there were almost no admins posting, so in the interest of getting the word out as quickly as possible, I posted in several places, including the talkpage of the admin who'd most recently posted anywhere (that I could see), and also to the AIV page, an action which resulted in this gentle scolding, in the edit summary. I'm not hurt or offended by the comment, but I think it should be agreed-upon that, when these vandals strike (especially when it's early Sunday + Xmas eve morning and not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse), it is of not only primary importance, but almost sole importance, to get the giant diseased scrotum or whatever removed ASAP. Particularly since this is an unique type of vandalism, where just knowing where it is isn't enough, just knowing that it exists isn't enough, the more help the merrier is the remedy until the second the image is found and removed. I might not have been so quick to post there (AIV) at 6pm on a Wednesday night (although I probably would have after a few minutes if the image wasn't gone), but I don't think such actions should be looked upon as a misuse of the project pages, not in this specific type of instance. Anchoress 04:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Voice of All has a bot on RFP that checks for protections/unprotections; perhaps it would be possible for the same code to be used and pointed at anything transcluded to the main page. Is there a staging ground where the next day's main page is prepared, where the bot could scan the day ahead and there would be 24 hours for all the pages/images to be protected? Essjay (Talk) 23:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The closest thing to a "staging area" is {{Main Page toolbox}}; it links the current, previous, and next templates of all the Main Page-transcluded templates that change. Perhaps Voice of All and Shadow1 could work together in coding the bot? (Although my impression is that the Shadowbot2 is already coded and programmed, though I could be wrong.) Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

There is Main Page/Tomorrow which transcludes the next day's templates, as its name describes. Kimchi.sg 00:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Great idea! I've suggested this over at Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Shadowbot2, and the bot reports are running already. I won't link to them though. Carcharoth 00:42, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The main problem with a team system is when people drift away or move on. It needs to be made clear to whatever small team does this that there is a short, simple checklist to follow and once you have done it, you tick a list somewhere to confirm that you have done it. And the key is to make sure that if you can't do it, that you pass the baton on to someone else. Probably a buddy system would help as well. Two people marked down to do this everyday, and if one is ill or whatever, the other one should be able to step in to the breach. The bot would be good as this fail-safe system, but really needs to alert people before the pages are transcluded onto the Main page, so it should be given a 'future' list to work with, plus a bot to scan image links more frequently than daily. Carcharoth 22:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that images used on the main page, especially for 'In the news', are changed quite regularly, maybe every couple of hours, not just every day. The regulars at the moment know that protecting the images is essential, but you have to try and have a warning system that still works when humans make mistakes, forget things, or move on without training a replacement. There are really, though, only three pages that need checking 24 hours before:

• TFA - tomorrow's featured article section
• SA - tomorrow's selected anniversaries section
• POTD - tomorrow's featured picture of the day section

Which codes as:

• ]
• ]
• ]

The other main page transclusions are watched and edited actively, but these sections are: (a) created in advance; (b) sometimes edited before protection; (c) sometimes prepared days or weeks in advance; (d) because they are prepared in advance, double-checking for protection is not always done. Carcharoth 00:30, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

If it's possible to detect what is protected on the page, would it be technically possible to prevent the page or any subsidiary template from saving if anything in it was unprotected, similar to the url spam blacklist?--Kchase T 00:46, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

• One change which might make this alot easier would be to show the 'protection status' next to each transcluded page in the list which is given when you are editing the page they are transcluded onto. In such case any admin who clicked 'edit' on the Main page would immediately see a list of component pages and whether any of them were not protected. This would also be helpful for tracking vandalism on the 'article of the day'. --CBD 14:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• Good idea. I've created bugzilla:8392. --Ligulem 15:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there any way to extend this to images? Is there any easy way to prevent someone accidentally inline linking to an unprotected image that is used in a sensitive area? Without alerting vandals? Carcharoth 02:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, theoretically it might be possible to have images brought in by each template listed under them. Something like;

• Template:Tl (semi-protected)
• Template:Tomorrow (unprotected)
  • Image:Sunrise.jpg (protected)
• Template:Ifnot (unprotected)

Of course, that could get to be a pretty involved list with protection status of all templates and images displayed. At that point I might suggest moving it off the 'edit' page to a separate 'page inclusion map' linked from each page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CBDunkerson (talk • contribs) 19:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

That would be good. If done at the software level, that would detect this sort of thing faster than a bot that runs every hour or so. A bot could maybe check the list generated by the software and alert people if anything was unprotected. Could an alert be programmed into the software? Like the alerts that tell people if they've forgotten to subst a template that needs subst'ing? Carcharoth 15:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A flubup on my part, demonstrating the point.

Good analysis Carcharoth. Just as a note, the vandals do watch this stuff. I updated DYK a bit ago and bobbled the image protection. Image:US National Christmas Tree 1923.jpg was protected on commons but I forgot to protect it here on en:wp... the updating admin for DYK is supposed to make sure that gets done properly, and in this case, I didn't do that. My apologies for that. Thanks to user:Mark for being on the ball though, and taking quick action. ++Lar: t/c 11:01, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah. You mean this and this? We are all human and such slips will happen. That is the the important point here. The bot that has been written to check protections should be able to catch such human mistakes and forgetfulness in future. I think that is preferable to putting pressure on the admins responsible to not forget, and to hoping that vandals won't twig about how they can do stuff like this. The bot can check the templates that change on the Main Page, but the images (which can change anytime) are more of a problem. I wonder if there is a technical tweak that can be done so that a page can be marked to only display protected images and ignore unprotected images. Possibly something like a new namespace like Protected image:example? Carcharoth 02:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

When will this thread be archived?

I'm slightly concerned, as this took place over a holiday period, that this thread will be archived before many people have had a chance to see it. Is there a way to, in general, reduced the frequency with which the bots archive when a holiday period comes round, or is it really the resopnsibility of individual editors to dig around in archives and get themselves up to speed on what happened if they have been away for a few days? Carcharoth 12:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

My recollection is that threads get archived after a set period (two days?) of inactivity. If people are still commenting then it shouldn't be archived. --CBD 14:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Carcharoth 02:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

An edit a day keeps the bot away. :-) -- PFHLai 16:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Santa on Sleigh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

In brief, user considers him/herself a bringer of humor per this former edition of the talk page. The user's only edits have been to promote holiday humor or bemoan the lack thereof, through last February, reappearing (appropriately) today; not a single constructive edit to the encyclopedia can be found among the user's edits. Therefore, to me, this user epitomizes WP:TROLL. Comments welcome. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 04:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I know it is supposed to be a play on Willy on Wheels, but he posted once today and mentioned that he won't be doing the same stuff as he did last year due to the lack of AGF shown by the community. I won't do the blocking, but I will not be upset if he is. User:Zscout370 04:11, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

While this block might evoke images of Scrooge I completely agree with it. This is a perfect example of trollery. (→Netscott) 04:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Endorse the block, given the lack of constructive edits. --Coredesat 04:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC) No longer endorse the block. --Coredesat 06:29, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Endorse the block. No point in letting Santa get around this Christmas :). In all seriousness, though, accounts doing nothing to contribute to Misplaced Pages should be blocked. alphachimp. 04:29, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow...Blocking santa...Somebody's getting a lump of coal. Just H 02:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Hoping that Santa is listening, here are my thoughts: If he's not causing any disruption, and is spreading good will, then there is no cause for blocking. Leaving positive messages for other users does benefit the encyclopedia, and does so much more so than some of the other holiday antics around here, like the things that many people do on April Fool's Day. If the user has become disenchanted due to last year, then I would advise that the person responsible for the account leave it dormant, rather than spreading any ill will. If Santa would like to go and leave users presents (I would suggest limiting himself to those who he gave presents to last year and who expressed appreciation, either on his or thier own talk pages), then more power to him. If not, as I said before, the account should just go dormant, rather than stirring up any kind of disharmony. I think blocking the account will do exactly the same, and would encourage those thinking about doing so to ask themselves "Am I really doing Misplaced Pages a favor in doing this, since I know how much discord doing so will bring?" Essjay (Talk) 04:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

"Santa" was blocked about an hour ago. From what I can see, other than a couple of messages on the noticeboards, he (I'll deem the Santa character to be male) was in the process of responding (with tailored and measured responses) to 5 users who had posted "wishes" on his userpage. I think leaving this go would have been harmless, though I will admit that I wasn't around last year and can only get a sense of what happened through reading the contribs log.

It's obvious that "Santa" was being played by a regular user, who knows many of us here, and that the "lack of constructive edits" pertains to this special-occasion account and not the user as a person. I would urge unblocking now, not so much because I want a present, but so as not to embarrass whoever might otherwise get caught behind the autoblock. Newyorkbrad 04:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I've released the resulting autoblock, as there is no reason to think someone who is obviously a regular (and dedicated, to have been here at least a year) contributor will cause any problems necessitating an autoblock. While I won't unblock Santa, I will say I'm deeply disappointed at the decision to place the block. Essjay (Talk) 04:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

From what I remember of last year's incidents I think he's (Santa on Sleigh) right - we need to assume good faith a bit more, and would support an unblock. – Chacor 05:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think his comments were trolling; bad attempt at humour perhaps, but not trolling. Kimchi.sg 05:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

How does it benefit us to have accounts that do nothing to contribute to our articles? alphachimp. 05:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The same way, how does having WP:EA, or user autograph pages, benefit the encyclopedia? You might be interested in Jimbo's comment on WP:EA and user autograph pages... – Chacor 05:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not unwilling to suppose that Santa is a bona fide alternate account. Kimchi.sg 05:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, absolutely the EA thing is a good point. I guess this all really gets back to the debate about the full extent of community that should be allowed to develop on Misplaced Pages. Quite frankly, I don't really have much of an opinion on it. alphachimp. 05:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that Santa has now been unblocked, although so far there's no note about it on his talkpage or userpage, so he probably doesn't know it yet. I suspect that the moment has been lost, anyhow. :( Newyorkbrad 05:25, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

My mistake... <|:o) Kimchi.sg 05:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I would like User:Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh to explain the unblock with no discussion with me whatsoever; not one single edit to Misplaced Pages by this editor furthers the encyclopedia in any manner whatsoever, and the user's edits define WP:TROLL. I must also ask User:Essjay to review the edit history of an editor who has "been here at least a year" and, at the same time, explain the 10-month absence. The user was previously blocked, then unblocked per WP:AGF; then, this user failed all manner of the assumption of good faith. Is there an explanation? RadioKirk (u|t|c) 05:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should WP:AGF a little. Did you read Jimbo's comment I linked? If you haven't, please do. I think that based on that comment it's fair to unblock. – Chacor 05:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

With all respect, perhaps you should read WP:AGF, which makes clear that the assumption of good faith cannot trump the overwhelming evidence to its contrary. Not one edit by this user is productive in any way; every edit is intended to be either humorous or damning of its lack by Misplaced Pages editors; if there is a more obvious example of WP:TROLL, I've not seen it. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 05:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Since I'm being called out by name here, I'll respond. First, I don't think any of us believe that this is the only account this user is using; to have come in all of a sudden and picked the list of people that were messaged last year is far beyond the scope of coincidence. There is obviously an established user behind this account, one who knows many people, and who makes regular contributions to the site. The fact that this seasonal sockpuppet does not edit in the non-Christmas season is irrelevant; the editor responsible for it obviously does. Beyond that, I see no evidence that the unblocks were a result of AGF; they pretty clearly state they are reversing unjustified blocks made outside of policy. (We don't block to enfore wikibreaks, see WP:BLOCK.) I'd suggest everybody step back at this point, as this has already caused far more discord than the edits of the user, and it will only cause more if it continues. Essjay (Talk) 05:54, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, though I note that the account is reblocked as of now, so I guess this now qualifies as something of a wheel-war over Santa Claus. Newyorkbrad 06:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The blocks may or may not have been attributed to the correct policy, based on the history of this particular, as you put it, "sockpuppet", and yet, with every respect to everyone involved, including those named within this discussion, they remain no less correct, and remain no less improperly unblocked (not a wheel war, an improper unblock) sans discussion. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Reblocking someone who's been unblocked (both the unblock and reblock without discussion) most certainly is wheel-warring. – Chacor 06:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

You assume that the reblock is done sans discussion. That is incorrect, the unblock required discussion in the first place; the reblock restores the issue prior to the lack of discussion thereof. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Please don't attempt to wikilawyer. While the unblock was not discussed you should not have restored the block without further discussion either. Admins have been sanctioned in the past for this. – Chacor 06:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Then I'll be "sanctioned" here. I'm correct, and the other editor was incorrect, in my view. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

If he posts on the talkpages of people who actually want him there, by all means let him do so, as I see no harm. If he's posting with wild abandon, however, then I would impose a block. This is my opinion. --physicq (c) 06:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a single edit to the encyclopedia, and annual, Christmas-themed edits to those who do (and do not) embody this user's definition of its "spirit"? What else, if not this, defines WP:TROLL? RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Do the talk pages he posts on belong to editors that want him there? Most importantly, is he disrupting Misplaced Pages? --physicq (c) 06:12, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm lost; this is even up for debate? RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

You submitted this report, people disagree with your actions, you defended said actions, so technically yes, this is a debate. Merry Christmas! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Physicq210 (talk • contribs) 06:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

An unblock outside policy and guideline is not a "debate". RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Should we then get rid of Concordia, and Esperanza, and unencyclopedic user subpages then? Seriously now. WP:TROLL does not seem to be an accepted description of his edits by anyone but yourself and Netscott. – Chacor 06:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, indeed, comparing the unproductive edits of an apparent troll with projects that further the encyclopedia... RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

As the only person who's pushing ahead with this, your single opinion that he's been WP:TROLLing doesn't count for much (neither does my opinion that he isn't). Your reblock as such - that his edits are trolling - was clearly misplaced, however, and you should stand up and admit that you were wrong in wheel warring. – Chacor 06:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Hardly my "single opinion" per the responses hereto, you should in fact admit that the unblock without prior discussion was the one and only improper action herein. A "wheel war" requires two people acting within policy and guideline; Awyong Jeffrey Mordecai Salleh's action fails both. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 06:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. That fits no definition of wheel warring at all (and there is no such thing as an in-policy wheel war). You don't get a free pass to edit war or wheel war or anything else just because you think you were right, or even if you were. We have ways of dealing with cnflicts other than hitting back, and no administrator should be engaging in combative reversions, even when provoked. If you need a policy, perhaps you should read the same page you linked, beginning with "Block wars, in which a user is repeatedly blocked and unblocked, are extremely harmful...". Wheel warring is what you've done: stale reversions of fellow administrators without talking. You are responsible for escalation and responding with disrespect in kind. Dmcdevit·t 08:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely, a perfect description of the unblock. Thank you. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 08:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome; it was meant to be. The unblock was disrespectful. And, I repeat, you are responsible for escalation by responding with disrespect in kind. Dmcdevit·t 08:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This thread has to be the most un-Christmas conversation on Misplaced Pages. Merry Christmas to everyone (including trolls, vandals, Santa the whom-RadioKirk-calls-a-troll, IP addresses, editors, administrators, bureaucrats, stewards, developers, Jimbo Wales, and everyone else who have no involvement on Misplaced Pages)! --physicq (c) 06:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Lovely sentiment, Physicq. It appears, however, that our friend Santa is probably too busy to bother with Misplaced Pages now. According to NORAD, this is where he is at now . Hmmm...NORAD tracks Santa, Misplaced Pages blocks him...Merry Christmas all. Risker 06:49, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The NWS claims differently ;P – Chacor 06:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe that there is an argument going on over this. It is harmless. Get a grip. ... and what if it really is santa??? I bet blocking santa gets you double coal.--Gmaxwell 07:54, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm not big into Christmas, but c'mon, this is completely harmless. Who does it hurt? No one if Santa is only posting on people's pages who want him there. And who is he helping? Everyone who's spirits are brightened as a result. Seriously, some editors really need to stop being such kill-joys. Ungovernable Force 08:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Trolling is harmless? I'd have sworn we were writing an encyclopedia... RadioKirk (u|t|c) 08:23, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but who is being hurt? You keep citing policies but you are not saying how this is actually harmful. A few years ago you could have cited laws in certain US states that said oral sex between two men was illegal, but you'd be hard-pressed to show how it actually hurt anyone. You are merely referencing policies, but in case you don't know, as an anarchist I don't give a damn about generalized policies; I only care about individual situations. And again I ask, who is hurt by this? Ungovernable Force 08:34, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The encyclopedia; and, as a libertarian, I find your "anarchist" argument non sequitur at best. The issue remains that, as I brought a block here for discussion, an editor who decides to unblock absent discussion had better have a damned good reason, and it simply didn't exist. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 08:49, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not a non-sequitur. All you are doing is citing policy for policies sake and not giving any reason as to how this individual situation is harmful to the project. You seem to be trying to enforce policy merely because is is policy, but you are not saying why it needs to be enforced. Ungovernable Force 09:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I unblocked because there was sentiment by Essjay and Newyorkbrad that the rationale for your block was weak. Whatever... the energy you expend into defending your block is now costing us more time than any disruption the troll cause. EOD. Kimchi.sg 08:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Consensus to me looks like we are not in favor of this user's being blocked. There. I have discussed an action I would like to take, that of unblocking this user. I have not seen any example of this user's activity that justifies this block, and the existence of features on Misplaced Pages designed to build community and cheer up other Wikipedians, as well as Jimbo Wales' comments about autograph books lead me to believe that this user needs to be unblocked. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Most people seem to be in support of unblocking this user as far as I can tell. And as mentioned earlier, there had been discussion and some people felt the block was not needed. Ungovernable Force 09:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I have unblocked this user. Does everyone realize how bizarre this situation will look to outsiders? This will probably be picked up by a news source, even if it is some hack columnist in England (Everything negative that I have read about Misplaced Pages seems to come from newspaper hacks who happen to be English). This is like Miracle on 34th Street: RadioKirk, you need to recognize the mail sacks that these other admins have hauled into the courtroom. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Give me a break... RadioKirk (u|t|c) 17:23, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The consensus was clearly in favor of unblocking at the time it was performed, no matter what Kirk is trying to say after the fact. I do think his comments, actions, and attitude are mystifying and slightly worrying coming from an administrator. Regards, —bbatsell ¿? 17:38, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

At the time the user was unblocked without discussion, four others endorsed the block; the only one who didn't was the one who performed the unblock. Worry all you want... RadioKirk (u|t|c) 17:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Um. You blocked User:Santa on Sleigh. At Christmas. And there was more penis vandalism on the Main Page this morning. This place is going to the dogs... – Gurch 21:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I am a bit disturbed that Admin's attention are being diverted from serious threats to the Project that actually damage Misplaced Pages's credibility with a debate on whether a user trying to promote holiday cheer is a troll. Agne 08:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

RadioKirk advances fallacious logic. He claims a=b and b=c so a=c. Apples are fruit and oranges are fruit so apples are oranges. Santa=troll and troll=bad so Santa=bad. Worse, he constructs the first part of his fallacious equation from a hasty conclusion and somewhat of an argument of authority, or maybe more like begging the question. He declares Santa's activities to be trolling, based on his authority to declare it so, or just begging it so. Beyond the simple declaration of his conclusion, his assumption draws a hasty conclusion that if trolls act in a certain way, all others who act in that same way must also be trolls. Apples have red skin and are white inside, but not all things with red skin that are white inside are apples. Is this debate about strength for reasoning, or about status in a social context? 1 thang 06:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It is a bit odd that this time last year the user made dozens of edits without incident (well, except for a 364 day "enforced wikibreak" block the next day, which was only a joke – Gurch 13:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Major backlog at WP:SSP

Some cases there were from over a month ago, someone needs to go, have a look, and clean it up. ♥ Fredil`

I closed 7 cases yesterday and merged 2 into 1 and closed another 2 today. In all of these, the fate of the users involved have already been sealed. However, some admins are needed over there to get rid of this backlog. MER-C 03:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm also helping out at WP:SSP, just like MER-C is. A lot of the cases that I can't close right now are pretty obvious, so it shouldn't take much from an administrator to finish up a lot of the cases without further investigation. // I c e d K o l a 23:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Discrepancy between WP:COI and Reward Board

I'm confused. Conflict of interest policy states that financial payment to edit should be discouraged. But at the Reward Board, it is encouraged? How does the Misplaced Pages community resolve this disconnect? --JossBuckle Swami 00:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedians are not Borg. People disagree. --CBD 12:24, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The Conflict of interest page lists financial motives as a conflict of interest primarily to make it clear that organizations offering to write Misplaced Pages articles in exchange for payment are not welcomed; see User:MyWikiBiz and the associated debate – Gurch 00:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:COI also covers employees of a business adding articles about their employer as well as other close relationships. The WP:Reward board presumes that editors have no prior relationship with or interest in the article subjects. -Will Beback · † · 00:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Also note that WP:COI is an official guideline of Misplaced Pages, while WP:REWARD is just an idea put together by a few people and does not carry any specific meaning besides being an idea put together by a few people (a poor one IMO) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Tasogare51 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

A false-information vandal. Be sure to check all contribs carefully after blocking.--Azer Red Si? 00:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

You sure you meant Tasogare51? His contributions look fine to me. —Mets501 (talk) 03:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

At first blush his contribs look reasonable to me too, and I don't see any comments on his talkpage. Can you give some specific examples of what you think is the problem? Newyorkbrad 04:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's one I saw.--Azer Red Si? 14:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

That does look like a bad edit, but it was the user's first edit and it dates from February. Is there anything problematic since then? If not, I suggest that you raise your concern directly with the user (I don't see any warnings on his talkpage, which is still a redlink) and come back only if there is another problem. Newyorkbrad 17:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Asher Heimermann (talk · contribs)

• Talk page archive A
• Talk page archive B

I'm sorry it's come to this, but he's started up his antics again and I think it's getting to the point where he's exhausting community patience. Some background: Asher, a middle schooler, originally edited under Resources of Sheboygan Club (talk · contribs), creating vanity pages such as The Resources of Sheboygan Club and Asher Heimermann. He switched over to his current Asher Heimermann username and recreated Asher Heimermann. He tried to use a meatpuppet to sway the AfD. For some reason, he decided to go on a welcoming spree, welcoming blatant vandals, non-existent users, and giving blatant vandal warnings to good users. A lot of us tried to help him out (see the talk page archive) but to no avail; he just refused to listen to any of our pleas to stop his welcoming. He also used another account NumLee (talk · contribs) to recreate his autobiography at Asher Luke Heimermann (deleted per Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Asher Luke Heimermann).

Eventually, he moved on to actually contributing to articles, and he copied and pasted directly from IMDB. I warned not to do it again, but he ignored me and did so again. At that point I gave him a harsh warning to stop his continued disruption, but was accused of WP:BITE.

Finally, User:David Levy gave him a final warning which seemed to work for a while. User:Rockpocket was also kind enough to adopt him. Asher stopped editing for a few weeks, and we all started to move on, but he just started up revert warring on John H. Cox by continuously inserting a vanity sentence into the article: . I don't know what exactly to do; he's exhausted my patience...looking for the wider community for help. Gzkn 01:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and he's started welcoming users again... Gzkn 01:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Also in the last hour or so, Asher has:

• Recreated Asher Heimermann as a cross-namespace redirect to his user page.
• Requested that his original account be deleted.
• Created Wisconsin Teenage Republicans (of which he is the president apparently).

My patience, too, has worn very, very thin. Metros232 01:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

At first glance, I thought it was just another teenager. But given contributions like (threatening not to contribute to the Wikimedia foundation) and the edit summary here: (precisely the kind of edit summary which shows he's not being careful), I would say this user could use a break to realize that he can't contintually run amock of our policies (e.g., creating an article about himself and adding himself to other articles after being asked not to). I support some sort of block. Patstuart 01:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I DO NOT a block at all. Asher Heimermann 02:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The user is making vandalism edits like this attempted redirect of a disambiguation page Sheboygan to ]: . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hu (talk • contribs)

More disconcerting edits: and Gzkn 02:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I gave Asher a final warning for civility for the comment he left at Hu's talk page and reverted the comment. Metros232 02:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocked. After this edit, I blocked Asher for 3 days for disruption. He was already skating really thin ice and this edit was just another disruptive edit. It forces other users to go to respond to his help-me plea who will only give him the same basic information I just gave him. Metros232 03:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm extending the block to a week now after Asher, Jr. (talk · contribs) appeared. Metros232 03:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

This is the only person who sweet talked me into removing a speedy delete tag, and this is the only person that I took to AIV twice and both times my request for block were denied, I kept getting told to be patient and not to pick on him. that he would improve. I think not. He has not shown that he learned anything from previous errors, and a week is much too short, something like 50 years would be about right. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 04:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm not going to argue with any admin who chooses to extend the block I placed on him. Metros232 04:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

(2 edit conflicts) I have quite a few of the Sheboygan city and area pages on my watchlist (as a former resident), so I'll continue to watch the pages for unusual activity. Asher sure tests everyone's patience. I don't think that Asher has bad intentions. I changed Asher's welcome signature to mine on the welcome pages for the more credible contributors that he welcomed. I wish that he would follow everyone's suggestion to use a username instead of real name. Royalbroil 04:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

p.s. Cancel comment on intentions. No implications of bad intentions.Royalbroil 04:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's right to change another user's signature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Resources of Sheboygan Club (talk • contribs) 04:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Per this, the above is another sockpuppet being used to evade a block.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I thank everyone for their prompt attention to this matter. I just added my signature so that a new user wouldn't get blocked user. Royalbroil 04:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

And now Resources of Sheboygan Club (talk · contribs) has been blocked indefinitely for block evasion by Asher. Metros232 04:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the block length, he should definitely be required to change username before editing again. For his own protection we shouldn't allow Google to accumulate more cites under his real name to discussions like this one, no matter how big a pain in the neck he is being (I write as one of the people who first tried to help). Newyorkbrad 04:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

This was also mentioned a short while back (perhaps it was you actually) in regards to Asher being a minor and using one's name as an internet handle is probably not the best idea for someone of his age. Metros232 04:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree. Also, be wary of edits coming from the 209.103.228.* range, as Asher has edited quite often from those IP addresses in the past. Gzkn 05:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Better late than never... After Asher's last round of conflicts I offered to adopt him. Its proving pretty difficult as he doesn't really engage then, when the fancy takes him, he appears to contribute in a flurry of activity. Unfortunately I missed the latest round, as I was off for a short Christmas Wikibreak. I would suggest we allow him to see out his current block then, on his return, determine whether he is willing to engage for some Wikitutoring. If he is willing to work with me, then I will make it very clear that he is close to exhausting the community's patience and that any further misbehaviour will not be tolerated. If, after numerous offers of help and even more warnings, he will not follow the rules, its difficult to see beyond an indefinate block. Rockpocket 03:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

GurchBot 2 messed up our archives!

GurchBot 2 (talk · contribs) moved all archives with non-standard names to standarized names. E.g. changing "Archive12" to "Archive 12" and leaving a redirect behind. By so doing, GurchBot 2 has messed up the archives at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mathematics and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics and probably many others which use Werdnabot to archive their talk pages. It did not change the Werdnabot invocations to show the new file name for the current archive so Werdnabot added the archived material to the redirects which were left behind. Also, a minor point, GurchBot 2 did not change the archive lists to point at the new file names so they are now all going thru the redirects. This is a real mess. JRSpriggs 04:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if {{sofixit}} is the appropriate response here. Archive standardization is the approved task for the bot and is probably a necessary task, but if it is conflicting with any other archiving bots, such as Werdnabot, then the latter need to be changed to update this so that the two bots do not keep on conflicting with each other. Problems with Gurchbot 2 should go to Gurch, and if Werdnabot needs to be changed, Werdna needs to be informed. (I've directed both of them to this thread, since it seems like both their bots will need a little modification to avoid the conflict.) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I apologize, further reading does show a deeper issue here, but I doubt anything on the programming front will change this. This just looks like something that needs to be caught before it happens (unless there is a way for Werdnabot to not ignore the redirect being performed).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 04:24, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Update. I fixed this for the Math and Physics projects and left messages with both Gurch and Werdna. But the damage is done already for many people. What needs to be done is to notify them to repair their Werdnabot invocations and archives before the problem becomes compounded. I do not know how to broadcast such a message. JRSpriggs 05:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

A couple of notes: all automatically-archived pages are in Category:Discussion pages automatically archived by Werdnabot. This seems to be under 400 pages. Also, GurchBot 2 is/was on a 2 day, non-repeating run, so this should not be a problem beyond those two days. Mike Peel 07:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

In fact most of those are userspace archives, which the bot hasn't moved – as far as I'm concerned users are free to do whatever they want with their old discussions; elsewhere, though, there should be some consistency. So only a handful of pages are affected, mostly WikiProjects. (Automated archiving isn't currently permitted on article discussion pages) – Gurch 13:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Erk! That'll teach me to leave a job half-done. The need to check Werdnabot instructions was in the back of my mind, and I was intenting to get the "tidying up" done a lot sooner, but unfortunately other things (i.e. Christmas) have been holding me up. I'll try to find time for it later today. The bot has finished running now, though I'm going to move a few more pages manually.

In response to the posts above:

Changes to the instructions to Werdnabot on some five talk pages will be necessary. I take full responsibility for this and will do it as soon as I have time; of course, anyone is welcome to fix the situation if they get there first. Werdna is not at fault here, please don't pester him.

Neither my bot nor Werndabot will need code changes. My bot has finished running and will not run again until a new task is approved. Werdnabot simply moves comments wherever it is instructed; the instruction rather than the bot needs to be changed. If the bot has archived comments to the wrong page, revert its edits, archive the comments to the correct page and change the path of the archive in the instruction to the bot. If you don't know how to do this, don't worry; I will do it myself within the next 24 hours.

I apologize for the delay – Gurch 12:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The affected pages (all five of them) are now fixed – Gurch 18:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

To Gurch: Thank you for taking responsibility and fixing this so quickly. I am sorry that I over-estimated the severity of the problem (I had assumed that user talk pages would also be affected). JRSpriggs 03:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Sock/meatpuppet policy clarification

This isn't on AN/I because I'm not reporting anyone, in the interests of not coloring reputation unnecessarily. On the other hand, this is not a hypothetical, and does involve actual account activity.

In short, is there any problem with an editor who is an acknowledged real-life contact of an indef-blocked user who is known to have evaded block with a litany of socks? I'm not familiar with where administrative consensus draws the line between assuming good faith and proactive attention to potential blocked-user puppetry, and I could certainly make convincing arguments here in either direction.

Thoughts? Serpent's Choice 07:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Just knowing someone who has vandalised Misplaced Pages is no reason to block anyone. In fact, I'll bet most of us know someone who's vandalised (I certainly do). Mak (talk) 07:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Editors should not be acting as a proxy for a banned user (making edits on behalf of). In one case last year, an administrator was de-adminned for allegedly making edits at the request of a banned user. Just being acquainted with a banned user is not a problem. If you think someone is acting as a proxy, you should probably let us in on the details, or inform the arbitration committee privately. Thatcher131 08:15, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

It comes down to actions. If the person knows the banned user, we can't go with guilt by association, but if the person acts like the banned user, even just "sometimes," we have to come down with the hammer of Thor. Basically, actions got the ban, and actions indicate meat puppetry. Presumably it was never a point of view that caused a ban, but the way that a point of view was operated. Watch out for, though, the infamous "I told my password to my buddy" or the "I was in the bathroom, and my buddy must have gotten on my computer" dodge. That is not tolerable. Geogre 02:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

User reverting image copyvio/no-source tags

User:Venu62 is reverting copyvio tagged images

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Image%3AWallajah.jpg&diff=96463659&oldid=96423743
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Image%3AMadras_famine_1877.jpg&diff=96458878&oldid=96423290
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Image%3ATanjore-Serfoji-II.jpg&diff=96459027&oldid=96424426
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Image%3AGingee.jpg&diff=96459064&oldid=96421984
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Image%3AMadras_Prov_South_1909.jpg&diff=96459193&oldid=96423474

These images are either directly taken from websites with copyrights or those which have not explicitly released their rights. ­ ॐ Kris (☎ talk | contribs) 14:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

All the above artwork images have the appropriate {{pd-art}} tags for licencing. Parthi 19:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

All of then have source information as well. Parthi 19:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I notice a problem. I am looking at this page from the museum and I am thinking we might not be able to use the images. User:Zscout370 20:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I have written to the V&A museum asking for permission to use the said image. However, according to Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. Photographic reproductions of visual works in the public domain were not copyrightable because the reproductions involved no originality. Also {{PD-art}} defines the criteria as '{{PD-art}} — for images of works of art where the artist died more than 100 years ago'. Which is the case here.Parthi 20:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I am not disputing the age of the photo, but what I notice is that some of the photographs they host on the website do not belong to them at all. Are we sure these above photos belong to the museum? User:Zscout370 20:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The said portrait is a miniature in the museum's collection 'Presented by Harry N. Jonas, in memory of his wife, Rosa Maud Jonas'. - Parthi 20:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Under the Bridgeman decision, it doesn't matter who owns the painting or who took the picture. If the picture is a exacting 2D reproduction of a 2D work, then there is no new copyright created by scanning/photographing it. That said, some of these images are not simple reproductions of 2D works, they include elements like the frame and as such their status is not clarified by Bridgeman v. Corel. --Gmaxwell 21:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

If the museum has not released its rights yet (assuming it owns the copyright), the pictures have no business being on wikipedia merely on the contingency that someone has written to obtain permission from it in the future. The museum (or the real owner) might sue wikipedia when it comes to know these pictures are lifted from the site without proper license. Plus, the Bridgeman v. Corel case might not be considered valid outside the USA (even if it is valid, these images are not simple scans and include additional elements, as has been pointed out by Gmaxwell above, and not all of them are more than 100 years old either). Besides, the above are not all from a single website. ­

Further reverts of copyvio tags on Wikimedia Commons made by the same user:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Madurai-tank.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892439
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Maha_shoretemple.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892435
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Ptolomy_map.png&diff=prev&oldid=3892431
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:TolkaappiyamExcerpt.png&diff=prev&oldid=3892423
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Gopuram-madurai.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892414
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Women_farm_workers_in_coimbatore.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892410
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Temple_Tangore_2.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892406
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:NatarajaMET.JPG&diff=prev&oldid=3892397
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Tamil_girls_in_Tiruvanamalai.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892389
http://commons.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Image:Fort_St._George%2C_Chennai.jpg&diff=prev&oldid=3892385

ॐ Kris (☎ talk | contribs) 03:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If one cares to look into the history of each image, then one can understand the nature of these bad-faith edits by this user. Thanks Parthi 07:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, User:Venu62 has now not only reverted those images again to remove the copyvio tags, but also removes some images that I had provided in the article Chembai, by way of retaliation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Chembai&diff=prev&oldid=96702540
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Chembai&diff=prev&oldid=96702750
http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Chembai&diff=prev&oldid=96702906
This is getting ugly. I request some admin with knowledge of fair use & copyvio to deal with this user, I'm not going to continue with this. Thanks. ­ ॐ Kris (☎ talk | contribs) 12:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Please don't make me vandalize...

Can someone block me indefinitely? ♥ Fredil 16:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Kimchi.sg 16:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Block this account too, please, I don't intend to come back. ♥ Fredil 17:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are you asking to have your account blocked just because you're leaving? It doesn't make since.--Azer Red Si? 01:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Gay rights redirects

Earlier today SatyrTN (talk · contribs) added speedy deletion tags to a few "19xx in gay rights" articles that presently redirect to Timeline of LGBT history. He was reverted by several administrators, including myself, because the grounds on which he was nominating them "redirect to incorrect article" didn't make sense to us. I talked to the user on his talk page and the reasoning seems logical, the methods just seem odd. SatyrTN is looking to have those deleted so that they no longer appear as blue links on List of years in gay rights and instead are redlinked so that it encourages creation of these articles.

When looking into this further, I found Special:Undelete/Talk:1925_in_gay_rights/delete this deletion log which contains the discussion in which it was decided to change a bunch of the articles to redirects to the timeline. It's slightly odd...the deletion debate was decided on December 27, 2004 at Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/1925 in gay rights. That same day, Francs2000 (talk · contribs) moved the discussion to Talk:1925 in gay rights/delete. JoJan (talk · contribs) deleted the Talk page on August 29, 2005 as being a talk page for a non-existant article (which makes sense because Francs2000 moved it directly to the talk space instead of moving anything with it to the main space) and the redirect to that page created in the move was deleted in December of 2005.

So here's what I want to know:

• What should be done with the redirects?
  • RFD them as a group?
  • Leave them as is and suggest the LGBT wikiproject create a "To do" list with those on them?
• What should be done with the deletion debate?
  • Was Francs2000's move common practice in late 2004?
  • Should the deleted discussion be restored?
  • If restored, should it be moved back to Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/1925 in gay rights or stay at the talk page?

Any guidance would be much appreciated. Metros232 16:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow - I didn't know there was so much history behind a couple redirect pages! :) All in all, it's probably not worth too much discussion and worry. I'm in the process of adding some things to pages in that listing, so the "Leave them alone..." option is probably best. I'll see about getting some more input and content on those pages from our LGBT WikiProject, too. Thanks much for your help! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• JoJan (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) should not have deleted that talk page. I've undeleted it and moved it to the proper AFD sub-page for 1925 in gay rights (AfD discussion). The main reason that talk pages with archived deletion discussions on them are specifically exempt from that speedy deletion criterion (talk pages of non-existent articles) is that up until 2004 article deletion discussions were archived on article talk pages, or on sub-pages thereof, rather than as sub-pages of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion as they are now.

  In answer to your other question: No. Don't move things to Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion sub-pages. User:Uncle G's major work 'bot spent a lot of time moving VFD to AFD. Uncle G 20:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Martinp23/NPWatcher

All ye who clear CSD! Have you had occasion to see the fruits of this new software? It automates newbie biting, taking it to a whole new level. We should rename it WPBiter. How do the sysops feel about it? Is it a net positive thing? - crz crztalk 17:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice software (gave it a 10-minute try) but I don't remember anyone being so enthusiastic about VandalProof when it was this young... :P Kimchi.sg 17:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, another automated CSD thingummy. OK, but I prefer the interface and talk page messages on my own one – Gurch 18:24, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Kimchi here...like VandalProof, it's up to users to wield it responsibly. Gzkn 08:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hehe - yep. Any admin can remove access to the program from any user, or disable any version (from the pages linked off the checkpage). As well as deleting new pages, I've put stuff in it for admins to delete/keep prods and images, after entering the category of their choice (after a suggestion by Eagle 101). About biting - I've tried to minimise it by including {{firstarticle}} for taggers/deleters to add to the creator's talk page (a template which was specifically designed to avoid biting :)). For what it's worth - I've been really surprised by the take up of the software, and it's heavy use by some users (Pilotguy (talk · contribs) :)). On the other hand, it means I get more feature requests Template:Emot. Martinp23 17:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

CAT:CSD backlog

There's a heavy backlog of articles nominated for speedy deletion; it'd be swell if some admins could help me take a crack at reviewing them. Thanks, JDoorjam Talk 21:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd help, but apparently I'm no longer allowed to use common sense when deciding what to do with an article – Gurch 23:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh ffs, Gurch. Badlydrawnjeff complains about everything CSD related. Go help clear a backlog and feel free to use your discretion. -- Steel 23:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, thanks. And if you're speedying articles that don't meet the criteria, you'll be hearing from me again. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry. If there's this much of a dispute raging, rest assured I won't be speedy deleting anything for a good few months – Gurch 00:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

There are a large number of history merges in the backlog. I'm not comfortable doing them yet, so I'll leave that to other admins. But something's really odd with them. There's 8 of them tagged by Nicobs (talk · contribs). Not only that, all the issues were caused by 82.41.66.173 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) at random times (it wasn't like 82.41...did these all in one day, these are over the span of several months). Does anyone know what the heck is going on here? Metros232 00:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• If you've been reversed on DRV a few times (I haven't looked lately and don't know this history), and it's happened to me, you should still do your duty and get your boots muddy. In any given 100 cat:csd's, 80 are so obvious that no one is going to make a peep. Jeff is far more inclusionist than most folks, but he believes in talking and not abusing, so let's not get too sensitive to the fact that we have different standards. (Yes, I believe in "delete 'em all and start over" as a first principle.) Geogre 02:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

but he believes in talking and not abusing. Mileage varies on that score. --Calton | Talk 04:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Though I doubt I'll axe all 100+ items, I'm doing my part in killing it. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Convergys copyright issue

Convergys was tagged with a copyright violation. I've compiled a version of the article that does not infringe (as far as I know), I've put it on the temp page, mentioned it on the Talk page, all as required. Apparently an admin is supposed to copy this across within 7 days - is there some way of triggering this action? --Areia 21:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the administrator who deletes the copyright violation is meant to do this at the same time; there must be a backlog at Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems – Gurch 00:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Refusal to put sources in

This in particular stems from Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/StepMania and the StepMania talk page, but it's a perennial problem: People claiming there are sources, or even worse providing the sources elsewhere but refusing to put them into the article. While the burden is meant to be on the person wishing to keep material to provide sources, it seems poor form to delete something when I know there are sources. Although if this AfD is closed as keep w/o changes to the article I'll be tempted. I feel as though I run into this problem three and a half times a week, and once I've first talked myself blue in the face and then run through the gamut of {{fact}} and {{uncited}} and {{notability}} with a stop off at {{prod}} maybe on the way, I'm stumped. Any suggestions? - brenneman 22:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• Do some research and add the sources yourself. Or, since the sources have been provided, save yourself time by copying them into the article. You could have probably done that in less time than it took you to write the above. If you can't do any of that: try the unreferenced tag. Articles don't get built in a day and they certainly don't get built by blubbering on message boards. Everyone who participates shares the same burden of improving articles. That includes you.--JJay 22:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it. - brenneman 22:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, that applies to adding material to an article, not the article as a whole. Besides that, why do you feel you have an obligation to delete notable articles rather than adding references? --JJay 23:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

(2x edit conflict - comment from ceyockey) Well, I wouldn't suggest you step into the PROD pond as way of encouraging sourcing. There has been recent discussion around potentially inappropriate usage of PROD on articles that, though unsourced, are verifiable (the discussions surrounding the conduct of user Alan.ca). Use of PROD or deletion paths is not an appropriate alternative for application of cleanup-related templates. Elsewhere it has been commented that people who are recalcitrant with respect to adding sources might be suitable subjects for WP:RFC .. though I've not been involved in going that route myself previously. Hopefully others will be of more help in their comments. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 22:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, the best way to approach the issue would be to add all of the sources yourself, but I'm assuming you don't care or don't want to spend the time on it. If no one cares or wants to spend the time on it, then Misplaced Pages probably doesn't need the article. It should also be pointed out that even if the subject is notable, the article must be verifiable, so a bad article about a good subject may very well merit deletion.

If there are editors who can find reliable sources and are willing to improve the article, it should be kept. But if you come back in a few weeks and find the article in the same shape, then go ahead and put it up for AfD again. If the same people make the same promises to improve the article, but never do, it will be deleted eventually. See Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Car insurance in Ireland (third nomination) for an example. The first AfD failed because editors believed an article could be written about the subject, but in a few weeks when it was clear that it hadn't been, the AfD went through. –  Anþony  talk  01:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say wait a month or two, and if by that time no-one's used the supposed sources to verify the article, there's two options: either a) the given sources are actually trivial and can't be used to verify anything that would be relevant in the article, or b) no-one cares enough to do the necessary work. Both, to me, are grounds for deletion. --Sam Blanning 01:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Agree completely. "Keep and improve" works once for me, but not a second time. If people who want the article kept can't be bothered to fix the fundamental problems, then why should we care?. Guy (Help!) 10:24, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Alright, the message I'm getting here is not to attempt to address the contributor's behavior, but to focus on the articles, eh? - brenneman 10:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

A major problem with not putting the sources from the AFD discussion into the article, is that it regularly leads to the article being nominated for deletion again, months later. (One example: Badlydrawnjeff cited some sources in an AFD discussion for some drinking games, didn't cite any of them in the actual articles, and the articles ended up coming back to AFD a second time, months later.) It's in the interest of those not wanting to have the same AFD discussion all over again to put the sources in the article, so that other editors don't have to track down the deletion discussion simply in order to find them (or even to know that there actually are sources to be had in the first place — The drinking game articles didn't use the same names for the games as the sources did.) and then to improve the article using them.

On the other hand, it's also important to remember the principle of collaborative editing. If editor A finds and cites some sources, then editor B can help to improve the article, and help to reduce the repeat traffic at AFD, by copying the citations into a "Further reading" section of the article. There are editors at AFD who copy citations into the articles. There are also editors at AFD who cite sources directly in the article in the first place. (TruthbringerToronto is one name that immediately comes to mind.)

Note that an editor citing sources in an AFD discussion but refusing to place the citations in the article is quite different from an editor not providing any sources at all, for material that other editors have not been able to source, and not responding, either on talk pages or in edit summaries, to any of the requests for citations made of them over a period of six months. Uncle G 14:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The "rollback" button

I'm using this page as it probably gets more views than the relevant talk page. When the rollback button is pressed, it reverts the page back to the last version that is not by the reverted user, and uses the edit summary Reverted edits by Vandal (talk) to last version by Last Good User. My problem is, the name of the rollback link: shouldn't it be called "revert"? Either that, or the edit summary should be changed so they're more consistent. What does everyone think? --Majorly (Talk) 22:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's because anyone can revert an edit – the term just means going back to a previous revision – but the particular type of revert that only administrators have access to is special, and so has its own name – Gurch 23:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what the complaint about the edit summary is. I thought we used "rollback" because we're rolling back all of that user's edits; in my mind, a 'revert' button would imply reverting just the last edit. However, I have no problem with the summary, because it clarifies that the action (possibly) reverted more than one edit. I guess I just don't know why it's an issue. Only admins see it, and I think we all know what it means... —bbatsell ¿? 23:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say we keep the name. As Bbatsell notes, only admins see it anyway, so we don't need to worry about confusion amongst the masses as to its ability. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Are we all deficient administrators?

I have worked up an essay attempting to get at a set of best practices for IRC at user:Geogre/IRC considered, and a few other folks have been working at it as well. The one IRC channel that prompts this most of all is the en.administrators.irc channel. It is a channel "for administrators only," even though at least three people who are not administrators are on it (and two have "ops"). The rationale offered for the channel is that there is a great need for real-time private discussion of sensitive material among administrators.

I have never been to that channel, myself. Instead, I look here, at the Administrator's Noticeboard, and at the Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents. There, I see people with complaints and issues that get investigated and addressed in as little as two or three minutes.

Am I therefore a bad administrator? Are you? What sensitive, real time, private information is it that we are not receiving? Are we all failing Misplaced Pages for not having it? Should, perhaps, we disallow everyone else from reading and posting to these pages? Or is it possible that there actually isn't such data that should be passed between administrators that can't be accountable to the wider project? Geogre 00:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully you ask sincerely and not as a way of baiting people to respond in the affirmative so they can be targeted to relieve administrative stress. I don't know what kind of people you are, but bad administrators, yes. You're not bad admins for failing to visit IRC, but for failing to control the adolescent slander bandied about there toward charitable contributors to the project. And the proper adjective would be poor, not bad. Depending on one's philosophy, we all be bad people at times or in part.

The question regards not your moral qualities, but whether you poorly apply administrative skills, and the answer to that is most affirmatively yes. You (speaking to the collective you about whom you inquired) invite people to contribute then attack them for the contributions. You impose your subjective values about what is "good for the project" and attack people without remorse when they don't fit your personal standards. You invite people to edit an so-called encyclopedia that "anyone can edit" with the tease that "there are no rules" then once they contribute in exactly the manner such an invitation can be expected to elicit, you turn on them without mercy -- not acknoweldging that their views of the project may have merit though they are contary to yours, but ridiculing and demeaning them as "trolls", "sockpuppets" or "vandals". Yes, those who conduct back-channel dialogues in language not allowed on-wiki have a special flavor of poor administrative skill, with somewhat of an actual bad taste. But that could only happen in an administration where any administrator was free to impose whatever ad hoc pseudopolicy they could rally a like-minded crowd to support.

To make matters worse, it is all done under the rhetorical protections of Jimbo Wales in the world media, whose allusions to "wikilove" (does that mean self-love as in narcisism) present the false notion that the project is more driven by accord than by the rampant dischord that makes this a psychologically toxic enviornment. Properly stated, administrators generally do a very poor job of implementing the values the project claims to advance. KindWordsNotHeard 03:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre, let me compliment you for having voiced the thoughts of many other contributors here. Judging by the recent events, IRC has become a dangerous tool for persecuting established contributors and ousting them from Misplaced Pages. I know admins who were scared from Misplaced Pages after taking a look at what's going on here. I am particularly disappointed with the behaviour of User:Jdforrester, who seems to pride himself on being a co-author of this channel and defends it so vehemently as if it were a core element of Misplaced Pages. IRC is deficient in that it concentrates on discussing personalities rather than articles. It is all about people rather than content. It leads people away from the core aim of this project. The recent elections demonstrated that any mention of a vote on IRC among people you think you can trust will garner you several times as much support votes as spamming user talk pages of other wikipedians (which is frowned upon). I don't know what can be done about it as long as there seems to be a circle of admins and, what is worse, arbitrators who derive their authority and popularity primarily from having logs spanning back years, rather than from any onwiki activities. All this makes me very pessimistic indeed. --Ghirla 00:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick notice - would people please stop bringing to my attention the above text? I'm well aware of it now that 7 different people have highlighted said statement, and frankly its attacks are mild and are further blunted by the common-sense that I'm sure - that I know - most of you enjoy.

Quick statement of fact - IRC is here, has been here for a very long time, is the core basis for much of the work that we ("we" being "we the firefighters who save the Foundation from lawsuits every week"), and will continue to be used as such, regardless of the hysterical nay-saying that has gone on (though it must be said that none of the contributors to this thread have partaken in any hysteria). Those who take somewhat of a Luddite position and insist that one particular technology must not be used will be disappointed when someone comes along and uses another - as no doubt they will - and when they were to end up not in the flock, how would we know if they respected our beliefs and were being productive?

Of course people should not abuse IRC to stack votes (but then, if we did not have binding votes per policy, there wouldn't be a problem, would there?), to influence elections, or to plot against other people in a political fashion, and I'd like to take the opportunity to highlight Geogre's essay on IRC as an interesting view and possibly helpful on the subject of how to discipline oneself against erring into such matters, and also to thank those that have approached me for clarification about what is before launching into campaigns not based in fact.

James F. (talk) 09:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Good grief! Are people trying to say this is a personal attack or incivility? Good Lord! You people are really out of your minds, if you think so. Seriously: if anyone thinks this is something like that, then he or she is at such a fundamental disconnect with Misplaced Pages that I don't know what you're doing here.
  • James: my question is somewhat restricted. I'm not being Luddite, myself, or trying to knock out IRC. The question is restrained strictly to en.admins.irc. As administrators on the noticeboard, I figured we needed to go back to the basics. The debate over the creation of the channel was ... abridged, I suppose ... but it was no slam dunk. My sense was that the preponderance of administrators were against its creation. I'm sure it was the sense of those in favor that the preponderance was the other way. My recollection was that the decision was, "Let's create it and see how it goes." Well, my view is that it has gone badly (that particular channel), so I am returning to the basic question: why have a private administrator's medium, when we have no such thing on Misplaced Pages? What is the advantage to it that is actually commensurate with our policies and practices? There is no attack in the question.
  • Sure, I have my view. Sure, it's easy to figure it out. It would be the height of "assuming bad faith" to believe that I cannot have a view and yet have honest inquiry, and anyone wanting to sniff through the garbage pails to create a "case" has no business at Misplaced Pages, because she or he is, frankly, unfit for collaboration. Geogre 12:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"arbitrators who derive their authority and popularity primarily from having logs spanning back years, rather than from any onwiki activities" — that is utter nonsense. It is so absurd I had never even heard anyone suggest it before. You think some people's on-wiki power mainly comes from having logs to use as blackmail? Rubbish! If you wish to change anything, you first need to wrap your mind around the actual truth of the situation. If you keep arguing against these false straw men you're never going to come to any sort of agreement. --Cyde Weys 01:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

One does not need threats to increase his popularity. I have every reason to believe that some people have become popular and elected to administrators primarily based on the number of friends they have acquired while chatting on IRC. Whenever I post on this page, I expect my message to be discussed on IRC by some people whose names I ignore. This is disturbing, therefore I encourage every attempt to formulate what are the relations between Misplaced Pages and IRC, rather than routinely dismissing the question on the grounds of IRC and WP being totally unrelated entities. No, they are related, so much so that IRC increasingly influences Misplaced Pages decisions, including blocks. Since as much is established, please come up with a policy on the nature of that relationship. Something along the lines of ""Do not block established contributors on the basis of on-IRC discussion." and "Do not let IRC distract you from the necessity of on-Wiki consensus". Is it practicable? --Ghirla 02:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. But Cyde, if you want Geogre to take your point, you might be advised to you a more constructive tone. Perhaps you'd be better asking him what he meant, rather than launching in. Please, lets all calm it a bit. And perhaps the thread should be moved to Geogre's talk page. Who knows, perhaps dialogue might be constructive? --Doc 01:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think in this specific instance Cyde was responding to Ghirla's post more than Geogre's, but in these contexts a suggestion of some calm is always welcome. Newyorkbrad 02:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

And misinterpreting it, I think. Ghirla wasn't saying that the arbitrators are blackmailing anyone into voting for them, only that their long-term presence on IRC gives them a personal edge in the elections. –  Anþony  talk  02:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. --Ghirla 02:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Not quite — he was saying it was the long-term logs that gave them the edge in the elections. This is wholly independent of how long someone has been active on IRC; indeed, many people don't log at all (no IRC clients I am aware of have logging enabled by default), and very few save them from years back. Ghirla might want to clarify his original statement, because as written, it does indeed state that the logs are what make the difference. --Cyde Weys 02:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think what you're looking for, Cyde, is hyperbole. What Ghirla said was pretty plain to me. In fact, it's something that I wrote up (in my characteristic long form) in my essay: IRC has what I call a lensing effect. I can think of two people who made administrator despite having very, very few edits. They had expressed interest in being admins before they had done any edits at all. Now, I like both of these people, and they never, to my knowledge, acted inappropriately as administrators. These are two whom I know. They're not on trial, but the lensing effect of IRC is undeniable. We can either strike the policy against "talk page spamming" or institute one against IRC spamming, or we can just be hypocrites and say that IRC = power. Geogre 12:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The most obvious response to such a fallacy is the favorite "Not necessarily." —Centrx→talk • 02:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, Doc, they're actually not my words at all. I assume those are Ghirla's. The last few times Cyde posted on my talk page, they sure looked like personal attacks. I don't believe in blocking for WP:NPA. Geogre 02:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if Cyde regards me as a bad administrator for not being on en.administrators.irc. I wonder if he regards Newyorkbrad as a bad administrator every moment that he's not on it. I wonder what vital private information it is that we, as administrators, need that is being passed there that cannot be passed here. I'm just trying to ask the question: what, exactly, is it that justifies a channel that is hidden from the hoi poloi of Misplaced Pages? We don't seem to hesitate to discuss administrative matters here. Are we just bad people doing a bad job? How can we do it better by joining en.administrators? Geogre 02:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I've never been on IRC, but then, there are lots of people who think I'm a bad admin. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered the wisdom that crowd might offer you regarding how your own activities affect others? Or is that not the crowd you believe to be imbued with wisdom? There are other reasons than IRC activities that people consistently reach such conclusions. KindWordsNotHeard 03:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Where did I say "consistantly", SLA? It's generally the vandals and those who coddle them who feel that way. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

(irrelevant disclaimer: I'm not actually an administrator as of now. Newyorkbrad 02:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC))

It seems that people have forgotten (or perhaps even never known) why #wikipedia-en-admins was created. The purpose was to have a forum where Foundation people (Jimbo, Brad, Danny, et al) could discuss high-priority issues requiring urgent action with trusted admins in a non-public place. Why non-public? Because these issues generally involved matters which were the subject of press attention or of threats of litigation, or otherwise prone to creating difficulties for the Wikimedia Foundation if not dealt with quickly and, as much as possible, quietly. Unfortunately, the channel was quickly compromised (there have been several instances of logs being leaked to various unscrupulous parties who have used them to try to create embarrassment or otherwise complicate the Foundation's efforts to avoid being embroiled in negative publicity or litigation), and as a result, such situations are now managed through other, even more secret, forums.

We could shut down the #wikipedia-en-admins channel, but that wouldn't get rid of the nonpublic backchannels. It would just change their names and disperse the participants somewhat. At least #wikipedia-en-admins is an obvious channel name; it is certainly more informative than one of its progenitors, #fluffykittens.

Major administrative decisions have been made, at times, in these backchannels. Some of them have been quite momentous. In most of those cases, the decisions that have been made have been decisions that could not possibly have been discussed, let alone made, on the public wiki, but nonetheless have had to be made. This is a situation where the exigencies of real life, a universe which is replete with dastardly beasts such as reporters, pundits, and attorneys, force us to dispense with a full and open public discussion because doing so is the only way to avoid a vicious nasty lawsuit that would at best cripple and at worst utterly destroy Misplaced Pages. You don't have to like this. I'm not really all that happy about it either. But it's the way things are, and it's not something that's going to go away any time soon.

So, anyway, that's the "vital information" that gets passed through IRC backchannels like #wikipedia-en-admins, and why it cannot be passed through the public noticeboards. If you're not an admin doing crisis management for the Foundation, then you probably don't need to be there. But it would rather nice of those of you who are not doing crisis management for the Foundation to at least afford the assumption of good faith to those who are. And keep in mind that there's always the chance that if you do see an admin do something inexplicable, it might be a crisis management action, and that perhaps a polite private inquiry should be your first line of action, instead of an incendiary post to one of the noticeboards. Kelly Martin (talk) 02:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What a brilliant message Kelly. 110% spot on. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 02:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The Foundation here is at cross purposes with the media, and with its projects ambition to avoid advancing points of view. KM suggests the channel was created to facilitate discussion of sensitive topics without incuring "negative publicity" in the press. But if something negative occurs in the context of Misplaced Pages, those who advocate free flow of information advocate mass communication of such negative events with equal force as positive events are communicated.

Misplaced Pages claims to represent any and all topics in the world with a neutral point of view based on all avaiable information. The foundation, on the other hand, and those who advocate the secret channel, don't seem to trust any other crowd -- not even a crowd of professional and trained media personnel to explore negative aspects of the project and to represent those negative aspects in a way that benefits clients of those various media markets. In Misplaced Pages's small world, the only valid benifit is to the project -- not the common good, not the rule of law, not human decency. If comments "disrupts the project" no matter how severely some aspect of the project might need to be upended, administrators act thoughtlessly to exclude the comments and the commentator. After a few years of such tolerance for self-interests above all other interests, of course some so empowered will develop suspicious or downright anti-social administrative habits.

The reasoning appears to suggest Misplaced Pages has cause to hide some dark underbelly. If Misplaced Pages is above board, not libeling, not invading privacy and not usurping copyrights, there is no legal threat it needs to fear. Legal quandries can be discussed as openly as any other topic, unless one party hopes to gain an advantage by concealing strategy. KindWordsNotHeard

Thanks for your input, KindWords, but I am afraid your view represents a significant overstatement. I can think of many types of situations that need to be addressed in a forum other than on-wiki. I have personally been involved in threads here where I have suggested getting the discussion off the public noticeboard, for exceedingly valid reasons. Such situations are hopefully rare (and don't include something like whether to hand out a 48-hour civility block), but they certainly exist. Newyorkbrad 03:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If indeed such circumstances arise, you could advance the discussion by detailing such a circumstance rather than simply declaring that they arise. You could also advance the discussion by citing which of my views you believe to represent a significant overstatement. Is it an overstatement to imply the professional media have a valid interest in publicly examining negative aspects of a project that both relies on the public for content and influences public perceptions with its content? Whether or not situations such as those to which you allude exist does not necessarily inform your claim that one or all of my earlier statements is significantly overstated. Until you advise us what sort of situations to which you refer, we must allow that the circumstances I state as not warranting secret talks and those you claim to know of but don't elaborate may be entirely different circumstances. KindWordsNotHeard 03:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with detailing the circumstances, as you request, is that in these cases the factors that necessitated nonpublic discussion initially generally prohibit public discussion on a going-forward basis as well. There's been any number of events that I've been involved in where I am prohibited by confidentiality principles from discussing them with any specificity, indefinitely. You will simply have to trust that the Foundation is providing adequate oversight of such activities. If you can't trust in that, and that's a material condition for your participation in Misplaced Pages, then, well, I'm sorry. Kelly Martin (talk) 05:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I find such appeals to authority unconvincing. Clearly, better oversight is needed. El_C 06:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What happened? —Centrx→talk • 06:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Huh? El_C 06:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is better oversight needed? —Centrx→talk • 10:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

To stop it from being used to abuse the project. El_C 15:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What abuse has there been? —Centrx→talk • 21:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not have to trust that anyone is doing anything adequately until I see evidence. Assuming good faith does not imply assuming the adequacy of anyone's effort. I trust my knowledge of narrative to know that almost any confidential situation can be explained in general terms. I trust my experience sufficiently to know that failure to adequately describe reasons often betrays a lack of an adequate description.

What I do know is that if something warrants discussion in a descrete forum, an IRC channel does not provide a secure venue. When personal information about those involved in quasi-public activities is discussed in a secret forum, the operators of that forum have an obligation to maintain the same dignity and respect in that forum as if it were an open forum. As a general rule of caution for those who engage in editorial discussion in any context (but not in any way expressed here as a suggestion of particular action), words exchanged among confidants may still generate actionable harm. KindWordsNotHeard 06:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It would obviously be counterproductive to link to specific discussions that I believed should not continue on-wiki, but in general they concerned topics such as (1) dealing with incidents of off-wiki harassment and physical threats, (2) a situation in which an editor appeared to have a mental health issue that was being implicated by being talked about here, and (3) specific and concrete legal threat situations. Please note that by the latter, I refer not to the generic "this edit is defamatory" or "I'm gonna sue" which can usually be handled with an on-wiki cite to WP:LEGAL (or application of WP:LIVING where warranted), but to specific and concrete threats of litigation by people who are known in the real world to have brought prior litigation against their detractors, and that legal threats are sometimes directed not just against the Foundation but against individual administrators or editors.

I emphasize again that I am talking about rare situations, not the everyday stuff of content or user conduct issues, as to which primary decision-making should be transparent on-wiki as much as possible. Newyorkbrad 16:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What I am hearing here are two sub-channels of communication going on ... one is an essential part of doing business (any business) and the other is a cruddy secret-handshake club of same-sayers, a clique. Surely folks are not talking about the same set of discussions here, but at least two sets of IRC-enabled activities - one laudable and essential, the other despicable and damaging. The matter of controls revolves around how to maintain the one while extinguishing the other. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 06:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like what I'm hearing. There's probably a useful debate about the scope of the first channel mentioned, but without at least an allegorical situation to discuss, I've not heard anything here that would give me an idea what might be an appropriate scope for secret discussion in an ostensibly transparent organization. KindWordsNotHeard 07:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• I do have a few questions regarding the IRC situation, especially in the context of Kelly's responses. Fair disclosure: I am not an admin. I do not use (Misplaced Pages) IRC. I also don't think there's some vast IRC-wing conspiracy at work here ... but that doesn't mean I don't see some things about the current environment that could benefit from dialogue.

1) Kelly's explanation seems contradictory to me. Either IRC has been compromised and is worthless for secure, emergency information, or it is an essential means to distribute secure, emergency information? Couldn't this goal of real-time intervention be better served through an ArbCom (posibly +clerks) only channel that is actually secure? Or are there enough of these problems that such an approach is insufficient (I hope not!)?

2) Misplaced Pages is neither a bureaucracy nor a social networking site, but frequent IRC communication has aspects of both. The social networking aspect is obvious; the bureaucracy less so. An honest question: how many low-yield (1WW or 2WW) wheel warring events have been caused by desynchonized information, because one side of the conflict was party to material that the other side could not become party to? Priveledged information is essential for ArbCom, which is why there's no WP:RFArbCom, but I worry about its long-term effects on admin-to-admin interactions.

3) Outside of the realm of issues with a viable need for real-time intervention (and as a business manager, I'm quite aware of what those may entail), is anything gained by discussing administrative actions off-wiki? This isn't meant to be rhetorical: is there ever a time when it would be preferable for two admins to confer regarding, say, a 48 hr civility block (as mentioned above) in a non-permanent, sunlight-free manner? Offhand, I don't think I can think of any, but if you pressed me to debate the other side, I'd give it a whirl, too... the bottom line as I see it, though, is that off-Wiki discussion of routine admin functions is more confusing for the non-admin editors and for the non-IRC admins, and we should try to select for processes that minimize confusion for the project.

--Serpent's Choice 07:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Yes, IRC has been compromised and is worthless for secure, emergency information. Yes, an ArbCom-only channel would probably work. Neither of these things, though, completely obviate the function of #wikipedia-en-admins.
2. Sorry, Misplaced Pages is both a bureaucracy and a social networking site. We don't like it, it's not supposed to be one, and our official policies specifically mention the fact that it is neither, but in reality Misplaced Pages has aspects of both of these things; it is as much as we can do to keep their impact to a minimum. IRC is certainly more of the latter, though I'm reluctant to believe it's much more of the former. I also don't see an immediate problem with that. "Low-yield wheel war" must be some technical jargon I haven't previously come across. I imagine such things have happened, though I imagine they are at least as many, if not more, that don't involve IRC as do involve it. Suppose the information was on the mailing list (which not everyone reads), in a private email between one administrator and another, or even just elsewhere on the wiki. We can't all read everything.
3. Perhaps nothing much is gained, but I don't see that much is lost either. The responsibility for an administrative action rests with the administrator who made it, regardless of where they discussed it and who. I think any medium of discussion is better than none at all, which is what I think many people would/are often tempted to go with if the immediacy of IRC is not available. – Gurch 13:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Gurch, regarding (2), no, its not some technical jargon. Its more a term I contrived for the purpose: a "low-yield" wheel war is one that involves only one or two reversions of admin actions, as opposed to, say, the Pedophilia Userbox wars. But, more importantly, regarding (3), what I fear is lost is the ability for independent review. GFDL, the value in reliable references, historical-tagged deprecated policies, and more exist because one of Misplaced Pages's greatest strengths is the ability for anyone to review what came before (or, at least any admin to do so, in the case of administrative actions that are not user-visible). Because IRC is off-Wiki, and, further, because IRC discussions cannot become on-Wiki, there is no chance for independent review. It doesn't take believing in a cabal or assuming bad faith to think that admins can make mistakes; all of us make mistakes. The problem, as I see it, is that it is much harder to tell if mistakes are made, what they were, and why they happened when the reason behind the decisions is both secret and ephemeral. Serpent's Choice 18:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Rebuttal of Kelly's statements. I'm glad that the illogic of it is covered by Serpent's Choice. The admins channel "was created" by whom? Can any administrator join, as is hypothetically the case? How, then, can it be a Foundation channel, and why is it not called a foundation channel? Aren't there Foundation mailing lists and channels already?
  1. How is this IRC superior to a mailing list?
  2. If it is open to all administrators, how is it for "a few trusted" administrators?
  3. Does the membership include any non-administrators?
  4. Imputing motives to people who quote or summarize logs is irrelevant and unsupported. People tend to pass logs when people on the channel go into abuse mode (abusing people and abusing policies).
  5. How, again, is it superior to AN/I and AN?
  6. I repeat my initial question: If it is vital to administrators, then why are we not all there? If it isn't, then why is anyone there?
• Finally, for people who come back with the old chestnut that "back channel" will occur anyway, it may, but it won't with Misplaced Pages's resources. It won't with Misplaced Pages's name attached to it. Is the mailing list deficient? Are the noticeboards deficient? Kelly doesn't explain.
• Why can't we know, even in summary form, what the circumstances are that necessitate a forum without rules? Why are we all such untrustworthy? Should we be allowed to edit Misplaced Pages if we are not allowed to know under what conditions? This makes no sense whatever and is, in short, not an answer. Geogre 12:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

1. You cannot hold a conversation on a mailing list, just as you cannot hold a conversation on a wiki. By "conversation", I mean a scenario in which one person says something, another person replies, and this is repeated a good few hundred times within a short space of time. This is not possible when you have to wait anything from ten minutes to over an hour for the reply to come back. Also, I hate mailing lists.
2. It isn't.
3. I think so.
4. They do?
5. See (1). I hate AN, too.
6. We are not all there because some of us either don't like it, don't agree with it, cannot use it because of a restrictive firewall or other technical reasons, don't think it's necessary or, like me, are just fed up with all the arguments that surround it at the moment. Why is anyone there? Well... do you think the mailing list is vital to administrators? If not, why are we not all there, and if it isn't, why is anyone there? Same goes for this page and AN/I. Are they vital? Many administrators don't check these pages regularly or even at all unless they've been informed of something that specifically concerns them through other channels.

• Why does a lack of deficiency in existing channels preclude the establishment of alternative channels?
• There are no such circumstances. All fora should have rules. – Gurch 13:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Gurch has graciously answered Geogre's questions, but I would like to expand on those answers somewhat. The admins channel was created, IIRC, by Essjay, at either Danny's or Jimbo's request (I forget which). Its original purpose was as I discussed above: to facilitate communication between the Foundation and enwiki administrators. The channel is under the auspices of the Wikimedia Foundation IRC project, which mainly means it's under the nominal supervision of James Forrester as the Wikimedia Foundation's designated group contact with freenode, the same as all other "official" Wikimedia-related IRC channels (such as #wikipedia, #wikimedia, et cetera). None of the Wikimedia-related IRC channels consume any of Wikimedia's resources; they are all hosted at freenode, which provides the IRC service as a public service to open source and open content projects such as Wikimedia. freenode has no ties to the Wikimedia Foundation that I am aware of (although I believe the Foundation may have made donations to freenode's organization from time to time and certainly many WMF donors donate to freenode as well). This is unlike the Wikimedia-operated mailing lists, which are hosted on Wikimedia-owned and -operated servers.

IRC, as Gurch notes, enables the ability to have conversations. While it is possible to have a conversation in a mailing list, this is normally a slow process entailing hours if not days. IRC allows the same conversation to be had in minutes. This is very important especially when responding to active crises -- the very purpose for which #wikipedia-en-admins was created. The problem with the on-wiki noticeboard is that they are too public. The channel was created to allow the dissemination of important information to people who need to act on it without, at the same time, disseminating that information to the general public, and more importantly to those people who would attempt to use the information thus acquired to harm the Foundation or its activities. The public mailing lists, being excessively public and frankly overrun with trolls, is even more useless for the purpose for which the channel was established; the same defect is why the public #wikipedia channel is not useful for this purpose.

The admins channel is, in principle, open to any admin. However, admins who, through their conduct, convince the channel's management that they are not trustworthy may be refused admission to the channel, and the channel management reserves the right to invite such other persons as they feel will benefit the channel's mission. This has included, to date, selected admins of projects other than enwiki, various Foundation staff, developers, and certain others who, while not admins, are nonetheless trusted by the Foundation and by channel management. Note that "trusted by the Foundation and by channel management" is not the same as "trusted by the enwiki community".

Participation in the channel is not "vital" to being an administrator. The participation of a decent number of administrators is vital to the Foundation, but there is no particular reason why any particular administrator has to be there. If participation in the channel will not assist you in being an administrator, there is no reason for you to be there, and you might as well be somewhere else. The channel exists to serve the Foundation's purposes, not to serve your personal purposes.

Again, the reason why there can be no on-wiki discussion of the sorts of matters that necessitate the confidentiality I discussed earlier is the fact that the wiki is inherently public and these matters are necessarily confidential. It's not that you, Geogre, are specifically not trusted (although, to be frank, I personally would not trust you), but that anything said publicly on the wiki is necessarily shared with everyone in the world, and that includes any number of people who are not trusted, and who have demonstrated hostile or malicious intent toward the Foundation and its projects. In addition, the Foundation imposes a privacy policy on its volunteers, and we are obliged to adhere to it when dealing with Foundation matters. The constraints of that policy prohibit public disclosure of the circumstances of most of the incidents that necessitate the existence of a nonpublic forum such as the administrator's channel. If you are dissatisfied with that, I suggest you take it up with the Foundation's Board of Trustees; they are the source of that policy and it is they that would need to change it.

Now, at this point, because of the fact that there are so many people now admitted to the admin's channel who do not accept its purpose for existing and, in fact, enough who are actively hostile toward that purpose, the admin's channel is probably mostly useless for its original purpose. The channel has instead become the equivalent of the "old hats" list of a.f.u (see Clay Shirky's article on group dynamics in online fora): a low-noise (or at least lower-noise) alternative to the main IRC channel (which is really quite the cesspit at times), used for general discussion of issues deemed to be of importance to the people who are engaged in "gardening" of the English Misplaced Pages community. It's my conclusion that the admin's channel has scaled beyond the point of usefulness, which means that it's probably time to create the "new hats" channel. (There actually was a channel filling this role for quite a long time, but it lost critical mass when four of its major participants all left the project or went on longish breaks at about the same time.) The current attacks on the channel (e.g. the several people who have in the past disdained it but recently have taken to lurking in it, supposedly to provide "accountability") are simply going to create more impetus to establish a new backchannel (to which they will not be invited) where gardening discussions will simply be moved to over time. The discussions will not cease, they will simply move, and by forcing them to move in this manner you will ensure that you are not part of those discussions. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I got here late, so I only read the original question. My answer is everyone has the right to talk to each other in private outside the wiki, everyone has the right not to. But actions on Misplaced Pages need to be based on evidence on Misplaced Pages. HighInBC 16:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It is not rational for us to be expected to review admin action via secret evidence, regardless of whether we trust or enjoy the trust of the "foundation" (I think I at least do). Take it underground, then; much better than secret IRC discussions being invoked onwiki. El_C 16:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I've explained twice already why this is not feasible in certain circumstances, and why it is important for others to assume good faith when they encounter such situations and make private inquiries in such cases instead of public inquisitions. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Kelly, I certainly understand the importance of a conversation-speed setting for sensitive issues. Frankly, that's why I suggested the secure ArbCom channel, above; I'm not sufficiently versed in the canny means of Foundation back-office structure to know exactly who else would need such a channel, but I assume that an OTRS-staff channel would be reasonable as well. The current IRC structure is ill-suited to these needs, or, at the least, is better suited to other needs than to its own. It is demonstrably not secure; logs are leaked to users here, to email, to Wikitruth, to who knows where. That would make it seem a poor choice for the sorts of ArbCom or OTRS work that you appear to allude to. But by the same token, it is an "excellent" means to quickly debate typical administrative decisions. I don't think that requires any assumption of bad faith or cabalhood; it is efficient at that task. The problem is that, like everyone, admins can be wrong, and decisions that are logically discussed in secret appear to everyone else to have been brought to life more like Athena, full-grown from the head of Zeus. You have been actively involved in the necessarily-secret business in the past (although I'll confess to being more than a bit confused about your actual current role in the Foundation...), so do you have any insight into how we might fix this? This thread is evidence enough that it is not working as intended. Serpent's Choice 18:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I know this discussion is long enough already, but I just wanted to inject my own opinion here, as I've been thinking about the issue for some time. I feel that the problem is not with the use of IRC in general, but with the blanket prohibition on public logging, as stated on meta:IRC channels. More specifically, the issue is not that there are private channels — as has been mentioned, people who want to conspire in private will find a way regardless — but that the most popular and convenient channels, including both #wikipedia and #wikipedia-en-admins, remain in "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" mode by default. Thus, well-meaning people who simply want to discuss Misplaced Pages-related things on a real-time forum are encouraged to do so in a confidential setting, even if the actual matter being discussed could easily have withstood the light of day.

My proposal for fixing the problem would be to make all open Wikimedia IRC channels officially logged by default, and to announce this prominently in the channel topic as recommended by the Freenode channel guidelines. At least for some channels, including official but invite-only ones like #wikipedia-en-admins, the logs could be kept behind a password, available only to selected groups (ArbCom / all admins / etc.); the important thing is that official logs exist, not that they be available to anyone who Googles for them. Of course, private unlogged channels could still be created, and even made (semi-)official, for those who want and/or need such privacy. The important thing would simply be that someone who just wants to stop by to ask "is this edit vandalism?" should not be encouraged to do so on a confidential channel. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that you'll find a great deal of support for such a change. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hoot! I have a feeling that one "leading member" of the channel will fight until her last breath against ever having that channel logged. Heck, I'd bet there would be an instant forking, "at the request of the Foundation or Jimbo, I forget which!" That's the thing about IRC: someone can come along and just tell you that it was true, or that it wasn't, and you can't ask for proof! Wheeee! Crowbait 18:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you Kelly nice to here you sounding a little more eloquent than you do on IRC, but what I want to know is why are you in the admin channel? - have you suddenly been promoted, or do you just feel your opinion is necessary to all on all subjects? Giano 17:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I am in the admins channel because (a) I want to be and (b) my presence there is useful to the project insomuch as I can advise others on appropriate courses of action to take in specific situations (having previously proven myself competent to do so). (I am assuming that (b) is the case because, as of yet, nobody has sought to revoke my access or advise me that my presence is no longer beneficial.) I am aware that a small but noisy segment of the Misplaced Pages community no longer feels that I am worthy of trust; however, that opinion is apparently not shared by the Foundation, or by the bulk of the participants in the admins channel. I am still very much involved in gardening the Misplaced Pages community, and participate in the channel to that end. I offer my opinions because, in the past, many diverse people have indicated to me that my opinions have been helpful to them. You are, of course, free to disagree with them, but I think the project would be best served if you did so respectfully.

Now, I ask you: why do you care that I am a participant (and, in fact, leading member) of the admin's channel? Why are you interested in my motives for participation there? Kelly Martin (talk) 17:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Because it seemed to me, (and do please correct me if I have misread the figures) that an overwhelming majority of those who voted in the recent arbcom elections intimated they would not trust you. Therefore your asumption that your "opinions have been helpful" is perhaps at best antiquated. The fact that you are, as you say, "a leading member" of the admin's channel - shows just how out of touch those that continue to tolerate your presence there are. It must be very difficult to know when one is "over the hill", one of those things only your best friends can tell you. We shall have to try and think of ways to help you. Giano 17:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Funny, I'd like to be in the channel, too, and I'm sure I have plenty of input. Unfortunately for me, it tells me that the channel is invite only. If "I'd like to be" and "I can offer input" is now the only reason anyone needs to be there, then I'll await my invite patiently. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• You're quite right Jeff, I'd like to be there too, and my input is very prolific indeed, we can join together perhaps because I've certainly never had 200+ fellow editors telling me simultaneously they have no confidence in me, so I must more than meet the criteria, or perhaps IRCadmins is just really a private "gossiping club" for the select few regardless of wiki-status, experience or lack of it. Giano 19:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you quite understand the meaning of "invite-only" in this context. "Invite-only" on a Freenode channel means that a channel operator has to invite you to the channel (or add you to the auto-invite list) before you can join. This is to distinguish such channels from non-invite-only channels, where anyone who isn't banned from the channel can join. Clearly a channel intended for English Misplaced Pages administrators has to be set up as invite-only in this sense. In other words, invite-only does not mean you have to "await an invite", it means you have to request one. Have either of you ever actually asked to join the channel? – Gurch 13:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm a 12 year IRC veteran, I know how it works. It's invite only because the channel operators, who are admins here from the sound of it, wantto keep certain users out. Since it appears the only roadblock has to be "I want in" and "I can offer input," I've requested an invite. I requested it 36 hours ago. I'm still waiting. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Some things need to be discussed confidentially. Other things just need to be discussed. Is there any reason there couldn't be some selection of channels that are publicly logged and clearly labeled as such? Would anyone use them? Dragons flight 16:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Aye, there's the rub. I realize how difficult changing the policy of an existing channel (not to mention dozens of them) on such an issue would probably be; but on the other hand, I doubt getting dozens or hundreds of users to simultaneously move to a new channel would be any easier. I doubt most people on, say, #wikipedia care one bit whether the channel is logged or not, but by the same token they're not going to bother to join "#wikipedia-logged" when the channel they're already on is working just fine. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that secret IRC discussions are being invoked onwiki as grounds for admin action, even when such secrecy appears far from paramount. That is highly divisive and counterproductive, and works against the aims of the project. El_C 17:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed that is the problem. If it's secret, it should stay secret and the channel ops/monitors should try to ensure such discussions have no consequences for individuals (no talk of blocking established users, attempts to undermine them, no blackening of names); or if it's to include all that, then it must be possible for users to find out who said what about them so they can challenge it. The ArbCom channel and mailing list exist for when established users have to be discussed discreetly. SlimVirgin 22:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kelly Martin that the people who make the serious decisions about Misplaced Pages need to be able to talk with each other in private; but I doubt they are doing that on IRC any more, as it doesn’t seem very private judging from the toxic leaks which ignited this debate. The issue doesn't concern that but whether administrators and others should make routine decisions about blocking and suchlike on IRC instead of on Misplaced Pages: I believe they should do it on Misplaced Pages, to be transparent. And if on occasion they need to discuss something privately—for example, to outwit a vandal who monitors their activities—they could surely do that by e-mail. I would like to see as many administrators as possible follow such a principle, which would spare them lapsing into the gossip and slander so natural to informal conversation but so hurtful to the targets if revealed in the cold light of day. It is still possible, of course, to be gossipy and conspiratorial on Misplaced Pages itself, but there you do at least take more care, knowing the parties involved might read what you say, or that you might be called for breaching policies and guidelines. I can understand that some editors might enjoy socialising on IRC: I see no harm in that, so long as a voluntary code-of-conduct be observed—for example, no discussing Misplaced Pages business directly or criticising editors not present. A room moderator or appointee of the sort (excuse me, I've never been on IRC) could keep each session on the straight and narrow. qp10qp 18:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It's an issue of speed and efficiency though. In IRC you can resolve in a few minutes something that would take hours on-wiki. Not everyone likes playing talk page tag. Hell, I don't even use the talk pages of anyone who I can contact on IRC because it's just that better. IRC clients will ping when you are contacted; Misplaced Pages doesn't. If you aren't browsing Misplaced Pages but are still at your computer, you won't get a talk page message, but you will get an IRC PM. --Cyde Weys 19:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutly, there's a flipside to this whole IRC situation that nobody has noticed, or doesn't want notice. Decisions can be made to block a user within seconds, but just as easily, a decision to unblock can also be made, a discussion that could take a day on Wiki can be done in an hour on IRC. And after all is said, we choose on admins on their ability to look at the evidence available on Misplaced Pages regardless of where or who presents it. Is an AIV report on IRC any less valid than an AIV report at WP:AIV - Nope, the evidence still has to exist on Misplaced Pages or the blocking admin will get a bollocking. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 20:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If you need assistance, what's wrong with posting on the administrators' boards? Not only will you get a quick response, but you will probably get it from someone you don't usually work with, which is healthier. And everybody will know about it, which is more useful. As for unblocking, why would there need to be a rush? There's too much unblocking going on already, in my opinion. And usually a number of people are watching an incident once it's been presented on the noticeboard, so I see even less need for IRC with unblocking: those without IRC would be half in the dark as to what was going on. qp10qp 21:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Very good point indeed. Over to you Kelly, James, Cyde and I suppose GMaxwell for an answer to that one you are the leading players there, what have you to say to that valid point? - what about you Mindspillage you are very quiet this evening? Giano 21:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • On the odd, and I mean very odd occasion I've taken something there, it's because I find that the interface better facilitates discussion and that contrary to the point made above, I get discussion with people I don't ordinarily work with. It's also quicker and the discussion doesn't drag and spiral into awful tangents. Steve block Talk 21:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a leading player here, but I'll take a stab.

• Not only will you get a quick response... as has been pointed out, very little is quick than IRC. From just El_C's comment above down to Giano's took 4 hours to get 5 unique responses.
• ...but you will probably get it from someone you don't usually work with... just as a set of people might frequent an IRC channel, so might a set (or the same set?) frequent this page. Even if the channel was disbanded tomorrow, and all participants congenially came to AN/I to discuss all issues, it doesn't guarantee more participation...just more eyes to see things. (Which I won't deny is all many are asking for)
• And everybody will know about it, which is more useful. Everyone can know, if they eyeball the block logs. Even more people would know if Admins would post their block actions to AN/I as they occur, as I wish they would. While advanced warning of block actions on AN/I would be great, I suspect some admins feel time is more critical - hence, discussing it in the immediate forum of IRC, than on-wiki. Regardless, the only "invisible" action I know of on Wiki is Oversight. --InkSplotch 22:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, this argument isn't going to die, is it? It's so long now I can't find where I should put this, so here goes.

This thing about administrative actions not being discussed on IRC. As far as I'm aware there's no rule stating where on-wiki you have to discuss administrative actions. So it's perfectly acceptable for a small group of users to disucss administrative actions on their own user talk pages, yes? Becuase it's logged, "open channel", call it what you will. However, every administrator does not read every other administrator's talk page, so they're not going to know about it unless they specifically go looking, are they? So surely the argument about different parties not being equally well-informed applies there as well? So we should go one step further and insist all administrative-action-related discussion takes place on this page? I don't understand this approach to the matter at all – Gurch 21:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that other users can read the discussions on the talk pages afterwards, so they can reconstruct what happened. This is not possible on IRC, as long as it is strictly forbidden to publish any logs. --Conti|✉ 21:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that. The key word there is "afterwards". I'm not talking about reviewing incidents days or weeks after the event; I'm talking about the point raised by, for example, Serpent's Choice in point (2) of his earlier post to which I replied; that (apparently) wheel wars emerge because one user has information that another does not, at the time – Gurch 22:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

For that matter, if discussion of administrative actions is banned on IRC, is there anything to stop people discussing administrative actions privately in a different channel, and then hastily posting stuff on each others' talk pages after they've already made the decision just in case anyone asks for a "record of the discussion"? It seems to me that you can't change the actual means of discussion, only the apparent means of discussion – Gurch 21:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing. Are administrators prohibited from discussing administrative actions with each other via email? Is this not even less "open" than IRC, as with IRC there are generally a couple of dozen people permanently logged in who can review (if not share) the conversation at a later date if the need arises? Forgive me if this stuff has already been dispensed with – Gurch 21:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is fine to discuss on other pages than this, because that leaves a trail of accountability, though if speed is the concern (as it is of a couple of people above), you will get more attention and action if you post on the administrators' boards rather than on one person's talk page. And let's not exaggerate Misplaced Pages's slowness—it gives you alerts when you get a note on your talk page, and you can exchange talk very quickly if you have to. But if the matter is so complex that it needs an involved conversation, much better to place it on the administrators' boards and get advice from others, tangents notwithstanding. Seeing the arguments written down and being able to read them over and consider your comments and actions is in my opinion likelier to result in a wise decision.

As for e-mail, I'd say use it for administration work only when you really have to, and then report the conversation as part of the incident's discussion. qp10qp 21:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have no intention of using email for such things, just as I consider myself capable of using IRC in an acceptable way (though it's too unpleasant to do so at the moment). But if we're going to start making claims of abuse, attempt to enforce, er, "openness", and introduce rules for one, should we not do so for the other, too? – Gurch 22:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not advocating e-mail for admin instead of IRC; I'm advocating just using Misplaced Pages. But I can imagine cases—where an admin is being stalked, for example—where a resort to e-mail would be understandable. qp10qp 22:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

As I wrote above, people who want to talk in private will always be able to do so, whether by IRC, e-mail, telephone or whatever. The problem I see with the "no public logging" rule on #wikipedia and related channels is that people who just want to talk about Misplaced Pages-related things on IRC are encouraged to do so in a non-reviewable forum (since that's where everyone else is).

It's not as if the people on #wikipedia could expect any real privacy, since anyone can join, and Kelly Martin has stated above that even the invite-only #wikipedia-en-admins channel cannot really be considered secure any more; all the prohibition on public logging is doing now is making it easier for trolls to cause confusion and for honest miscommunication to escalate into conflicts, and harder for third parties to figure out afterwards what has really happened when people present conflicting stories.

As for e-mail, personally I've only discussed administrative actions via private e-mail twice in the time I've been on Misplaced Pages. Both times left me feeling vaguely dirty, even though the issues being discussed were the antics of permabanned users and even though on both occasions it was the banned user themselves who first took the matter to e-mail. I just don't personally like discussing things "off the record" if it can be avoided, and find maintaining such secrecy to be often stressful. ("Can I say this? Where did I hear that? Will I reveal something by acting on this?") Still, I do accept the need for such privacy in certain cases — I just wish we wouldn't encourage it for trivial matters. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think SlimVirgin has the right answer - if the admins need a private channel to discuss confidential situations, that's fine, but that channel shouldn't have a visible impact on the public wikipedia. If something needs to occur without a public explanation, it should occur by an Office action, not by a random admin stating that they are acting for reasons that they cannot disclose, but that were discussed on a private IRC channel. There is some risk that any private communication channel will result in a de facto exception to the "little or no campaigning" rule that is forming, but I don't see a good solution to that, except to ask editors to report any off-wiki campaigning that they see. TheronJ 14:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm afraid the "leading lights" or IRCadmins have abused the channel to such an extent that no one will ever trust anything that come out of it again. Too much dirty work has been done there. It need to be closed and quickly. Then we need to make an example of those admins who have abused the system their with their lies and clumsy plotting. As for those who just stood idly by in the channel gleefully listening to it all but saying nothing, their attempts, to distance themselves from it all now, claiming "they called Jimbo" or "I advised against" are quite frankly nauseating. they knew what was going on and did nothing. They are no better then the ringleaders. The way their behaviour changed the moment Jimbo walked into that room was akin to a teacher entering a class of delinquent juveniles. The channel must be closed, and fast, to restore Misplaced Pages's reputation. Giano 15:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

And then what?

• Set up a semi-official, publically logged channel as a replacement?
• Set up a semi-official channel with logs privately viewable by the ArbCom?
• Have no semi-official replacement at all, thereby leading to the exact same situation but without the semi-officialness?

Also, what should be done with #wikipedia and #wikipedia-en? They're not logged either. Do you want them closed down too? How about #wikimedia-admin? And how about the various channels available to other languages and other projects, over which we here at en.wikipedia have no control whatsoever? – Gurch 15:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I repeat "the "leading lights" or IRCadmins have abused the channel to such an extent that no one will ever trust anything that come out of it again". The channel is now debased, it is corrupted like a putrefying limb it has to be amputated. That may be painful, it may be unpleasant, it may be difficult, but it is always beneficial in the end. Giano

Yes, I did hear you the first time. But since your main concern seems to be with the conduct of certain people, my question is nonetheless relevant. Do you want a replacement channel with different rules about "openness" established (so that as far as accountability is concerned, it is no different to the mailing list), or do you want the channel to be removed entirely and no replacement created. Your tone gives the impression that you wish for the latter of these. However, it seems to me that there is nothing to stop the people whose conduct you have a problem with from simply taking their discussions elsewhere. The rest of us (neutral parties such as myself, who nevertheless find IRC discussion useful) are then deprived of a resource which we wish to use (and have always wished to use) for productive purposes. On the other hand, setting up a more open channel would prevent the abuse and coruption of which you speak from taking place, forcing out those who wished to use it for that purpse. They may well still choose to take their discussions elsewhere, of course – but the rest of us need not be impeded as a result – Gurch 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• That all rather depends on the fates of the lying and unpleasant admins who corrupted IRCadmins in the first place, if they are allowed to remain as admins then no admins can be trusted to have secret wiki-concerned conversations. When I read edits like this from one who was there and making such comments as "Giano isn't worth it", but making no attempt to halt the plotting, one rather comes to the conclusion best not to trust any of them. They don't even support each other, when the cips are down. Giano 19:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

My own conclusion

I really, really, really am trying to read without jaundice, here. My own conclusion, from reading the above, about the question I asked (ignoring all of the other stuff) is that it's down to "it's for private communications between the Foundation and certain trusted admins" (Kelly) and "WP:ILIKEIT" from Gurch (not meaning to denigrate there, but you did say that you like IRC and don't like noticeboards).

It seems to me that, if it does exist so that certain (i.e. selected) trusted (and "by whom?" and "how do we know?" come up) administrators and the Foundation is the reason, then why are those persons not inducted into the Foundation? I cannot imagine what sort of data is private enough that it cannot be revealed to the project but can be revealed to an IRC channel. Checkuser data? That cannot be revealed to anyone but ArbCom. Anyone who uttered that stuff in an open IRC channel would be a fool and should be drummed out. Slander/libel of living persons? We discuss that stuff on the noticeboards all the time, because it's something has to happen on the Wiki for us to address. People's real political activities? That's no one's business but ArbCom, if even theirs. Kelly doesn't explain, even in vague terms, why the rest of the administrators cannot be told this stuff nor, even in vague terms, why other administrators can. More particularly, I don't get any sense that the rest of us cannot perform our duties without the information.

Additionally, if such were the function, and if the function were so strong that we cannot even be told what it is, so strong that we must assume that the channel is used for that and only for that (because no one can check, and if someone sees something else going on there, he or she cannot report it or prove it), it would have been negated the instant a non-administrator were in the channel. In fact, at present two non-administrators (certainly one, and I think two or three) have "ops" in the channel. Also, we have nowhere gotten any indication of why the logical and secure medium for discussing sensitive matters (e-mail and mailing lists) are not sufficient.

The idea that an IRC is better than e-mail because it's real time is silly. The other person has to be awake, at a computer, and online, as well as on IRC, to be available for chat, just like e-mail. If you're both at your computers, you can send e-mails back and forth as quickly as chat. If you're not, then the chat makes no more sense than e-mail. It's a foolish argument that really shouldn't be offered.

Nevertheless, I don't see anything I'm missing out on. I can be a good admin without that channel. I'm not sure that I could be one with it, but I know I'm not a bad one without it. Geogre 16:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

So don't use IRC if you don't want to. And shut down #wikipedia-en-admins... it won't actually accomplish anything, but it would prevent possible criticisms of the channel. The rest of it (that IRC is bad in general, the strawman that IRC participation is required, the conclusion that the opposite extreme is better (that participation should be discouraged)) is all a waste of time, and nearly trolling. A lot of work gets done on IRC with regard to the wikimedia servers, the toolserver, and for other projects, and nothing suggested so far could lessen the work that gets done over IRC. (and probably won't change the "no logging" default used across many channels) --Interiot 18:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually I didn't say I like IRC, just that I hate mailing lists and this page. Right now I hate IRC too, because it's caused people to get into this mess. But I take your point. (As you can probably guess, I also didn't put too much thought into those one-word answers; fortunately Kelly Martin seems to have compensated for my lack of verbosity by writing a whole page of stuff in response.

The other person has to be awake, at a computer, and online, as well as on IRC, to be available for chat, just like e-mail.

This is true. Though in my case, if I'm on a computer I'm online and connected to IRC, so there are only two conditions to be met.

If you're both at your computers, you can send e-mails back and forth as quickly as chat.

This is not true. Apart from anything else, you'd either have to schedule your email client to send and recieve every ten seconds, or keep hitting the "Send/Recieve" button while the other person was typing. And if you kept replying to the previous person's email, eventually you'd be sending tens of kilobytes of text back and forth each time just to transmit one line of conversation.

Anyway, IRC has been around for a while – it predates HTTP, HTML and wikis (if not SMTP) by several years, so let's not get too bogged down in arguments over whether "IRC is better"; the benefits and drawbacks of decades-old protocols have been pretty extensively discussed elsewhere, and are not really relevant to our "problem". For general collaboration – a central part of Misplaced Pages – people are entitled to use whatever method of communication they find to be most productive – Gurch 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A subquestion

If these back channels are used to discuss confidential matters, shouldn't we have a mechanism for deciding who has access to them? It's perfectly OK for appointees to exercise delegated power confidentially, but these people should be appointed and the power should be properly and publicly delegated, either by the community or by the foundation. When did I or anybody else give our consent for specifically these people to discuss confidential matters in relation to the project? Zocky | picture popups 18:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• The last time I asked a question like that, I was told (by a now blocked user), "tough, loser." At the time, I figured that wasn't an official position, but no official position emerged. Is it Danny? I've known Danny for years, and I would be shocked that he'd act without process. Is it Jimbo? If so, it would be uncharacteristic, given his statement of purpose on his user page. Is Brad? I don't know him, so I have no comment. The point is that it seemed to me to be self-selection, and that's not good if the self-selected also have any say on exclusion. I'm still not sure that I believe Kelly when she says that the channel was created by Jimbo or the Foundation, as she can't recall the details. Can no one offer a diff showing the creation rationale? Geogre 18:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Anyone in the channel can see the list of people with access to the channel (/cs access #wikipedia-en-admins list), and anyone inside could protest if non-admins they didn't trust got added, I guess. As far as I know, that should be sufficient. As others have said though, I'm not sure how much it gets used for secure communications anymore. --Interiot 18:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

FGS, it is a private club devoted to the adoration of Kelly(who is not even an admin), James and Co. No doubt Danny who founded it does not see it that way, but that is what it is. Anyone who fails to follow the line there is made to feel very unwelcome. The rest are so grateful and pleased to be there they will do anything asked of them. The only time they behave themselves is when Jimbo turns up. It is now a hindrance to the future development of Misplaced Pages, it is abused and debased and needs to be abolished. Giano 19:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• • • My point is, if there are really confidential things to be discussed, we should be much more careful about who gets to discuss them. If there aren't, the backchannels aren't likely to be helpful on the whole. Zocky | picture popups 19:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, time for a long reply.

So far in this discussion, I've tried to bring up some points that I thought might be worth discussing merely from observation of what people had said before; from an outsider's point of view, so to speak. However, as the conversation has progressed over the last 24 hours, I have become increasingly concerned. I feel compelled to bring up my personal experience at this point, as it would appear that either I am guilty of gross misconduct and should be desysopped immediately, or I am not. I would very much like to know which.

I was asked if I would find the channel useful soon after I became an administrator. It must have been some time in July; I forget exactly when. Had I requested access sooner (well, any time after my RfA), I am certain I would have been granted it; I had no record of incivility or, as far as I'm aware, anything else that would be percived as problematic. I started, participated in, and listened with interest to many productive discussions in that channel, and I certainly feel I have more experience and a better understanding of Misplaced Pages as a result of being there. I certainly don't regret my involvement. Yet apparently, I am either to blame for months of abuse, or "nauseating" as a result of my faliure to do anything about it.

I probably spent thousands of hours logged into that channel (not always actively conversing, of course, but nevertheless logged in), before this argument flared up during the ArbCom elections and I decided I wouldn't want to be seen to be taking sides. So, then, I'm an administrator, and I used IRC. Frequently. I'm not entirely sure whether that makes me an "IRCadmin"; I sincerely hope it does not, as if it does, I am shocked to hear such allegations as "lies and clumsy plotting" directed at me.

If it does not, my situation hardly seems to be better. I wonder aloud whether I "stood idly by in the channel gleefully listening to it all but saying nothing". It's quite possible that I did, if you define that to mean being logged in but not speaking. Generally such behaviour indicates that I'm out, asleep, or just concerned with other things. On the other hand, there were discussions that I did read, but did not contribute to. Generally I couldn't think of anything useful to say, or wasn't particularly bothered about the issue, but I read them nonetheless; I like to be informed.

This last paragraph also does little to reassure me. I don't particularly adore Kelly. She's not my type. For that matter, she doesn't particularly like me. I spent several months on the B-list (remember that?) and it was me that first discovered and questioned its existence. Interestingly, I never discussed the matter on-wiki; I brought it up in the IRC channel. The fact that it was subsequently MfD'd and deleted without my involvement (I was on holiday) seems to demonstrate that not everything that happened in that channel was dictated by one party. My relationships with James and whoever you're referring to when you say "and Co" are also notably lacking in the adoration area.

I find the notion I belonged (and, I suppose still do belong; last time I checked I still had access) to some sort of "private club" bewildering. Prior to my RfA I had had virtually no dealings of any sort with administrators, other than the odd one-time message/reply over some trifling issue. I was nominated by a non-administrator, and supported primarily by non-administrators. That situation changed little over the next month (it inevitably changed a small amount out of necessity). Certainly I had done absolutely nothing that might warrant some kind of "membership"; yet I was welcomed as another administrator and, as I say, had many productive discussions in the following months.

I won't pretend that in those four and a half months I didn't see the odd bit of somewhat questionable conduct. However, I know for sure that I saw a lot more of it on-wiki, and I'm not aware that I involved myself in anything that violates any of our policies as they stood then, or stand now. I was (and still am) relatively inexperienced, so I'm sure I did something wrong at some point. But I'm curious as to the percieved magnitude of it.

So, I have apparently done something wrong, and whichever it is, I'm not going to like it. But I need to know. What is it? – Gurch 20:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Strange e-mail

I received this e-mail from MexicanMuger (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), and this is just here to get some more input on the bullshit he may be pulling (solely wikilinks added to it):

I'm thinking it's just another Bobabobabo sockpuppet trying to get the home IP unblocked, but I'd rather y'all look into it, especially because of the attack on former administrator Tony Sidaway.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This has also been brought up here and I believe handled. -- JLaTondre 03:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Didn't see that there. Guess I've got another e-mail to filter.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Just got it, too. Apparently they're just spamming admins. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Template help needed

Only an admin can do this one; I didn't dare try because the syntax is so complicated. At Template talk:Birth date and age#selfref there is a request to remove an unnecessary {{selfref}} from a template. - Jmabel | Talk 04:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's so that mirrors don't take the age, which might be inaccurate should the person later die. Ral315 (talk) 07:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and made this change. Rationale can be found on the talk page. --CBD 13:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Some admin stats

I just ran a check on all 1082 admins the results are shocking.

• 63.49% (687) of these users are currently active (last edited 3 days ago at most)
• 85.12% (921) of these users are active (last edited 29 days ago at most)
• 2.96% (32) of these users are long-term inactive (last edited 1+ years ago)

I thought others might be interested Betacommand 07:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

That works out to more than 32 +sysop accounts sitting unused and unguarded, all of them tempting to those interested in compromising them. Things like this make me wonder whether long-term inactivity should result in desysopping, purely for security purposes. (Doesn't one of the Scandinavian Wikipedias do that?) Picaroon 07:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

We do it at the Commons. Inactive for a year will get you desysoped, but you can reapply if you become active again. User:Zscout370 07:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

PS there is at least one account that has been inactive for over four years. Betacommand 07:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I see no compelling reason to desysop them. It's not a simple matter to compromise one of our accounts. alphachimp. 07:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

And the thing is that an inactive admin account is no different than an active admin account. If my account were to be hacked tomorrow, it's no different than an admin who has been inactive for four years- an immediate desysopping is required. Ral315 (talk) 07:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If your account were hacked, you would be on here or on IRC very quickly to let someone know about it. On the other hand, if the account of someone who hasn't visited the site in over a year were compromised, there's much less of a chance they would notice. BigDT 13:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

All admin actions are reversible. The accounts aren't sitting anywhere physically, and by not loggin in, it's more difficult for somebody with keylogger (example) to get the password. And besides,compromising danger is independent of usage (even used accounts can be compromised). -- Drini 07:29, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

We got enough admins on Misplaced Pages that if one account goes bad, we got plenty to fix the damage and I do not see a need to desysop people for not being here on Misplaced Pages. User:Zscout370 07:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Some actions are easier to reverse than others. I won't violate WP:BEANS here, but a breach could be really miserable. We should try to reduce the chances, but turning off inactive admins might not be my number one priority. --Gmaxwell 07:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking from a purely technical point of view, an active admin account is more prone to be hacked than an insecure one. I won't discuss why here, though... Titoxd 07:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Than an inactive one, not insecure. For example the admin accounts that had blank passwords were pretty likely to be hacked back when those existed. :) --Gmaxwell 08:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Basic security measures like changing the password (to a complex/unguessable/long password) after 90 days of inactivity would solve that potential problem. The admin could just change their password using existing tools to get back in when they re-activate. Atom 20:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I had originally meant. Freudian slip... Titoxd 08:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds about right, 740 admins performed at least one admin action between 11/01 and 12/18 (where admin action = something that makes a log entry, not editing a protected page). --Gmaxwell 07:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Or 68.39% of all admins Betacommand 07:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Demoting inactive admins is a perennial proposal (see WP:PEREN) that has pretty much been rejected several times in the past. The latest incarnation is here. >Radiant< 10:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Demoting? I can see why perfectly sensible proposals, in line with the usual business practice where privileged accounts are concerned, are rejected when temporary desysoping is seen as demotion. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• It's not one of the hottest concerns we have, but people who aren't here aren't here, and, if they come back, they'll be way, way, way out of the loop and therefore not enjoying community trust. Administrative status is not a caste one is born or reborn into, and it's annoying that we keep treating it like an inherent quality of the person. (If a person came back after only two years, he'd go looking for VfD, VfU, be unaware of WEB, BIO, ALBUm, etc. He'd never know that we had echelons of echelons of IRC, which is now less and less optional. He'd never know a ton of things, including where the speedy deletes are, how templates are controlled, what userboxes are, etc. I'm not sure he could function very well as an admin upon his return.) Geogre 12:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • True, but as he had been made an admin he is (presumably) a sensible person who would realise that the site would have changed a lot in two years. We should trust our admins to familiarise themselves with the new common practices before doing anything after a long break. Raven4x4x 13:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure what other admins have been "out of the loop", but neither Zoe nor myself had much of a problem getting back in. Conversely, I've seen one or two freshly promoted admins that are pretty much clueless regarding how certain important parts of Misplaced Pages work. Unless you would propose an "admin exam" on rules knowledge that people have to pass upon promotion and return (say, 100 multiple choice questions, need at least 75 correct, and no I don't seriously think this is a good idea). >Radiant< 13:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It depends on what the definition of an administrator is. If it's a person trusted by the community, then it should be a heck of a lot more fluid than once-chosen-always-holy. Great that Radiant! and Zoe got back in the swing of things, but that's not much of a data set to extrapolate from. Crowbait 18:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• And what about just add some more new admins ? ≈Tulkolahten≈ 13:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  I would not object to an Admin exam, but I imagine I'm in the minority here. It would be open book, for technical reasons, so all it will test is if the editor in question can look things up, read and comprehend - which is a core skillset which some of our admins seem to lack. KillerChihuahua 13:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Not to mention that copy/pasting the answers from the last candidate is also a core skillset... :) >Radiant< 13:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Well ... RFA still asks that punitive block question, so copy/pasting is clearly one of the three most important admin functions! </humor> Serpent's Choice 13:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• (after edit conflict) Only if the exam did not have question pooling, and had "open grading". I've been in distance education for the past 10 years. Creating a question pool, multiple-choice/single select and/or multiple-choice/multiple select, with scores released either by section or the entire exam, without giving out correct (and/or incorrect) choices selected - or even pass/fail only - would not compromise the integrity of future exams. This is all academic, though, as there is zero support for testing admins. KillerChihuahua 13:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  How is it that we've had three standard questions in RfA for more than a year, and each candidate seems to be able to express themselves in their own words? Kimchi.sg 13:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  Paraphrasing. KillerChihuahua 14:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

  some don't even manage that. Agathoclea 15:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Crossing the streams a bit, what with writing the test before the horse, aren't we? Anyway, it dead-standard practice on any system with access control to remove access when it's no longer used/required. Security concerns aside, it's just tidy to do so. The risks associated with auto-re-opping someone who has been away are microscopic. I'd even suggest that the one year band is too long: Were I "Access Control" I'd dead-min at nine or even six months. - brenneman 23:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

But I'd also mass-purge any account over one month old with no contributions, just to put my opinions into context.
brenneman 23:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist

This page appears to be dead. ≈Tulkolahten≈ 12:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Whitelisting solved by JzG, but that page is still dead. ≈Tulkolahten≈ 10:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Explanatory pages

Many pages in Misplaced Pages namespace serve to explain to (novice or unfamiliar) users why we do things in a certain way. We should distinguish between pages that explain how things work in practice, and pages that give somebody's opinion on how things should work. Traditionally, we have called the former {{guideline}}, the latter {{essay}}. Since anyone can write an essay for any reason, they are not authoritative, and people learning how Misplaced Pages works tend to ignore them.

Off late, the distinction has become problematic. A (new) page that explains how things work tends to become a locus for people who don't like the way things work. Such people vehemently object to calling such a page "guideline", generally because they think of guidelines as binding rules (even though the tag says they're not) or because they think formal process wasn't followed in creating the guideline (even though no such formal process exists, and discussion suffices).

Though several others exist, a good example is WP:SNOW. Several people work that way, several others don't like that. There are no apparent objections to what the page actually says, but people object to the page because of the way it can (allegedly) be abused.

Misplaced Pages can be confusing, so informing and educating users is important. So how do we deal with this? Do we say that guidelines are no big deal, and being guided by practice is not problematic? Do we need a new tag for "this page explains how Misplaced Pages works"? Would there be a meaningful distinction between the latter and "guideline"? Should we make a formal way of writing guidelines? This dispute is flaring on several pages, so it's desirable to have a general principle about explanatory pages. >Radiant< 12:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

We should make a formal way of writing guidelines. More importantly, we should make a formal procedure for marking a proposal a guideline. There's a person called Radiant who has been very involved in several important controversies on just this issue who should probably be very helpful ... hey, wait!AnonEMouse 15:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you cross post this to the village pump, which is the correct place for this kind of thing? Proto::► 16:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be useful to define "Guideline" in a clear manner. E.g., and this is off the top of my bean: "Guidelines represent a set of practices that have precedence and which represent the point of view of many Wikipedians. They are not rules, and violating them is not a matter for dispute resolution, but they will inform the reader of the way things are commonly done." Something like that? Anything that does the "this is a bill which is on its way to becoming a law as soon as the president signs it" kind of talk will be off putting. Crowbait 17:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

That looks suspiciously like this dynamic which earned a spot on Raul's laws and a brick of common sense. My take on the matter is that it's a nonissue: problem editors will mine any explanation for its own exploitive potential or else disregard it. Good faith contributors quickly learn the distinction anyway. Durova 00:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Iconoclast

Iconoclast (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log)
I recently started an afd for American Nihilist Underground Society (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/American Nihilist Underground Society (3rd nomination)) and this user has since started posting comments such as "anyone who votes delete is a homosexual pedophile" and "I think Azer Red needs more friends". If he wants to participate in the afd, fine, but I think that these comments he's been making would be considered trolling.--Azer Red Si? 15:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, I looked at his userpage and the first section of it appears to be a soapbox declaring that his nom for adminship was deleted by the "white racist power structure" within Misplaced Pages, and calling the closing admin, Radiant!, a "neo-nazi Scandinavian". I don't think that users are allowed to use their userspace to attack Misplaced Pages and other users.--Azer Red Si? 16:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

If the user keeps this up, his days here are numbered. I removed the personal attacks from the user page. Please do not remove AfD comments, rather, use strikeout. El_C 16:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like he's trying to supernova. I don't know why people do that. If they want to quit, they can just quit. They don't actually have to try to get blocked and then banned. (Maybe it's like the old days when admins used to block themselves to break the addiction.) Crowbait 17:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it is because wikipedia is absolute garbage? There is a reason all the professors I know openly mock it. I could help out and make it better, but really, I don't want to waste time in pointless edit wars because some dominatrix felt that "troll metal" exists or that Guru Kabir really lived to be 120 years old. LOL. This website is absolute garbage and it will never amount to anything. Plus it is openly laughable at how the GNAA had to have 18 vfds just so they could "democratically" delete it. LOL. I've seen admins delete people because they have different ideologies and all that garbage. I'm done with this filthy, pathetic website --Iconoclast 23:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, after that rant, you almost certainly are. SirFozzie 23:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Blocked for personal attacks and incivility after warning. Indefinate as the user has expressed that they are not interested in contributing constructivly to the encyclopedia. - brenneman 23:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Suspicious activity at Talk:Broly

There have been several IPs editing the Broly talk page and they all sign their comments with "(shadowsok)" and sometimes "(shadowsok@aol.com)". They also seem to have the same spelling patterns. The most recent IP to edit the article claims that he has edited an article prior to the talk page but when I checked his contributions, the talk page was the only page he's edited. I've noticed that most of the other IPs have only made one or two edits to the talk page. I would be grateful if someone could go through the history and the IPs and see what's going on. // Sasuke-kun27 17:32, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I could semi-protect the page if this were really a problem, but it looks as if this editor is a bad speller and a novice Wikipedian who's acting in good faith. Why not welcome them and encourage them to register? Durova 00:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocking policy

A rather strongheaded newbie made the following statement and was blocked. I suggested to unblock him and talk instead (User talk:Nnatan), but was declined by a very creative interpretation of assume good faith (which I enjoyed BTW, while disagreeing). I have to seriously disagree here.

• First, we cannot punish for something a person didn't do.
• Second, it should be pretty obvious that the person simply doesn't know about our 3RR policy otherwise he would not write such stupid announcement.
• Third, this person obviously does not understand what wikipedia is (he wrote "So you decide : either a creative encyclopedia or a robotintellectual encyclopedia."): instead of hitting him with the sledgehammer an admin has to talk to the person. All talks a've seen in his talk page was of kind "don't do this"
• Fourth, this action sizzled: the person doesn't edit since Dec 23, and if I were him, I'd think it was rather stupid to block a person who is not even here.
• Fifth. While for some he may look a kook, a brief internet search revealed that the disputed issue is indeed disputed to some extent. And it is not covered in the article. I cannot evaluate the prominence of this dispute, but I see it is not even discussed in the talk page. So IMO biting this newbie is outright detrimental to the article.

Whatever this discussion, the major question is: "does the threat of disruption constitute a blockable offense"? AFAIK only personal and legal threats are a reson for blocking. `'mikka 19:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

All blocks should be for prevention. Yes, threats of disruption justify blocking a user to prevent that disruption. You say we cannot punish for something a person didn't do, but blocks should never be punitive, only preventative. I may be wrong about this, but I don't think so. HighInBC 19:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

However, I already reviewed this block, so others opinion's on this would be greatly appreciated by me. HighInBC 19:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Mikka, I see where you are coming from and agree that the user was obviously new and shows a lack of understanding to a point that being talked to may be all that is needed. However, I agree with the initial block (I haven't looked at exact timing, but in principal) based on a threat of disruption. That said, if there is no reason to believe the user would start or continue disrupting Misplaced Pages upon being unblocked, the block has apparently served its purpose of preventing disruption and there would be no reason to keep the block. -- Renesis (talk) 19:35, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It is only a 24 hour block. HighInBC 19:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's have just one place discussing this. See the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Solomon.27s_Temple which preceded this discussion. Uncle G 22:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, Uncle G. Threat of disruption isn't really valid, IMO, as much as threat of continued disruption is. After all, everyone is a threat to disrupt (except me, of course...I'm placid as an unmuddied stream, as an azure sky). We really need to watch out for reaching for the "irremediable" label too quickly, even though 9 of 10 times we'd be right. It's that 10th that's a killer. Geogre 16:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't follow your logic. You say everyone is a threat to disrupt, but surely the statement of intent to disrupt distinguishes this one user from the masses of general probability. I also do not think the user is even close to "irredeemable", that is why the block was only 24 hours. HighInBC 17:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was speaking of the principle, not the instance. Everyone might go nuts, and so we should try to have credible evidence that a person is not just ranting but actually planning to continue something that is unacceptable. I wasn't trying to invalidate the block, just point to the need for clear language so that people don't get the wrong idea from the conversation. Geogre 18:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Category-adder

I've a slight problem with an anon user (217.42.5.54 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) who is insisting on adding a very large number of articles on footballers to Category:Muslims. The category is at the moment up for deletion, but more importantly my understanding is that we don't add such categories to every adherent of every religion. Rather, they're for people who have some special relevance to a religion (or vice versa). I've tried discussing it with him, but he seems either unable or unwilling to engage in discussion, instead accusing me of being a radical atheist who thinks that anons shouldn't edit.

First, am I right about religion categories? Secondly, if I am, could someone else try to reason with him? I'm getting nowhere. (If I'm wrong, of course, someone will have to reason with me; I promise to read what you actually say.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

To take Category:Jews, there is a subcategory Jews by occupation, the subcategories of which refer to people who are Jewish, but their notability has nothing to do with it. I see no problem with a category for Muslim footballers, which would be a subcategory (directly or otherwise) of Category:Muslims.Eli Falk 21:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that would probably be acceptable. They shouldn't be directly in Category:Muslims, though – Gurch 21:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose so. There is no category for Muslim footballers (or any other sportspeople). perhaps the anon could be persuaded to create one. (To be honest, I can't see much point in all this categorising of people in ways that are important to certain editors but not at all to the significance of the subjects, but I suppose that there's not much chance of doing anything about that.) Thanks for the responses. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

IP blocking and Internet technology awareness

I've been a longtime Misplaced Pages editor, editing from various IP addresses (home, work, on the road). I recently created this account so that I could avoid a problem I saw way too much as anonymous editor: blocked IPs. However, now I'm finding that even with an account I have difficulty finding an IP on the road that's not blocked. I've been looking into what's leading to these blocks and it does not appear to be called for in most cases (or just an overreaction). I think part of the problem has to do with misconceptions about how the internet works. Specifically an ignorance of RFC 1918 and it's growing ubiquity. With RFC 1918, what appears to be a single IP address affecting one machine and presumably one user.

This first arose for me with Tmobile hotspots which use a single IP (or maybe a few) for their 8,000 internet hotspots throughout the US. I reported this issue to ISP reporting and I am trying to work with them to get something worked out. However, there is clearly a problem of administrator awareness and misconceptions about the meaning of an IP address. Often time an IP can be cleanly associated with a single house or office. However, more and more private WAN networks make use of a single public IP address to sever thousands or millions of private IP addresses. This is a network topology decision. The network administrators could have chosen instead to purchase thousands of public IP addresses. Administrators should try to be aware of this and it would be best if Misplaced Pages could compile a list somewhere of these important IPs. It's not that such an IP should never be blocked, but rather the same caution should be exercised in blocking a shared IP with thousands of private IPs behind it that an admin would exercises in blocking a thousand IPs.

The WikiMedia foundation has a XFF-RFC1918 Project that may help with this too, but it's not entirely clear because the issue I'm talking about does not involve a proxy server (a work I see thrown around a lot by admins), but is instead simply a NAT router with a single IP address and hundreds, thousand, or even millions of private IPs. Until the WikiMedia foundation and its developers can work something out the best approach is to raise awareness among admins and to try to learn where these RFC1918 IPs are and create a list of them. --360P 23:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that effort. It would probably be a good idea to develop a template specifically for that sort of shared IP address. From an administrative standpoint I don't see a reason to treat a wireless hotspot as inherently different from a school or a public library. Durova 00:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

If I may clarify a bit, because this is exactly the misconception I think 560P trying to overcome. Certainly a hotspot or a LAN should not be treated any differently than any other LAN (even a school ro public library). What we're trying to convey is in terms of the scale of the effects of a particular block. A block of an IP shared by a school effects that school. A block of an IP for a WFi hotspot effects everyone at that hotspot. However, a block of 208.54.95.129 or 208.54.95.1 effects a good portion of 8,000 LANs across the US. Imagine if every school shared a single IP, or every middle school. We would want to find some other way of handling that IP: to treat it with some more conern when blocking. Well this is whole heck of a lot of WiFi hotspots, so it's something that should be treated as such. It's much the same rule for such an IP as for a dynamic IP where the editors affected are largely different than the editor targeted (though in this case you should get the targeted editor too). When blocking the tmobile IP is't the same as blocking 10.0.0.0/8. It's not that this means the IP should never ever be blocked (though it's quite a pain in my ass). It just means administrators should understand the significance of the block. --208.54.95.129 02:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

It's especially a problem if you're Cplot (talk). Thanks for playing. Mackensen (talk) 01:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I just saw this after my previous post in support of 560P. Yes, I've come to see the Cplot thing everytime I try to edit and I hate it (or him or her or whatever). So my advice is either get someone to make Cplot stop or help us treat this IP the way it should be treated (like the proposed WikiMedia Foundation XFF-RFC1918 Project), or both. Also be aware that a block of this IP affects other editors But above all, please stop treating us all like garbage because we use the same ISP as Cplot. At the very least administrators could provide the requested diffs that justify an IP block on the talk page so we're not sitting there wondering why we've been blocked yet again.. --208.54.95.129 02:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The abuse report was disappeared through CSD G5. MER-C 06:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd respect that. Although this makes me wish for a better technical solution. Durova 07:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Note the templates added to User:208.54.95.1 by brand-new user ShoYoAss (talk · contribs). I have removed a rather gratuitous slam at Mongo from one of the templates. -- Donald Albury 13:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.--MONGO 15:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Aha! I said this user was probably Cplot.  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 18:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Rrcoachella (talk · contribs)

Can I get some admin eyes on Rrcoachella (talk · contribs)? I've been dealing with his contributions for a month now and it's getting frustrating. Of the 185 edits this user has made as of 00:37, December 28, 2006, 138 of them have been to his own user page. All of these edits have been to promote his own singing "career" in some way, shape, or form. Of the 185, 42 have been to the mainspace. Of those, I count maybe half a dozen that I'd consider valid edits (i.e. improved the article in some way and weren't reverted). About 20 or so of those mainspace edits have been to add himself to other articles like the release of his album in 2007 in music and things of that nature. In addition, he also created a bunch of articles such as Heart & Soul (album) which were meant to promote his own "albums." He has made 3 user talk edits, 1 to User talk:Ketchuplmao who was blocked indefinitely the week before (so I reverted the comment left there) and 2 blankings of his talk page. There are 0 other edits in other wikispaces except for images where he's uploaded 9 photos and all have (or will) be deleted.

I thought the issues with the vanity in the mainspace had ended awhile ago until his edits to O Holy Night today (which he self-reverted). I'm at a loss as to what to do here. I gave him a final warning a few weeks ago to stop creating inappropriate articles and he seems to have stopped that. And I gave him another final warning today for vanity in the mainspace after the O Holy Night edits. In my message to him today I ask him to try to help us build an encyclopedia rather than concentrating on his self-promotion through his user page. The talk page was blanked 20 minutes later. Since my message, he has made 18 edits to his user page, blanked the talk page, and uploaded a CD cover for his album without a source or license. Obviously my message went unheeded.

Can anyone else try talking to him or suggest something? He's obviously a teenaged kid who has an obsession with music, particular things related to High School Musical, but I'm not seeing anything productive coming from the account at all. Any advice or assistance would be appreciated, Metros232 00:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I left Rrcoachella a message to let him know I made this post here and a short time later he sent me a message . I've replied telling him to look at WP:NOT and realize that we're not a free webhost so he can entertain his friends with his albums. Metros232 01:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Troubles in Wayside...

I loved the Wayside School books as much as anyone else, but I don't think individual characters merit their own articles. Recently User:Everyoneandeveryone created a bunch of new pages: Mrs. Jewls | Louis the Yard Teacher | Allison | Bebe Gunn | Benjamin Nushmutt | Deedee | Eric Bacon, Eric Fry & Eric Ovens | Jason | Jenny | Joe | John | Kathy | Maurecia | Myron | Rondi | Sharie | Stephen | Sue | Terrence | Miss Zarves. What's the correct procedure here? Mass AfD? Mass Prod? Mass redirect? Many thanks in advance for your advice. Gzkn 02:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge & redirect to Wayside_School#Characters. If there is a lot of material, it may deserve a new article Characters in Wayside School, definitely not individual articles. —Quarl 2006-12-28 02:13Z

I would suggest an AfD to get consensus for the mass merge and redirect. RFC is technically the proper forum, but it's unlikely to get any real attention. You may just do the mass merge and redirects, yourself, and wait for protest, if any, as Quarl suggests. It's not as polite, but it will probably have the same effect. Geogre 16:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Mass AfDs are always a dirty business. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV, specifically User:68.194.66.222

There is a minor backlog at WP:AIV and this guy:68.194.66.222 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is being a royal pest on the Nancy Pelosi article. --Dgies 03:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A royal pest that has already been blocked, yes. --physicq (c) 04:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

IIPM Article, User Makrandjoshi

He is repeadtedly violating NPOV, Verifiability and 'Do not revert' policies of Misplaced Pages. He ignores mediation requests, other independent opinions including third party opinions and sweeps aside any logic with dismissive statements. Please take a look at the talk page and all his reverts.Iipmstudent9 07:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Please add to your watchlist

Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard was just created and is open for business. Please add it to your watchlist or check it out every now and then. Thank you. WAS 4.250 08:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. And I've just responded to the first case. MER-C 11:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Can someone explain why this is needed? At some point, we have too many noticeboards. We already have several (WP:PAIN comes to mind) that are way way underpatrolled. Not sure we need another one. --Woohookitty 13:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's success has made it a target for everyone who has something to sell, causing our articles on products and companies to (in some cases) be turned into little more than ads. The problem is going to get far worse and this is simply a small step in the right direction. WAS 4.250 16:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Ideas?

Virgin Unite was created by spa Virgin United (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on the 27th, at the same time as... well, you know what. A few editors tried merging it, a few think it deserves a seperate article e.t.c. My concern is less over the article than over the AfD proposed by User:Lovelac7. AGF was soon forgotten, and this editor got a severe mauling from several users, with rather uncivil comments such as "don't bite the hand that feeds you", "don't screw with the AfD process", "don't jump to conclusions". In particular, User:David Gerard !voted for "speedy keep" with a laconic "wtf". Being a member of the foundation, which is currently being sponsored by Virgin, I'm not sure he should have a say in the discussion (this was his first and only edit of the day at the time of writing this). The same goes for User: Charles Matthews, who as a member of ArbCom is pretty "high up in the ranks", so to say. That AfD is over, having been closed (very quickly) after the nominator withdrew, apologising profusely. However, from what I gather, Virgin will not be the only company !advertising on the site, so maybe a set of guidelines should be established outlining who should and should not participate in the discussions relating to their articles (be they AfDs or not). Suggestions? yandman 11:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I do know that neither David nor Charles are being paid for their work, so it's not bad faith COI, but I still think it's COI. yandman 11:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• David's "wtf" can easily be explained: Virgin Unite is unquestionably a notable enterprise. I think a dose of good faith is probably called for here, and frankly if any other charitable matched-funders don't have articles then we should simply create them ourselves, thus forestalling the problem, because there is little doubt that people seeing the site banner will want to know who the matched funding providers are. If it's thought to be a problem then maybe we could create them on Meta as sponsors or something, but that's probably unnecessary. Guy (Help!) 11:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we would have had an article created by ourselves if I'd actually pulled my finger out about 1am on the 27th and done it :-) But I got daunted by the fact I couldn't find much information... If we'd nuked the original article - the author of whom is now blocked - it'd have been recreated in seconds with good reason by a respected contributor, and everyone would've been happy about that. I'm not really sure this is much to worry about. Shimgray | talk | 11:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

"wtf" does not explain that. Anyway, I don't see that this organization is "unquestionably" notable. The sources in the article are relatively trivial: one is some barebones tax information, one is a PR release from the organization, one is a motorcycle website, and there at the end we have another PR release. The only actual reliable source is one part of a medley of several different philanthropic people, and is not even about the organization but is about Richard Branson. The group should be mentioned in the Richard Branson article and the Virgin Group, but there is no evidence in the current sources that it warrants a separate article. There may be better sources, but the possibility of those existing is far from the organization being "unquestionably a notable enterprise", and those sources would need to be added to the article for it not to warrant merging into those other articles. —Centrx→talk • 11:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The sources in the article are relatively trivial: Do you mean the Forbes magazine story -- which I put in the article when I recreated after a trigger-happy admin redirected it to Virgin Group -- or the New York Times story that a subsequent editor added? How did you overlook those? --Calton | Talk 12:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

As I say here, the article was created by "us" (by which I mean regular Wikipedians, 23 of them plus an anonymous user or two). A simple look at the page with History Flow will show you that.

As I also say in that post, The question of whether we should have an article at all (or whether it should be merged somewhere else, etc) is not so urgent that we need decide it right at this very minute. Everyone have some tea and come back in a day or two with some perspective. --bainer (talk) 11:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it is relatively urgent, because of the disproportionate attention the article will be getting due to the !advert. A sort of second "article of the day", if you will. Anything remotely smelling of fish (such as the apparent COI here) will quickly be used against us, be it by silly websites or by more serious sources. yandman 12:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried to merge it into the parent article, which is what we do with two line substubs, but this was reverted. I still think that's the best way to go. Proto::► 13:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Am I missing something here, or is Yandman's argument that a regular contributor to Misplaced Pages shouldn't edit the article about an organization that donated to Misplaced Pages because it's a conflict of interest? If that's the case, how on earth are we supposed to write the Misplaced Pages article? – Gurch 14:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A regular contributor, no problem. A member of the foundation, maybe a problem. yandman 16:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Still, this is one of the better Wikidramas, in that at least no actual trolls are involved :-) Guy (Help!) 15:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Who knows? Maybe ED will be the next sponsors... yandman 17:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't see that they're a COI violation, since they couldn't even get the name of the charity right in their User name.  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 18:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Shadowbot2

Due to the recent Main Page vandalism, and also because the vandal(s) were probably using Shadowbot2's publically-available reports to target templates, I've changed the notification method of unprotected templates to use Special:Emailuser. Any administrator that wishes to receive these reports can add their name to User:Shadowbot2/Mailing list. Hopefully this should put an end to the vandalism. Shadow1 (talk) 17:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again, Shadow1! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, will make use of it. HighInBC 17:29, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Page move protection?

I protected Bombing of Gernika/Bombing of Guernica then received an additional request for page move protection. Nothing in the administrators' how-to guide describes this separately. Unless I'm mistaken, page move protection happens automatically with full page protection? Durova 18:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Unless you unlock the pagemove protection on the protection tab, it will place the pagemove protection at the same level (ie on Guernica above I confirmed that it has pagemove semiprotection). If you want to fully pagemove protect it, just go to the same protection screen, unlock the page move protection with the checkbox, and then set the protection to full protect. Syrthiss 18:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion history of undeleted articles

Maybe I'm just confused, but if an article has been deleted multiple times, then undeleted, does the deletion history go away? How do I view the deletion history after undeletion? User:Zoe|(talk) 18:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

"history" -> "View logs for this page". The deletion history might be missing if the page was moved because the deletion/undeletion records stay with the name it had at the time, but the log should at least show you that a move had occurred and you could track it down from there if need be. Dragons flight 18:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

thank you! User:Zoe|(talk) 18:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Mistake

The user who used to edit as User:Lieutenant Dol Grenn wishes me to state for the record that User:66.90.73.147 is not him. I initially marked that IP address as such but upon investigating the respective IP addresses and emailing Dol Grenn, it is clear that I was mistaken and I apologise for any inconvenience. --Yamla 19:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

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