Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive42

Aug 22nd to Aug 31st

User:Jtdirl locked an article of himself

Possible abuse of admin privileges. User:Jtdirl, whom the community well knows to be Jim Duffy (author) locked that article last night, as shown by diff [1]. Is the feeling of impropriety bad or worse? There is certainly something rotten in the system of checks and balances if an admin can keep an article of himself protected. 217.140.193.123 19:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Yet another lie from a user incapable of telling the truth. A series of sockpuppets linked to banned user User:Skyring (up to 15 so far) targeted a group of articles for vandalism. To stop the endless vandalism a series of articles were vprotected last night. These included Pope Pius XII, Victoria of the United Kingdom, Jim Duffy (author) and others. I have never said that I am the person in the article. The vandal claims it. User 217's lies at this stage are tedious and childish, like most of his contributions, and attacks on various users, on Wikipedia. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 20:00, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

"I have never said that I am the person in the article." - Should we take it therefore that Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles is inaccurate when when it associates your account and that page? That listing is not a recent addition, and the details you provide on your user page and your username do not appear inconsistent with the person described in the article. Dragons flight 20:28, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

It looks to me like Jtdirl is being wikistalked and harrassed, and is protecting articles from vandalism. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:04, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I did express some concern on Jtdirl's talk page about the precedent set by the subject of an article locking it. I am satisfied by his answer that he acted in good faith, though it would have been better in my opinion to have had another admin lock this particular article. I think this anonymous complaintant is not acting in the best of faith, and I think if one looks at the history there is little doubt this is yet another incarnation of a blocked user. Jonathunder 20:15, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

This doesn't seem like a very nice chap, to be sure. The only one I looked at, however, didn't look like vandalism per se. If this is really SkyRing, however, I wouldn't expect things to be straightforward in any case. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 20:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps Jim T Duffy In Real Life could provide a few diffs of this "endless vandalism"? 217's statement above is entirely correct:

• Jim Duffy locked an article on himself.
• There is something wrong in the system.

Labelling statements of fact and honest debate as "lies, stalking, vandalism and harassment" and using admin powers to win edit wars is a poor sort of example to set, and being backed up by a member of the ArbComm merely underscores this point. Mineeyes 20:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, the total of behavior of Jtdirl shows sensitivity that has gone too far, and the use of/position of admin aggravates the problem. It really is disruptive if a person with sort of paranoia may use privileged enforcement alone by his own judgement, in his own case. The situation seems such that the judgement of the person in question is heavily influenced by his problems, are they "Jtdirl is being wikistalked and harassed" and/or some other problems. We should understand that already from the language Jtdirl used above desctibing me. For these sorts of situations, there should be clear requirement of recusal. If the suspected "sockpuppet" or whatever (or alleged vandalism) is objectively seen such, another will do things that are needed. I believe that idea is written in many places in WP policies. How is it that it is not followed? 217.140.193.123 20:49, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Jtdirl did nothing wrong. He removed a statement from an article that did not belong (It was a self reference and it was not notable in the grand scheme of things), and not only that, but it was the first time he had edited that article in over two years. FURTHERMORE, the comment he removed was added by none other than permabanned member NoPuzzleStranger aka Wik. Jtdirl was right to do it, and then people and/or sockpuppets put it back when it did not belong. He was absolutely right to protect it, it was being vandalized. Their summaries show a blatant disregard for the wiki way - "Useful to know so as to watch for shameless self-promotion. *Keep*" "It's a warning, not a self-reference." "Warning of shameless self-manipulation" - Since the last time he'd edited was two years prior, what exact manipulation are these folks referring to? Stalking and trolling. Deal with accordingly. --Golbez 22:00, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Krhm. "Not over two years"... Concluding from writing style, topics chosen and also from the IP's Irish location, the IP 159.134.137.114 which made plenty of edits to that article on 18 March 2005 (see User:159.134.137.114, contibutions etc), in fact seems highly likely to be User:Jtdirl. Of course it is a kind act towards WP that he shares his private knowledge of the topic (and I wouldn't raise such issues as Original Research, POV, etc). It would not be correct to allege that the IP is Jtdirl's sockpuppet, as by definition an IP never is sockpuppet, only accounts may be. If such sitiation arises, David Gerard and arbitrators may then judge whether the IP is same person as Jtdirl. 217.140.193.123 22:42, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

By my definition, none of the edits I looked at are vandalism. They don't look like good edits, I agree, but that's not the same as vandalism. I feel calling these edits vandalism is a way of fitting them into a certain box in order to enable them to be dealt with more easily. Everyking 22:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the term "trolling" myself. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:27, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea whether or not Jtdirl is the writer Jim Duffy; nor does it particularly interest me. What bothers me is that such an assertion would be made when a user has deliberately chosen a username. On the same note, I think it was in rather bad taste for Skyring constantly to address him and refer to him here on Wikipedia as "Jim". Whether his real name is John Smith, Jim Duffy, or Charles Mountbatten-Windsor, he has a perfect right to be anonymous on Wikipedia if he so chooses. I may really be J.K. Rowling, but if I chose the username Ann Heneghan, I have the right to expect that people use that name to refer to me. In any case, Jtdirl had not edited that article for over two years, and it took him over four months to discover that User:NoPuzzleStranger had inserted into it the statement that Jim Duffy was editing Wikipedia under the username Jtdirl — hardly what you'd expect from someone who has got over-possessive about an article because he's the subject of it. Can we drop the speculation, please? Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 22:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you asking for your contribution to be deleted then? 8^)

The above is all very precious, as a lawyer would say, but there is no doubt about the equivalence of user:jtdirl and Jim Duffy. Regardless of whether he takes a long time to edit his own article (and as noted, a Dublin anon made a major rewrite in March this year), the information is certainly pertinent to the article. The article itself mentions various publications from which Jim Duffy presumably derives some income, and the question needs to be asked as to how far Wikipedia is prepared to go in promoting a writer's interest, or self-interest. Just how does this differ from the various promotional pages we see for bands of little renown which are intended to drum up recognition? Selectman 22:37, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the phrase "edits made by sockpuppets of a user banned for a year for wiki-stalking." That's clear-cut. Really clear-cut. I just found and blocked another likely sockpuppet of Skyring. Whether the edit is good or not is really beside the point–coming from Skyring it isn't in good faith. Mackensen (talk) 00:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ann, when people choose usernames we must assume they want anonymity. Presumably that is why User:217.140.193.123 sometimes calls himself User:Arrigo and sometimes uses other IP addresses anonymously. I've known Jtdirl for, what, two years plus? -- and I still don't really know if he's the subject of the article in question. Deb 22:13, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Disputed VfD close of ExamDiff up for relisting Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/ExamDiff (second nomination)

This was peremptorily deleted by one sysop who disputed the close. I don't see any harm in having a proper discussion as there were only four votes in the original VfD, so I've relisted it--it clearly isn't a candidate for speedy deletion. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 20:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be exactly the sort of thing that should be taken to VfU, this being an undeletion? Whether or not you're an admin? -Splash 23:41, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• Yes. Tony has unilaterally decided that VFU is broken ([2]) so is once more bypassing it. Sounds like WP:POINT. Also, speedy deletion doesn't come into it; the original VFD had consensus to delete. Radiant_>|< 08:15, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

No. The deletion was closed with a no consensus result. Someone then contacted me and asked if it was okay to relist on VfD. I said he should do that with my blessing because it was a close result and there were only four voters. Someone else went ahead and listed in on VfD. It was then that Radiant simply edited the original VfD page to reflect his preferred result and summarily deleted the article. The article was restored and is now being discussed in the right place: VfD. It was a failed attempt by Radiant to hijack a legitimate VfD. Whether VFU is bust or not is moot; the article never belonged there. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

...the article never belonged there. Which you decided, unilaterally -- pretty much confirming Radiant's point. --Calton | Talk 00:49, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

There has been a lot of that. Tony decides that things weren't good speedies, so he undeletes them and, instead of saying, "I could expand that," says, "Improper" speedy. Admins can undelete improper speedies, not "unwise" or "bad" speedies. Tony further refuses to honor VfU when something is listed there, and he won't use it for anything. He has said that VfU is for the non-admin only. This is not new or news, and it won't be settled until ArbCom acts. Polite requests and even firm demands have meant little. Geogre 13:20, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

This is a little bit naughty. The VfD was closed and then someone unilaterally deleted the article. It was thus clearly an out-of-process deletion. If you disagree with he undeletion policy that states that a sysop can undelete an out-of-process speedy, then campaign honestly to have the policy changed instead of falsely claiming that I'm refusing to "honor" something that doesn't enter into the equation.

And arbcom won't act over a dispute on policy, you know that. If you really do think (and goodness knows, I suppose it is possible) that a sysop is required to take what he thinks is an obvious out-of-process speedy to VFU instead of just restoring it, then have policy changed and I'll abide by it. I should have thought that an article that is deleted despite the VfD being closed as a keep is is a clear case of an out-of-process speedy, and as the article was headed for VfD anyway I don't see that it makes much difference. As it happens, the second VfD was closed as a redirect by the very same sysop who had earlier decided unilaterally that it was a delete. The power of consensus, you see... --Tony Sidaway^Talk 02:19, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Coq-bloody-Sportif and his sockpuppet legions

Are mostly coming in through two ranges assigned to Prodigy Internet in Melbourne: 202.147.97.0/24 and 203.82.183.0/24. I dunno if these are a business or a net cafe or what, but there has been literally nothing from these two ranges in the last two months except trolling, vandalism and sockpuppetry. I've blocked both /24s for three months. That's a fairly extreme block for an IP, but those who've had fun with the sockpuppet legions might like the following list:

Newshounder, Terpt, Bertzenfartzen, Chokitoass, Barnabyhanson, Plunger, Rebeve, Longterg, Edwardlongstreet, Towelhedzras, Justase, Osamabeenlaughing, Adam Corr, AdamEve, Thecunninglinguists, Shintaro, Shukidalam, WhereIsTheLove?, Cupcaketwinkie, Frankly, Carlaz, KarlJetter, Dirtyboo, Ericcantona, Hansolocousin, Dertyharry, Planetaustin, Moodaltering, Rousterspor, Pewtang, Hooters, Peacenick, Woozer, Coqsportif, Gookoid, Reject, Toshiba, Jakemelen, Huchi, DavidGlick, Sunak and Wakemeupwhen.

All of those are the same user or one of two people. It doesn't really matter which, IMO, as (as I said) there's been literally nothing positive from those IP ranges in the last two months. I urge you not to unblock those IP ranges without referring them to me first, because I'd like a few words with the listed contact for the domain about this rubbish - David Gerard 22:37, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Wow, then knowing the origination of this person is practically impossible. I have only encountered "Thecunninglinguists" otherwise, who was ostensibly a juche enthusiast. Weird people on teh internets. --TJive 22:44, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

He's back as 203.206.81.110 (talk · contribs). --Viriditas | Talk 10:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Everyone from Coqsportif onward is most definitely one person. Does this include User:Ray Lopez, as well? Shem^(talk) 00:11, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm no one's sock puppet, I'm actually Calton's father. Ray Lopez 14:23, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you look like a good faith contributor. This is your first edit. [3]. Antandrus (talk) 15:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppet troll or ordinary troll: doesn't really make a difference, really. --Calton | Talk 22:35, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Yes Calton follows all of the rules, in fact, he never makes personal attacks, and he always makes proper edit summaries. Ray Lopez 11:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Socknet

User:Socknet may herald something on a larger scale than currently seen daily with Willy on Wheels. Nothing links to this userpage yet, so I assume I'm the first to notice / report this account user page. I sincerely hope that the proposed vandalizations are not implemented yet in his/their scripts. Adam^Rock 22:32, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Oh fuck. I think this will be repulsible, though. Could someone mention on wikien-l? ~~ N (t/c) 22:37, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Thought I'd summarize: threats of mass-scale sockpuppet vandalization on August 25, 2005. Adam^Rock 22:42, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Why not just block it for threats of mass vandalism and impersonating a user banned by the community (WoW). Jonathunder 22:59, 2005 August 22 (UTC)

Won't help. Read the description. ~~ N (t/c) 23:04, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I left the folks on IRC know what is going on. I am also stunned by it. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:06, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted the user page as inappropriate under the user page policy. We don't have to tolerate user pages consisting solely of instructions for "improved" vandalism techniques. The likely vandal fighters (i.e. admins) can still view the deleted user page. Let's not recreate or duplicate that content, if at all possible, and let's not put ideas in people's minds. If we're lucky, it was just a trolling attempt. --MarkSweep 23:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I have to say that 500 good edits in order to be able to vote keep to a school article is a bloody bargain. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, usually most school articles are never put on VFD now, right? Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:17, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Shhh don't tell them that! Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:22, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Theresa! If I read that page correctly, people are agreeing to gather in a drive to improve Wikipedia! I think that's good news. Oh, we'll just kick them afterwards, of course. Bad edits are bad edits, just as good edits are good edits. People could get less hung up about identity anyway, in those places where hardly anyone collaborates. JRM · Talk 23:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Damn. I can't believe that some people can be so depraved. I'll be keeping an careful lookout over the next couple of days. Anyone have any idea how credible this threat is? Seems odd that someone would intentionally announce their intentions for mass vandalism on this scale on Wikipedia itself. -Loren 23:30, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not credible at all. It's just some kid doing a spot of trolling.Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:32, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Could someone ban this guy properly? Theresa only blocked "User:User:Socknet". ~~ N (t/c) 00:20, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Doh! I'm an idiot. I've sorted it now. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 00:26, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

C'mon Theresa, you've been an admin for how long now? ;) Anyways, I think this is quite funny...if it does happens I will never have to worry about being bored again (maybe I can get a wiki-M16 or something) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 16:53, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Naaah, I think it's clear, Theresa must be the admin that they say is secretly supporting them. Look at her record. First she says it is a "bloody bargain", and then she tries to deflect criticism by saying it is "just some kid", and then she "accidentally" forgets how to block the account. And think how useful it will be for them to have a member on ArbCom. That was your vicious plan all along, right Theresa, oh queen of the secret vandals? We see right through you.  ;-) Dragons flight 17:04, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

one slight flaw blocking User:User:Socknet will block User:Socknet. In fact you can use this bug to double block people.Geni 22:39, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• Two possibilities here: (a) Just another joke (from someone with an axe to grind about school inclusionism, by the sound of it) or (b) They're serious, in which case such activities (page-move vandalism, voting to keep porn, etc.) would stick out like a sore thumb and make the socks easy ban-magnets, regardless of their edit count. On the positive side, WP gets some good grunt work like stub sorting done. Either way, nothing to get worried or upset about. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:57, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

User:Sockster Seems to be the "old school" version of Socknet. Circa February 25, 2005. Adam^Rock 20:53, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

User:Sock-ster also, who may not be blocked. Adam^Rock 21:05, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Timeline of Islamic history 21st Century

69.118.228.15 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is reverting the article Timeline of Islamic history 21st Century to remove mention of the recent removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. This is a relevant event in the "Timeline of Islamic history 21st Century." I have reverted once, which the user re-reverted. They are obvioulsy watching the article, and I do not wish to become engaged in an edit war. — Linnwood 23:36, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Redirect spree

I received this message today from another user:

I noticed this user has taken numerous (apparent) legitimate articles and seemingly needlessly redirected them to other relevant articles. Could you take a look at this please? Thanks. NickBush24 07:33, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I checked into it, and indeed Indrian (talk · contribs) has been redirecting a large number of articles. Since I don't know anything about archery, I thought I'd bring it up here and let others take a look. Is this something we should be concerned about, or are the redirects legit? -- Essjay · Talk 01:51, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Well, at least some of them are legit, if somewhat discardist. Example: Takaharu Furukawa is now a redirect to Archery at the 2004 Summer Olympics and the target confirm that person did compete as described. However, he only redirected the page, without a merge. That is just being WP:BOLD, but does seem to discard a fair bit of information. Still, the editor would seem to be within their 'rights' to do that. I checked a handful and they seem to be the same thing. The only problem is that he hasn't delinked the now-redirected articles from their target, so they've become circular links. -Splash 02:07, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

He indeed does have the 'right' to do it. And I have the 'right' to revert it. --Golbez 04:37, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Keep in mind you also have the right to go over to his talk page and discuss the matter with him, as far as I can tell nobody has even pointed out that there might be a problem with this to him yet. --fvw* 04:48, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why I did not revert them. I did not have time, and I would have wanted to discuss it first. I too noticed no one had brought it up on Indrian's page. And I agree with Indrian - this is a matter that should have been brought up on his talk page first, rather than as an Admin Noticeboard Incident. --Golbez 18:28, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The complete lack of edit summaries for these major changes is also worrying. - SimonP 04:45, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I think what is truly worrying is the complete lack of notification to a user that his edits are turning into a source of major discussion (thanks to --fvw* for being polite in this regard). The archery articles that I have redirected I did so because the articles in question contained no information that was not already contained on the archery page. One who examined the matter more closely would notice that I did not redirect several archery articles which did, in fact, include more information than country of origin and finishing place at the Olympics. I did not merge any material because, quite simply, there was nothing to merge. Obviously, if a large number of users disagree with these assertions, I am not going to start a protracted edit war or anything silly like that, but I challenge anyone to inform me as to the value of articles that contain nothing but the nationality and finishing place of athletes when this information is already contained on the main page of the subject. These articles are not deleted, and any editor is free at any time to expand these redirected stubs into well-written and informative articles, or even poorly written and uninformative articles as long as they contain information that is not already found on the archery page. Note that I also have been deleting the links in the archery article as I have been redirecting the articles, so any that I did not delink were mere oversights. (EDIT: After examining the archery page more closely, I realize that the contestants are linked multiple times on the page and that I have only been delinking them from the main listing. This was, as I said, an oversight and not on purpose) In the future, if anyone has problems with my actions, they should come to me first; this is only polite. Indrian 16:22, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Let me point this out: The articles you reverted do in fact contain information that is not already found on the archery page, namely birth dates. In addition, they are part of categories. My view is therefore that redirects should be avoided. I will try adding information here and there to make them more "worthy" of inclusion. Punkmorten 00:20, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for all the fuss; I didn't know enough about the subject to start a discussion with Indrian over whether it was a good idea or not. My hope was that bringing it up here would allow someone who knew more about it to take a look and take the appropriate action. In the future, I'll just ignore anything I can't handle myself. -- Essjay · Talk 04:40, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

User:Amorrow

Amorrow (talk · contribs) began making some really odd, rambling comments on the Talk page of Elizabeth Morgan, then went onto Jimbo's Talk page and put other rambling comments there. I don't know what went on between him and User:Xaa, but Xaa was reporting that he/she was getting emailed death threats from Amorrow, and has since left Wikipedia as a result. As 204.147.187.240 (talk · contribs), Amorrow is now making threats to User:Geni. Zoe 07:21, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I've gotten a few too. Considering the Xaa situation, this should not be taken lightly. --Golbez 07:31, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Amorrow sent a pile of these to me and various others. Diagnosis: batshit. If in doubt, contact the authorities - David Gerard 15:58, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I was just about to say, and not facetiously, that he might benefit greatly from medical attention. I hope that wherever he is he is able to get it. Soon.—Encephalon | ^ζ  16:33:59, 2005-08-23 (UTC)

I mean it about the authorities. He appears to have cracked up substantially - David Gerard 21:10, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure we know where he located. His native IP appears to be earthlink so we can't get much from thatGeni 21:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

And seemed to pop back again, as User:Andysocky. -Ashley Pomeroy 22:32, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I blocked that ccount as well.Geni 22:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

He edited my Talk page as User:172.198.170.230, another head-scratching diatribe. Zoe 22:50, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

User:Staxringold

Could somebody take a fresh eye at this user's edits? He/she seems to be making a large number of articles about non-notable motorcycles created by a marginally notable bike shop. His edits are beginning to read more and more like an ad campaign. If others think his edits are acceptable, then I apologize. Zoe 08:42, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I think the edits are too advertisement-like in tone. However, I do consider Orange County Choppers to be plenty notable, because of the American Chopper connection. The show has many fans (a little embarrassed to confess I'm one of them). Bishonen | talk 09:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

AN/CYZ-10

Check out this diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AN%2FCYZ-10&diff=21659218&oldid=17988204

I reverted it, but the IP actually resolves to the USMC in San Diego. Maybe there is something to this. It looks like a legal threat, and we'd be giving USMC IPs a carte blanche to blank at will if we let this stand. What do you think? -- grm_wnr Esc 17:34, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea to ask the editor who put the information there where they got it, it's probably public domain somewhere. But I doubt that a Lance Corporal would be blanking the article if it were really classified, a Colonel would be contacting the Foundation. Zoe 17:44, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

• I wouldn't worry about it: it comes completely from the Navy Information Assurance site, which I suspect the USMC knows about. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:15, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
• I'm the editor in question and I have added sources to the article. This is likely a hoax and if it is from a USMC IP address, the USMC might want to know about it. --agr 21:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit of a Catch-22 situation; if the article really does contain classified information, and the chap who has just blanked it is justified in his actions and has been authorised to do so, then he has actually confirmed that the information - which is persistent and available in the page history - is classified information, in which case he is probably breaking a rule or two himself. -Ashley Pomeroy 22:11, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Quite. My initial impulse on seeing this was to consider saving a copy to my hard drive, although I didn't bother because it's nearly certainly a hoax. Given how Wikipedia content gets dispersed to mirrors and database dumps, it's likely that the best thing a goverment entity could do if its secrets were posted on Wikipedia would be to simply ignore it, and not draw attention to it in any way. Alternatively, they could have a mole editor list it on VfD as "unverifiable", which would be workable if Wikipedia were the only public source (and if it wasn't, they've lost the secret anyway). — Matt Crypto 23:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It can't be that secret if you can buy one for yourself. --Calton | Talk 00:07, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

User:DreamGuy

Keeps blanking my comments on his user talk page. Refuses to archive. Insists on his right to blank this and everything else on his talk page. eg here, SqueakBox 18:16, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Honestly, unless someone's blanking a vandalism warning, I don't complain about it. If you are trying to communicate about a dispute, however (and it appears you are), I take blanking of a page not only as an indication to move it to the next step in dispute resolution, but also as excellent evidence to be presented on your behalf. But I would say that it, in itself, is not vandalism. Deleting instead of archiving is a perfectly reasonable method; I've seen admins do it. However, it's very poor form to do it mid-argument. --Golbez 18:24, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

I have replaced someone else's 2 day old notice of his arbitration and flagged his deletion mid conversation You may well be right about taking it further. Maybe time for a 3rd Rfc. Cheers, SqueakBox 18:35, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

If you actually read the above you will have to see that there was nothing wrong with my removing the discussion and your insistence on putting it back is clear harassment. Furthermore, the argument was not-mid argument because Squeakbox here insisted upon getting the last word in and continuing to press his harassment during his bad behavior. Furthermore I notice other people on his talk page complaining about his agressive behavior and baseless threats. Perhaps it's about time I started filing complaints against editors who are breaking policy instead of just sitting back and waiting for them to file false accusations against me. I have reverted my talk page again... but you are right about one thing: It is not over, because something needs to be done about admins who think they are above the policies here and how go on crusades of harassment against people who point out that they did something wrong. DreamGuy 19:07, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps I can clear a few things up

• Nobody has to create an archive if they don't want to.
• If someone removes an old comment from their talk page then assume good faith and believe them when they are saying they are clearing out old stuff.
• If someone removes a new comment from their talk page then this implies two things
  1. They have seen that comment
  2. They do not wish to respond to it
• Since they have seen the comment, reposting it is pointless. At RFAr we ask for evidence that a notice was posted about the RFAr.That's all. We do not require that the person has to keep the notice on thier talk page.
• Since the person has indicated that they do not wish to discuss the matter, and nobody can force someone to discuss things, then reposting deleted conversations serves no useful purpose whatsoever. All it can be used for is harrasment, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I have not been harrassing DreamGuy but he most certainly has been harrassing me; without justification, SqueakBox 22:29, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Well if that is true then your best course of action is not to go to your harraser's talk page at all. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:48, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

But of course it's not true, so his harassing me on my talk page was even worse. The only alleged "harassment" was a good faith dispute over his actions on a RfC for his he falsely claimed did not have enough signatures and labeled speedy delete, and then when I removed the tag and pointed out that there was enough (a couple of times), he deleted some signatures from the page and then listed it for speedy delete again and removed it from the RfC page and very rudely assumed bad faith, harassed me, and got an admin involved. For him to claim I harassed him when a brief look at the edits involved (where it's still left to be seen, as the main page has in fact been speedily deleted due to intervention by an admin who has a history of showing up to take the side of anyone complaining against me, even if they are chronic 3RR block violators and etc.) shows clear uncivility, outright personal attacks and harassment by him is just absurd. DreamGuy 14:50, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

and then harrass me withouit pausing for breath by wrongly accusing me of falsification, even though you know fully well I never falsified anything. I deleted invalid signatures, as you well know, because you have been told the signatures in question were dated from 4 days before the rfc began, and were pasted in by someone else without the permission of the signers, as that person has admitted. In spite of my requesting to you to explain how these signatures were "valid", and which policy states signatures pasted from a talk page from 4 days before the Rfc began have to be considered valid, you have faikled to explain why you believe the rules support such validations on an Rfc. What do you think would happen if your idea became policy, and outdated signatures posted from a talk page from 4 days before the beginning of an rfc were considered valid. It would destroy the Rfc process. But whatever the rights and wrongs of the policy, at the moment it does not allow out of date signatures pated froma a talk page without the permission of the signers is not now considered policy. Try changing policy if you feel about it that strongly, but don't harrass people for enforcing the one we have. I did not contact Slim, another invention. I was absolutely right to ignore the bad signatures. What frightens me is that if DreamGuy got his way any bad faith user could paste signatures from anywhere, ignore their date stamps and thus pursue whatever bad faith Rfc's they wanted. Wikipedia would not last very long with such a dishonest policy, yet this is the stance DreamGuy aggressively takes. When I question him on his rather outlandish beliefs around pasting signatures into an Rfc he does not answer me but instead blanks my comments, SqueakBox 15:24, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

This is one of the signatures that allegedly certified the Rfc: [4] SqueakBox 16:36, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

For clarity I hear paste the Rfc as it was initially created. decide for yourselves if this is a legitimate Rfc. It is from Talk:Encyclopædia damatica#Use of multiple userID's?. IMO because this was not constructed on an rfc page it was not valid, SqueakBox 16:51, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Note: I've removed the pasted material, as it's better not to bloat the page. It's also better to use a stable diff for linking to it— here it is. I hope you don't mind and that this works OK for your purpose, Squeakbox. Bishonen | talk 17:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute --Depakote 16:54, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

--2004-12-29T22:45Z 17:00, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I am readding the signatures which are at the heart of this dispute, and not included in your diff. They were pasted from Talk:Encyclopædia damatica onto the Rfc. DreamGuy claims they are valid for an Rfc starting on August 19. I claim they aren't, and that first ignoring them when removing Rfc/Girlvinyl from the Rfc page, and then deleting them when DreamGuy insisted they were valid for the Rfc, was perfectly legitimate behaviour on my part. Should we allow to certify Rfc's on a talk page, transfer the certifications to the Rfc and then use them as if they were signed when the Rfc was created, ignoring the fact that they are 4 days old, and were not put on the Rfc by the signers. Or should wee not allow such practices. Make your own minds up, but my understanding is that wikipedia does not allow such behaviour, SqueakBox 17:48, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Blocked User Evading Block (Again)

User:67.182.157.6 AKA Donald Alford AKA "DotSix" was blocked yesterday for 3RR. Today he has been using sockpuppets in the AOL range of IPs to resume the reverts on Epistemology, and the pages for the Arb Committee case that the Arb Committee voted to accept last week. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/DotSix and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/DotSix/Evidence. Since AOL IPs are highly dynamic, there's not much point to blocking them. He'll just login with a new one. But you could extend the block on his main user id: User:67.182.157.6 to punish him. That is what was done the several times earlier this month that he evaded a block with sockpuppets. But could you extend it for more than 24 hrs this time? Also, you could protect Epistemology? --Nate Ladd 00:31, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Protected. --cesarb 02:55, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Trollderella blocked

I see that this user was blocked. I don't know if simply having "troll" in the username is a good reason to block, especially since I haven't seen much disruption take place from this user, even though s/he appears to be very inclusionist (though not disruptive, and not a "blanket" keep voter on all VFD debates like User:Chubby Chicken was). I think the subject of having/not having "troll" in the username has been discussed before and that the most common opinions were that it is acceptable to have "troll" in the username but that one is far less tolerant of vandalism or disruption coming from them. I see that Rossami discussed his concerns about the username with Trolderella, and perhaps a further admonition of the wisdom of such a username choice might be appropriate, but was a block really neccesary when most, if not all, of the edits are legitimate? Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:00, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The idea that someone could be banned purely on account of having a "troll" user name baffles me. If there's another reason, OK, but just the name? If we're going to have to contend with trolls anyway, isn't it nicer if they label themselves so we can easily keep an eye on them? Everyking 07:30, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't always agree with your mild views on banning and blocking people, but I tend to agree with you on this one. I will unblock this one. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:32, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Another impostor?

See Special:Contributions/Erwin_Walsh­­ (that's "Erwin_Walsh%C2%AD%C2%AD") and Special:Contributions/Erwin_Walsh (just "Erwin_Walsh"). Can someone double-check? (I truly think unicode support for user names should be switched off or at least only display in signatures, but not in RC and other lists (there, it should be displayed as %...) Lupo 09:47, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

• I wholeheartedly agree. (Ceterum censeo...) Radiant_>|< 11:01, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Update: I can't even block him! The block page tells me that "There is no user by the name "Erwin Walsh%C2%AD%C2%AD­­". Check your spelling." But there is such an account! What's going on here? Lupo 11:19, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

• I blocked Erwin's main account after he vandalized Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for encyclopedic merit this morning, but he immediately hopped onto a sock account and vandalised it again. And then again. User:Sjakkalle has indefinitely blocked two of his puppets so far. To say that Erwin has become a serious problem would be an understatement, I think. He's starting to tie up a lot of administrator time. Fernando Rizo T/C 11:31, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

That's because in the username to be blocked field the unicode facility is enabled, allowing it to be displayed. I don't know how to switch that off or to block the username. -- Francs2000 | Talk 11:29, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Posting my response on Lupo's talkpage here too: I'm in fact not entirely sure. I blocked two Erwin Walshs now, they are not the same user because the userpage of the second Erwin Walsh I blocked is a redirect to the first one. I think the "indefinite" block of the first one is not permanent because he was blocked for 24 hours by Fernando Rizo. When that block expires, Erwin Walsh no. 1 will be unblocked, regardless of the indefinite block I imposed right afterwards.

I blocked Erwin Walsh no. 2 by accessing the block button from the Recentchanges page.

I suspect Erwin Walsh is a sockpuppet of someone anyway, out to make a WP:POINT. 80% of his edit summaries consist of the word "delete". Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:31, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

just copy and paste the name from the top of thier user page.Geni 11:50, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

But that reads "User:Erwin Walsh" in both cases, and even in the HTML, there is no difference! Lupo 11:54, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

That is a real problem. If you take a look at the list of blocks I made I caught the second Erwin Walsh at 11:22. There I was able to catch him from the block buttons on the Recentchanges page. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:56, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

From Special:Ipblocklist, I think Erwin Walsh is out of business for 24 hours thanks to the autoblock. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:12, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yup. However, Unicode or UTF-8 support should still be switched off for user names. Anybody knows whether the developers are aware of this problem? BTW, %C2%AD is a soft hyphen in ISO 8859-1. Lupo 13:15, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

I searched the list of open problems and found a ticket, bugzilla:2290, open on the issue. The proposed solution proposed in this ticket of canonizing look-alike characters into a single character before creating a new user is probably a better solution as it could be applied to other languages by substituting an appropriate table. --Allen3 ^talk 13:37, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

I've unblocked Erwin early, please see his talk page for my rationale. If this turns out to be a mistake on my part, apologies in advance. I'm personally considering this Erwin's last chance for some leniency. Fernando Rizo T/C 18:42, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Both soft-hyphen impostor account are now permanently blocked. --MarkSweep✍ 02:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Harrassment

I seem to have incurred the wrath of some anon after blocking him for a string of Michigan-related vandalism ([5]). He apparently took exception to this, and began a string of attacks against my user page and on my talk page ([6] [7]). The IP addresses resolve to a Grand Rapids, Michigan-area dialup. I'm not irritated so much as annoyed–surely someone from GR has better things to do with his life than vandalizing articles (or maybe not)? Theresa blocked one of the IPs, if I'm not mistaken, and I blocked the latest one for a week. I'm tempted to start taking stronger measures–I'm at work nine hours a day and can't watch my user page. Mackensen (talk) 10:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't sweat it. Admin user pages get vandalised all the time. The very worst thing you can do is allow it to annoy you. You don't need to watch your user page, someone will revert vandalism. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 11:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a problem with an admin protecting his own user page, in case this gets out of hand. Radiant_>|< 12:33, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Yes, you can protect your user page -- but be careful, because User:UninvitedCompany will send the boys round if he doesn't agree it's vandalism. Deb 18:20, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Nah, I'm not going to protect it. I figure he'll give it up, or I'll eventually have the entire city of Grand Rapids blocked... Thanks all for the support, I just found it rather disagreeable this morning. Mackensen (talk) 19:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Archiving

I just snipped the top part of this page and put it in IncidentArchive40. Then I thought that it would be pretty pointless to just cut/paste it, and I should instead keep only the interesting sections. Then after I snipped those I had almost nothing left, so I decided not to snip. How exactly is this page archived, then? Radiant_>|< 14:59, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Archiving? I just assumed the archive fairies did it after they were finished archiving Talk: Armenian Genocide. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 15:10, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

you put everything in in theory you should interweve it with 3RR reports but it is a lot quicker to decide on a cut off date then remove evrything that is not active and dump it in there.Then do the same for 3RR this messes up timeings a little but not enough to be a problem.Geni 15:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw assists spammer

Observe the spectacle of an admin, User:Willmcw, reinstating spam to a talk page after it had been removed by User:Zappaz. --goethean ॐ 16:14, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. One has to more ask why Zappaz reverted in the first place some info on a talk page that clearly was not commercial spam, SqueakBox 16:18, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

The user was spamming several talk pages with links to their Yahoo group about cults (including unrelated ones, like Talk:Cult film. I don't see anything wrong with removing the spam. It's a nuisance and it clutters up talk pages. Rhobite 16:27, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

But is spam grounds for removing someone else's comments? Genuinely curious · Katefan0^(scribble) 16:34, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Definitely. If the only contribution a person makes to this encyclopedia is to peddle his wares, he needs to be shown the door. I'm tired of selfish, clueless marketers who think it's their god-given right to abuse every new medium of communication that comes along. --Ardonik.talk()^* 16:53, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you -- corporate press releases clog up Wikipedia every day. But this wasn't exactly commercial, was it? It was a link to a Yahoogroups discussion forum. · Katefan0^(scribble) 16:55, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be commercial spam. But that doesn't mean that it isn't commercial spam. Many Yahoogroups are advertisements for commercial enterprises. --goethean ॐ 17:04, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a judgment call. A short, polite note on a single article's talk page would be fine. This user put a large note on 13 different talk pages - and the group is practically empty too, 7 messages total. Rhobite 17:07, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Again --goethean ॐ 20:49, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to re-add them again. -Willmcw 22:20, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Left a polite message on user's page and deleted blatant soclicitation, not beffiting a talk page --ZappaZ 01:48, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

FilePile

Could someone take a look at the war at FilePile? I've already protected the page once and I would like another pair of eyes on it to see what the appropriate action is. Thanks, BanyanTree 18:15, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

"Fake Place" vandal 63.19.*.*

is back today, as 63.19.202.200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Please everyone be alert for any subtle edits to place articles by an IP beginning with 63.19. It also doesn't hurt to look through Special:Newpages for creations by similar IPs. It's the same person who has vandalized Luxembourg hundreds of times. Antandrus (talk) 23:55, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

He's also been on tonight as:

63.19.212.229 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

63.19.210.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

63.19.198.184 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I range blocked him finally (just 3 hours though). This edit is a perfect example of why this is so insidious [8] -- sneaky little changes like this, hundreds and hundreds of them, all from different IPs are his style. Antandrus (talk) 04:06, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

He's back as A_Man_For_The_Glen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Almost everything I have checked among his copious edits tonight is vandalism, so I'm rolling everything back. His behavior matches 63.19 exactly. Antandrus (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Mike Garcia

Mike Garcia is going around deleting everything I post (even multiple reverts on me reporting his 3RR violation of Hypnotize at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR [9] despite being reverted by several users. I don't know what he is trying to do. 66.36.133.229 00:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Advance warning

It wouldn't surprise me if the Plyrics vfd went much the same way as the Flying Spaghetti Monster one as the latter was mentioned on the Plyrics forum. Interesting that Wikipedia is now listed as one of the main sources at which to find information about the FSM. -- Francs2000 | Talk 03:14, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Uploading pornography

Bmpower (talk · contribs) has apparently decided to systematically illustrate Playboy Playmate articles (see contribs). Most of the images he is uploading to do this look like professional pornography for which he asserts fair use (a couple are professional but non-pornographic). I commented on his talk page that fair use seems an unlikely claim for these images and immediately after I said that, he appears to have went away.

Strange as it seems, upon reflection, I am not actually sure he was trolling. Which is to say he may have been uploading pornographic pictures in a good faith effort to illustrate the pages pornographic actresses, without realizing that these were probably no good for copyright. But the question comes in, what to do now? Should one revert the changes to the models' pages and send the images to IFD? or perhaps just delete them? And I can't help wondering about the larger question. Since wikipedia is not censored, if there was a legitimate way to obtain the images, would we illustrative the pages of Playmates with porn? Dragons flight 05:32, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I would list all of them for ifd because of bogus FU claims, and revert them from the articles until the ifd vote is decided. Zoe 05:54, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Damaging page move

SmarterChild3 (talk • contribs • block) -- moved Seth Morales (currently on VfD) to 4395682439564395643956 a nonsensical title for the content. The move broke the link on the VfD page. An admin is needed to undo the move properly. DES ^(talk) 05:28, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

He moved a lot of stuff. Look at the move log [10]. It's difficult to fix but it looks like a couple of us are on it. I blocked him indefinitely. Antandrus (talk) 05:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

My congratulations on catching this quickly and thanks for reverting, but does it worry anyone else that he did all those in less than 2 minutes and that the string of numbers he used had a systematically increasing counter (the 6th digit from left). Dragons flight 05:57, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

This certainly looks like the direction WoW has been heading. I've been following his progress for quite some time, and he's becoming a lot more programmatic. "Socknet" may have been his, also. Adam^Rock 07:52, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

two minutes would be doable manualy. That count means he is probably useing s bot though.Geni 10:42, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

For those not in the know, SmarterChild is the name of an AIM bot -- grm_wnr Esc 12:46, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

... which incidentally seems to be a favourite of a certain Internet subculture known to troll other sites on occasion. -- grm_wnr Esc 13:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Fenian Swine

...has moved his userpage to User:Muc Fíníneach, but there is no registered user by that name. This is kinda weird. Radiant_>|< 09:58, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. It would have been nice if we'd just, you know, let it go. But some people need to have some kind of excitement in their lives, even if it means just poking at somebody with a stick. Anyway, my uneducated guess is that this new name means "Fenian Swine" in Irish. Everyking 10:20, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• Oh noes! He's claiming to be part of an outdated monarchical system! That is so inappropriate! (anyway my point was that since we have so many impersonators these days, this might be an enticement for them, so I figured I'd point it out here)Radiant_>|< 10:37, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't care what it means. I do know that what he has done doesn't work to well with the softwear and there is going to be trouble when someone regtisters that user name. Incerdently is there any way under the rules to block User:Mr Swine?Geni 10:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• Yes. It's a sockpuppet made for trolling, and nearly all of his (few) edits are personal attacks. Radiant_>|< 11:19, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Well, assuming they do not get blocked, maybe ask them to change their username to that, seeings they want the userpage so bad. ∞Who?¿? 11:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Sock/impostor update

Wheels within wheels, or connections between various stage Irishmen: crossposting this from WP:AN, as this page seems to get as much or more attention.

Please note that when I reverted Muc Fíníneach for blanking a comment by Davetunney on User talk:Zoe, s/he created Davetunney., a Davetunney lookalike with a period at the end of the name and complete with copycat userpages, and used it to blank the comment again. Another oddity: the apparently real Davetunney who made the comment about enjoying discussions with User:Fenian Swine in this thread (see page history, but see also this), was round about the same time suggesting Fenian Swine be banned. Oh, btw, and Fenian Swine apparently nominated Davetunney for admin. Yawn... one possible reason for these inconsistencies might be that Davetunney's account has been compromised. But I suggest the only sensible way of sorting out these stage-Irishman japes would be through an IP check of, uh, several accounts. I've permabanned Davetunney.-with-the-period, of course. Unless somebody here protests, I'm going to leave the autoblocker to its dirty work, too. Bishonen | talk 19:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Klonimus

Abusive image added to Lesbian [11] by User:Klonimus. Odd, this seems like a helpful user, so this is only a "heads up" I guess. Wyss 11:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Looks like it was added in good faith to me. In what way is image "abusive"? Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 12:27, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't look "abusive" but it doesn't look like good-faith, either. If those women are lesbians I'm Martha Stewart. --Calton | Talk 12:59, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

IMHO if it was good faith it was insensitive, misleading, mis-informed, unrepresentative and plainly has the potential to provoke and distract. I know some editors want to "push the envelope" on the inclusion of images in WP but including something pulled straight from a contemporary porno flick is not my idea of helpful. It's "abusive" because anyone seriously editing this sort of article should realize that some of its readers would be annoyed by it (to put it mildly), for all the above reasons, never mind the model's silicon enhancement. Wyss 13:06, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess it could work as a depiction. I mean, obviously it's acting, as Calton says, but I don't see why that necessarily makes it less valid as a depiction. I don't see why it shouldn't be considered good faith. But aside from that point I don't know if it's a helpful addition to the article, either. To be fair, if offensiveness is an issue, as Wyss seems to suggest, it seems a lot more moderate than a lot of the images we have on sex-related topics. Everyking 13:10, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

That's no depiction, it's a fantasy, created for entertainment purposes. If the image had been included in the article's pornography section I likely would have deleted it without comment. Offensiveness is not the issue btw. For example, I have no problem with this [12], it's the context, content, placement and caption. Anyway I only wanted to note that it happened. Wyss 13:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't thinking about the fact that it was produced for entertainment factoring into the equation. Anyway, I think the basic point is that while it may not be the best choice of image for the article, it's not really a good faith question or something that needs to be raised on AN. If he starts revert warring over it, OK, then maybe. Everyking 13:25, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it was in bad faith, bad taste maybe. I think putting a porno style photo into an article about one's lifestyle/sexual preference is a bit distasteful, but not enough to warrant action. Just revert and give reasons for the removal. ∞Who?¿? 13:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd be concerned about this image from a copyright standpoint. For an article about the specific porn flick in question (or about pornographic films in general), a few still images might be appropriate. For an article about the broad topic of lesbians, two actresses faking it in a copyrighted film may be stretching the 'fair use' provision past its breaking point. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:38, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

It's certainly copyrighted and not licensed for our use. It could be fairly used in an article that discusses the movie it's taken from, or even possibly in an article that discusses the depiction of lesbian sex in mainstream pornography. (No, really. I'm sure there've been many women's studies dissertations on the subject.) But on Lesbian? It's unnecessary, beyond fair use, and distracts from the article. --FOo 14:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I assume it's not worksafe, so that's something to be considered too. There's no need for lesbian to contain non-worksafe images inline, and most people browsing in public won't expect it to. ~~ N (t/c) 15:54, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

With all these different reasons cited by people as to why the image was not helpful, I can only hope that User:Klonimus will be more careful about adding staged and copyrighted erotic images to articles in the future. Wyss 18:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The picture is nice, they're doing something vaguely sexual, and it'll be removed if people don't want it there. Meanwhile I think we need a cleanup of the extremely weasely description of Schwartz. Sentences starting with phrases like "Some have pointed out..." are not encyclopedic because they violate NPOV and are unverifiable. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 00:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, this I just couldn't resist: [13]. 41 hits! And that's just for "some have pointed out". We should try listing them all and starting a project. Weasel words are part of Wikipedia culture; they allow you to paint a thin veneer of NPOV over something by implying an invisible source. This is remarkably often left unchallenged for fear of sacrificing factual information (and usually because nobody cares if Everybody Can See It's True). JRM · Talk 02:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Worse: "it has been said". 644 hits. (Just under 500 for "it has been said that" alone.) Some people might say that that project idea of yours might be a good idea. Aquillion 02:33, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget to include "it should be noted . . ." Slac speak up! 02:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's not POV per se. Just horrible style. But there is agreement in certain circles with Aquillion's statement about the project being a good idea. Some of these phrases are so cliched that they really serve as good POV red flags. I can see it now: POVbot, who will move any sentence containing one of the blacklisted phrases to the talk page, demanding attribution... JRM · Talk 02:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

He put the image back up today [14] (it was reverted by someone else). It looks like bad faith to me. Am I missing something (maybe I am)...? Wyss 12:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes you are missing something. I just thought that if the article had a photo of 18th century lesbian's engaging in tribadism, a a more modern photo would also be good. Klonimus 08:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

User:CIrate

Posted a note on my talk page about being banned by Jimbo. I am assuming this is User:Irate since I added {{indefblockeduser}} to that userpage. The name is mentioned many times in the comment posted on my talk page, specifically mentioning the reason for the block quoted from the block log: Personal conversation in IRC in which he assures me that our rules are rubbish and that he intends to continue "following" them as he always has. I assume this user would need a block as a sock? Thanks. ∞Who?¿? 12:47, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Did Irate's case ever go through the ArbCom a second time? Or was the decision purely Jimbo's? I think even if Jimbo is going to impose a ban it should be temporary until we can get an Arb decision. Everyking 13:03, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The second final decision was to be monitored for 1 year, but then Jimbo banned indef after the IRC discussion. At least that's what I understood of the arb decision. ∞Who?¿? 13:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

That's a shocking contrast, between just being monitored and being banned outright forever. I suppose if it did go through again the ArbCom would just rubberstamp what's already been done, but I maintain that things have been handled wrongly in this case. My attempts to raise the issue with Jimbo haven't gone anywhere, though. Everyking 13:17, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes there is a big step between monitoring and banning, but anyone who promises to distrupt the point of wikipedia (i.e. writing an encyclopaedia) who has a histroy of disruption (which I understand Irate has) should be blocked imho. However, regardless of whether he should or should not be banned, he has been banned and sockpuppets of banned users should be banned regardless. If Irate wants to complain about his ban then he should bring it up with Jimbo or another administrator by email or on the mailing list or somewhere. Thryduulf 13:56, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I never thought it was all that clear that he was promising to disrupt. I thought there was more than one way to interpret what Jimbo said that he said. Everyking 18:25, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Seemed clear to me. He promised to continue to follow the rules as he has always done. Since he has a history of not following the rules, he's saying he'll continue down that path. I don't see how there is any other way to interpret that. --Kbdank71 20:16, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe he was saying that he always has followed the rules, and will continue following them? Now, if that's it, then not only is the "offense" not bannable, it's not even an offense (and wouldn't be anyway since it was said on IRC, but I guess that's a mere technicality now—hey, if we're going to start dishing out punishments for IRC talk, boy have I got some charges to file...). Everyking 06:51, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Anyone else getting tired of this?

Vandalbot on wheels! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Please help reverting the mess, and please beg the developers to do something to put an end to this. Radiant_>|< 15:25, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone else hear fiddling? Anyway, this one's cleaned up, and I'm sure it will be the last one am i rite --Golbez 15:56, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Please Vote: Will everyone with a Bugzilla account (or willing to get one), please go vote in support of enhancement 1454 which calls for page moves to be throttled to not more than 1 per minute for non-sysops. Dragons flight 16:58, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

That's actually just a hack, and a bad idea in the long term. It would be better if someone could rollback the past <n> hours of modifications by a specified user, including all page moves, renames, etc. Kim Bruning 17:17, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

A hack, yes, but I would think relatively easy to implement and less open to misuse/mistakes than a super-rollback button. Could you explain why you think it is a bad idea in the long run? I don't see that. Dragons flight 17:22, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Any kind of limitation (like throtteling) always somehow seems to turn out to bite the people who propose it. What happens if a logged in user is busy fixing a large wikiproject, for instance? It would make it very tough for people to make move-based fixes across large numbers of pages. Undo-like functions are typically a lot friendlier. Better rollback for vandals would be grand. :-) Kim Bruning 18:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Here's a scenario:

A vandalnet of 60 vandalbots log in, and make 60 page moves per minute. Now the people undoing (not all admins) can only make 1 page move per minute... (oops)

So the very objective of preventing vandalism need actually not be met. At the same time, it becomes more difficult for ordinary users to prevent vandalism.

Kim Bruning 18:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Was there a change in the new version that disallows non-admins from reverting over top a redirect? I was previously able to revert moves with the revert link in the move log. I tried to help out with this one, but was given the non-admin error. ∞Who?¿? 17:27, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• • Well I figured out there wasn't a change, I just hit revert on ones that were previously reverted, and of course got the error. D'oh ∞Who?¿? 19:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

99 Willys on Wheels on the wall, 99 Willys on Wheels... (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 18:38, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

WILLY-MART (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).. new one. ∞Who?¿? 18:56, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I must be getting to the contribs list a little slow as I normally get "Rollback failed" messages. slambo 19:12, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Take your parner, do see do, spin them 'round and turn them 'fro. --Golbez

Willy² (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) don't forget about this one too.. geez. ∞Who?¿? 19:22, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Why bother? --Golbez 19:34, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

• Well I got all of them for that last one, I think. Someone has to eventaully. ∞Who?¿? 19:36, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I got some of each as well, though why I'm not sure. (Yes, I am very pissed that nothing is being done about it. We aren't devs; we can't change the code. All we can do is clean up after the bastard's mess and wait for some developer to come down from on high and deliver unto us a solution, a throttle, a ban, anything! Rome is burning, goddamn it!) --Golbez 19:40, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I'm seriously considering adding revert moves to my bot. ∞Who?¿? 19:52, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

While you rest from putting out the fires, you may find it interesting to know that Brion responded on the enhancement to say he thought new users were already only allowed 2 moves every 120 seconds. Dragons flight 20:01, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't find that interesting at all, in fact I find it to be wrong. Contributions of Willy² show EVERY SINGLE EDIT at 14:14, 25 August 2005. That's a tad more than 2 moves every 120 seconds. --Kbdank71 20:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

probably true the accounts are just left a few days before activateing them that is all.Geni 20:54, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The clock for a "new account" should start with its first edit then. And we need newusers. And we need throttling. And we need a SIGN. --Golbez 20:59, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've worked out that the isNewbie test only limits the most recent 1% of registered accounts. That means that Willy must be registering sleeper accounts and waiting for them to grow up before launching rampages. It also explains why it doesn't go on ad nauseum, he can't just come back immediately when he runs out of appropriately aged accounts. I have suggested on the bugzilla thread that isNewbie should also test edits > 100, and that SpecialNewusers could really come in handy in a situation like this. Dragons flight 21:12, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Another idea that might solve things like this came to me in another thread. Basically, make it so the only users who can move pages and do any other potentally dangerous general-user things are "approved users". All you have to do to become an approved user is get tagged by another approved user or an admin, which they're allowed to do whenever they feel like it; becoming an approved user wouldn't be hard or significent. Anyone could check who approved a given user at any time, though, or see everyone who a given user has approved. This would effectively give the move to everyone, since it would be so easy to become an approved user; but would create a huge stumbling block for people like Willy, since he'd have to seek out approval every time he wants to start vandalizing. (Although he could use one approved account to approve others, it would be easy to find out who was approving Willy accounts and make them stop or ban them as Willy sock, depending on the situation; so he'd have to start again at getting approval for every wave.) Although not perfect, it seems to me that this would greatly limit this type of vandalism, without posing too many restrictions for normal users. It would also encouraging socializing with new users, and might influence many of them to stay. Of course, it would probably be harder to implement than throttling, but it seems to me like it might be a more sturdy and less risky solution; and it could be extended to cover other problematic abilities as they arise. Aquillion 21:11, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• I think a minimum edit count required for moving anything would be the best solution. It may also make it easier to cleanup if the "rollback move" button 1) doesn't ask for confirmation, and 2) doesn't leave a redirect. Radiant_>|< 07:42, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

• User:Dieseldrinker, by the way. Assistance is welcome, as I can't do any more of these. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 11:33, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • After maybe 75 moves I am out with the cleanup of that one, must be still 100 left - please, someone take over. I am tired of doing nothing but willy-repair lately, we NEED the old new-user-move-block switched on again immidiatly until this asocial being finishes his school vacation - and the move throttle is also urgently needed to prevent this mess. andy 12:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• I left this info on the Vandalism in progress page, but I thought I'd put it here too. I'm not sure which Willy did it, but the WP globe on http://www.wikipedia.org has been replaced by a picture of an automobile and "Willy on Wheels" in pink. The URL for the picture is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/meta/2/2a/Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px.jpg LarryMac 12:47, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• • I have reverted this and emailed the foundation to get it protected (the image is on meta). An hour with Willy on the interlanguage entry page is entirely too long. Dragons flight 13:28, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

• • Yep, it's on meta at m:Image:Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px.jpg. --Ixfd64 19:47, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

Please note I am now running a block bot. It has blocked the last five incarnations of Willy (My willy is bigger than yours!; May the Willy on Wheels be with you!; Microsoft Willy on Wheels!; George Willys Bush; Willy willy willy willy... Mushroom, Mushroom!).

I realize an automated block bot can be dangerous, but this is an emergency. I will run it under supervision if possible, but will keep on running it even when I'm not here. Please note this is not a request to run such a bot; I am already running it and will continue to do so and am just letting everyone know. The bot is running under my account (admin). I hope no admin is misguided enough to think of blocking me for whatever reason; if so, I will unblock myself. Did I mention that this was an emergency? -- Curps 14:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

This is indeed an emergency, and the more blocking done, the better. If we have to ban all of AOL and half of NTL before the devs give us a sign, then so be it. Not our problem anymore. If they want AOLers to keep access to Wikipedia, they can install a bloody throttle. One that WORKS this time, eh? --Golbez 19:27, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Willy has rapidly increased the rate of his pagemoves. To see what happened the last time he was blocked the traditional way (by me), see Dieseldrinker page moves. Around 200 or so pagemoves in 2 1/2 minutes. -- Curps 14:40, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

This link [15] is Curps' block log, in case there should be any collateral damage, but until a better option presents itself I am not least bit inclined to object. Though I do worry in the long run that a local bot solution will only encourage Willy to attack other Mediawiki wiki's like: [16] Dragons flight 14:54, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

It's not our place to worry about damatica. --Golbez 19:27, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Admins have immunity from collateral damage. By the way, if you're wondering why I picked on poor Ævar for a 1-second test block, it's because he has a non-ASCII username and entries in the move log. You're absolutely right that a long-term solution can only be found in a Mediawiki update. My bot just beeped: GAYNIGGER ON WHEELS. I think that's number six today. -- Curps 15:15, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The only long term solution is a change in Mediawiki. Curps' bot can only do so much because that WoW idiot can start registering usernames that do not have "Willy" or "on Wheels" or its incarnations. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, but because of the newbie test, this will give us some breathing room. I would like to congratulate Curps and Kbdank71 for their efforts. --cesarb 16:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Would it be possible to modify the bot to block users who move more than three pages in 60 seconds? --Carnildo 19:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Doing that would block many legitimate users. The bot can only block or not block, it can't throttle, and what we need is throttling.

Actually, a crude form of throttling is possible: too many moves at once gets a 30-second block. Something like that. It would annoy legitimate users but not seriously hamper them (unless they're in the process of doing a mass Willy revert, precisely the wrong time to block or annoy them). It's a possibility, but better to be cautious. Another problem is the fact that the underlying IP gets blocked when a username gets blocked, and can remain blocked even after the username block expires. That makes it much more problematic... dialup users would have to hangup and redial, so it's more than just a brief throttle. I think a MediaWiki update is really the only good solution. -- Curps 19:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm finished with Willy Patrol for now. If anyone feels like hunting for sleepers, here is where I left off. Load the page, search for "willy" then "wheel". It won't find all of them, but I've nailed about 20 so far. I'll come back later when my sanity has returned. --Kbdank71 16:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

First off, thank you, you and Curps and everyone else who has been helping fix the damage and find the sleepers.

We shouldn't forget User:Ahoerstemeier (andy), for the sheer number of page reverts he did. -- Curps 16:40, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

A developer would be able to query the entire user list for: 1) users that have registered but made no edits, and aged more than a couple days; 2) users that have the same password. Get the subset of these that have the same password as any of the accounts containing substring "illy" or "heels". Block, or delete, all these accounts. In principle it shouldn't be all that hard to do I would think. But I'm just daydreaming ... Antandrus (talk) 16:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Checking for similar passwords is not possible anymore. All passwords are salted. --cesarb 16:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, so this is of mostly academic interest, but how do I search the user list for names that *include* "Willy"? When I search for "Willy", I only get the one user who exactly matches my querry, not those who include my querry. TexasAndroid 16:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Ouch. I think I just figured it out. You're loading each page, and doing browser level searches for Willy and Wheels, and then moving on to the next page to repeat. (I was trying to use Wiki's search) Ouch, ouch, ouch. No wonder it's taking such a toll on your sanity. TexasAndroid 16:36, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Paginate through the whole list, using your browser to search for that word within each page. At least that's what Kbdank71 was doing above. --cesarb 16:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

At the moment Grammy and I are combing through the rest of the user list; check on IRC if you want to know what's still uncovered. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:08, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

And MarkSweep, too. You can see the results at the block log. Thanks to Kbdank for getting it started. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:44, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• Not sure how many people noticed this, but Dieseldrinker (talk · contribs) was used at Aug 5, 2005 WP:ViP/WoW and subsequently permanently banned. How, then, was he able to come alive with this account again? Adam^Rock 17:22, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • According to the block log, Dieseldrinker was not blocked until the 26th. --Kbdank71 18:00, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
    • User:El-Socko added himself and a bunch of others to WP:ViP/WoW on August 6th. Funny. Adam^Rock 18:10, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

If he is coming from the same IP block, let's ban it. I don't give a damn if it's a class A block. Ban it. Cmon, devs, if you aren't going to stop him then at least give us the tools to do it for you. --Golbez 19:27, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

In regards to finding names with "Willy" and "Wheels" in them, I suggest using a database query, perhaps with fuzzy logic, to detect similar names? However, we might catch legit contributors named "Willy". --Ixfd64 19:38, 2005 August 26 (UTC)

And not catch the next big wave of page move vandals who'll start calling themselves "Peter on Rollerskates", "Dick on a Skateboard", "John Thomas on a Bicycle" or just about anything else. JRM · Talk 19:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry I missed the rest of the cleanup, I only got 200-300 or so, in south Florida and lost power. I am on temporarily, but will continue to look for missed pages. As for admins being immune to collateral damage listed above.. I would think any user working to revert Willy's misdeeds should have the same benefits. Note, I'm not talking about my accidental block ;) ∞Who?¿? 20:09, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Oh yea, the block bot should monitor the move log, and not just usernames. Look for any user making more than say 5 moves in 1 minute. Users doing cleanup can be unblocked on request. ∞Who?¿? 20:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
    • That will probably trap users doing cleanup. Earlier today I was doing many more than 5 per minute. You could always check for more than a human could do, but then that gives Willy more opportunities to make moves before he is caught. Any word on this from the devs? --Kbdank71 20:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather not describe exactly what the block bot is doing. I think Willy reads the admin forum pages. Who, your accidental block was 100% human error and fatigue... that was me, not the bot. I think I automatically reacted to anything with a "W" in the name and "wheels" on the same line, didn't look closely enough at the direction of the moves, which were in fact reverts by you. -- Curps 20:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Thats understandable, and I wasn't upset, didn't want you to think that message was about you, just in general. Thanks for the note tho. Btw, there is a {{WoW}} for easier use. ∞Who?¿? 20:50, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that there are two kinds of Willy-type vandals now. Users like User:Dieseldrinker and User:SmarterChild3 that use bot-style targets with numbers, and the more classic "on wheels!" (or other extensions that stay the same for the entire spree) movers like User:GAYNIGGER ON WHEELS and User:Willy willy willy willy... Mushroom, Mushroom!. I take this as further indication that we deal with multiple people here - or it could be that someone wants us to believe that. By the way, I permanently blocked User:Petroldrinker and User:Gasolinedrinker (who didn't move pages, but made a few WoW-related vandalism edits) as socks/impostors of User:Dieseldrinker, who also vandalised a little and then went on a move spree. -- grm_wnr Esc 20:47, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I would just like to express my extraordinary gratitude to anyone willing to look through the 400,000 names on the user list and ferret out the Willy sleepers. It isn't going to win the war, but hopefully it will give us some reprieve while better/stronger measures are brought to bear. Thanks alot guys. Dragons flight 21:48, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not an admin, but am glad to help with gruntwork as I can. How can I help with sifting through the usernames, for instance? · Katefan0^(scribble) 22:01, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

This needs to be done several times a week for maximum effectiveness. OTOH, it will lose effectiveness as soon as Willy stops creating such patterned user names. And that may very well be at once after today's purge. But basically, if you can find any users you suspect are WoW sleeper accounts, I suggest adding them to the "sleep accounts" section of the ViP:WoW page. Several admins watch there regularly, and one of them will certainly make a judgement on the account in short order. I also suggest taking the suspected account and first giving it a search in the IP block list to avoid duplicating blocks. TexasAndroid 22:41, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I added Template:WoW to all the accounts listed at WP:ViP/WoW except User:VANdal and User:BoW Bank Employee16, which were both protected. Could someone run a bot on the accounts listed at Category:Wikipedia:Suspected_sockpuppets_of_Willy_on_Wheels to make sure they are all, in fact, actually indefinitely blocked? Adam^Rock 22:32, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

VANdal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was never a WoW-style vandal, he was a parody of the Autofellatio vandal, who used images of a van instead of that picture. --cesarb 00:39, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Removed from WP:ViP/WoW. Adam^Rock 01:48, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Just a note - 82.32.39.101 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), who vandalized NSR's user and talk page and removed the user from RfA, has been adding rather specfic info about willy's past activities to the vandalism in progress page... is this some wierd sense of vanity? Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 10:29, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Definitely. WoW loves embellishing his own story, but I have no idea if that IP is specifically him or someone else adding information. Anyone know if it's on the same proxy as his past IPs? Adam^Rock 17:23, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

This IP wasn't Willy. It me logged out. I was following the discussion about Willy on IRC as random nickname and decided to do a bit of Willy research. Nothing to be alarmed about. I decided to withdraw my adminship nomination due to Wikistress but forgot to login, hence the "vandalism" of my pages. NSR (talk) 10:56, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

An update: User:fvw is objecting to me running the bot and has asked me to stop running it; I have declined. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Curps.27_block_bot. -- Curps 09:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Help with move needed (after I mistakenly made a cut-and-paste move)

Hi there. I made a mistake. Instead of using the Move button, I merely created a new page and then did a cut-and-paste. I realized later that this was the wrong thing to do -- that it stranded the page history. So I undid my move, but I cannot delete the (now empty) new page, and without that, I can't complete the Move.

The existing page is: John Paul II International Airport The page it should be moved to: John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice

Could someone help me out? I already updated the redirects which now point at John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice. I need an administrator to delete John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice to complete the Move.

Thank you and apologies for the extra work. -- Mareklug 21:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. Mackensen (talk) 21:43, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Oak Island NPOV dispute w/o debate

I need your collective input regarding an ongoing edit, uhm, "situation" over at Oak Island (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). If you look at the article's history, you'll see that 192.197.71.189 (talk · contribs) keeps inserting a notice every couple of days that more or less amounts to an {{NPOV}} tag. Here's a recent example: [17]. This wouldn't be a problem (I don't know anything about Oak Island, so for all I know the anon has a point) if these notes led to any debate or improvement of the article. However, User:192.197.71.189 was asked repeatedly on his talk page to lay out his arguments on Talk:Oak Island and to engage in discussion aimed at improving the article. To this date, the anon has not posted a single message on the article's talk page, nor has he responded to the messages left for him on his user talk page. All he's done recently is insert the same message over and over every two or three days.

Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this sort of situation? I'm not sure if a block will be effective: a 24 hour block will be entirely useless, as he's already demonstrated a remarkable persistence during a period of several weeks or months. More importantly, there may still be a slight chance that this person has some information that could lead to an improvement of the article. What's the best course of action? I'm leaning towards page protection. Any thoughts? --MarkSweep 01:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

you could try adding some commented out text to the article. Other than that you may just have to accpet that you will have to keep reverting it. I ended up reverting one artilce once a day for a simular time peroid as you have on this one. I've added the artilce to my watchlist for what it's worth. The IP does seem pretty steady so a longer block to try and get thier attention is not completely out of the question.Geni 01:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually he hasn't edited his talk page since last Nov 17th when he apparently had a bad experience with an impostor. He has only edited two article talk pages since then, too. So it appears that he doesn't look at his own talk page and may have forgotten that there are talk pages for the articles. One of the two times he edited an article talk page he gave "Chad Matsalla" as his name. Maybe it will help to know that. --Nate Ladd 01:29, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, for the info and the suggestion! I added an HTML comment at the beginning of the page. For the time being, I'll continue to operate under the assumption that the anon is persistently clueless, but not actively malicious. --MarkSweep 03:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Outrageous Legal Threat

Shocking.

I have left what I consider to be a rational and reasonable warning about not making legal threats at Khaosinfire (talk · contribs)'s talk page. Dragons flight 03:17, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Given the similarity in names (and that I did a bit of a double take when I saw the first part of the name in scroll) I would just like to state for the record that in no way am I associated with Khaosinfire. Thank you. :) --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 03:34, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Ban him. --Golbez 04:06, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree that that is an appropriate response after the first offense. He should have the opportunity not to do this again. However, I would support banning if there is a history I am unaware of and he has been warned previously about such actions. Dragons flight 04:11, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I believe I have seen making legal threats or taking legal actions as a bannable offense. It should be on first offense; no quarter should be given for sub-morons who feel the need to make personal threats against editors. Furthermore, this person has no interest in working with us - "everyone knows" is not a citeable source. Redeemable? Maybe. But unlikely. --Golbez 04:14, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I have banned khaosworks for 1 year for impersonating poor Khaosinfire. That is all. Func( t, c, @, ) 04:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Rouge admin! Rouge admin! Im goingt o report yuo to aRbcom! --khaosworks-on-wheels (talk • contribs)

I concur with Func - ban them all and let God sort them out. As such, I've gone ahead and perminantly banned Khaosworks, Khaosinfire, khaosworks-on-wheels, Func, Golbez, Dragon's Flight, and Jimbo Wales (just in case...) →Raul654 04:43, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Well in that case, I'll go do some laundry. Dragons on wheels 05:02, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Don't we all feel positively icky from that unsolicited contact? Sublegal moronia as well, of course, as our little humingbird-at-the-Pierean-Springs ("a little learning is a dangerous thing/ Drink deep or touch not the Pierean Springs") kind of misunderstand the difference between someone coming to your house and someone seeing you at a bar. Public space vs. private space. A brain vs. the Scarecrow. Silly, silly people. Geogre 17:10, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Rachel Marsden

User:Glowball vandalized this page. He got blocked by Admin User:HOTR. He is back with a different IP address. This time he is using threats of legal action to get his way. See Talk:Rachel Marsden for the threat. --maclean25 04:57, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

User Imdaking is vandalising my talk page

User Imdaking has just deleted my documentation of his abuse of multiple identities (sock puppeting) on my talk page. He has been harrassing me in retaliation for editing an article, and for reporting him as a sock puppet. Please step in and assist tonight. I don't have to put up with this jerk. Thanks. Paul Klenk 06:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone monitor this page? Where are you? When am I going to get a response? Paul Klenk 07:26, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

A number of us are, in various degrees here. But you've given no indication what action you want someone to take. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:38, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I thought you would know what action was appropriate. Next time I'll suggest a course of action. Paul Klenk

Anon AOL user is on his 11th bad faith revert and counting

As of right now, this user is up to 11 reverts on the 2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy_and_irregularities page. His conduct, detailed in a 3RR for now, is questionable indeed - including personal attacks, repeated blanking, refusing to create an account and today, for the first time, a massive 3RR vio. What brings me here is his ongoing, concerted effort to avoid responsibility by assuming multiple IP addresses. As mentioned on the 3RR listing, he has frequented the page as dozens of IP addresses, and misuses his 'anon' status consciously in order to avoid accountability. Anon abuses such as his represent a moderate, and growing, disruption to the Wikipedia. -- RyanFreisling @ 06:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• Blocked for 24 hours. Radiant_>|< 12:54, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • D'OH! Of course that's not going to accomplish much. Any suggestions on how to deal with a persistent AOL vandal? I've protected the page for the time being, there weren't any serious edits lately other than reverts back and forth. Radiant_>|< 13:27, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • Delete AOL. -Splash 16:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• • • Sigh...given how lame AOL is in the first place, how much of a problem would it be to arbitrarily block them all anyway? ;-) Func( t, c, @, ) 16:18, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
      • You will block me much of the time, and a fair number of other good editors. DES ^(talk) 16:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
      • AOL/TimeWarner now owns other, less demotic properties. The new Netscape ISP is AOL's attempt at countering the no-frills PeoplePC players, and so po' boys like me who only spend $10/month for access will find themselves in an AOL IP pool. Geogre 17:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
        • What this really calls for is a way of placing smarter and more specific blocks. Is there a way to block only anonymous users from a given IP range, for instance, or to block those and new users from that range, while allowing existing ones to continue posting? That could be used as a temporary measure when there's a spike in vandalism. An even better option would be the ability to put that kind of a block on specific pages. A temporary page-specific block that targets anons and users created after the block is placed could also be useful in protecting vandalized voting pages and the like. Aquillion 05:31, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

User Wiki brah requires attention from an admin

This user is posting inappropriate articles; when people tag them "Vote for Deletion" he deletes these tags, then stalks them, placing complaints on other peoples' talk pages. Please do your best to check out this person. Describes himself as "slight autistic". Probably cannot be taken seriously -- I'll leave it to your best judgement. Paul Klenk 08:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Its not that I deleted the tags as a matter of course I just saw that you didn't do the nomination properly for a while (the entry was red for quite some time) I only removed the ones that weren't formed properly then left them on when Klenk performed the nomination correctly. Besides he's the one stalking me and any check of his edits concerning me will show a series of mean spirited personal attacks and rudeness directed at me, even his post here has quite the snide tone to it. Thank you good morning.Wiki brah

How long do you consider "a while" to be? I wouldn't remove a VfD tag unless the subpage link has been red for at least 24 hours. --Carnildo 08:28, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I must say, I wouldn't wait twenty-four hours; I mean, how long does it take to complete the process? If someone hasn't completed it within an hour or so I'd delete (or possibly complete it for them, depending upon how much time I had and how much I agreed with the VfD). Why would anyone place the template on an article and themn wander off for a day or two before explaining why and adding it to the VfD page? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:26, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Mel, it was I who placed the tag and left it incomplete. I didnt mean to wander off -- I just didn't know there were additional steps. I'm still learning how to tag; and a couple of users have been very helpful guiding me. Also, your instincts serve you well -- a few people did complete them for me. But the user in question did not wait for the tag to be comleted -- it just disappeared immediately on a few pages. Paul Klenk 22:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, sorry — that's the main answer to my question. I think that my point is (should have been) that I'd not wait twenty-four hours before acting, but that the action might be deleting the template, completing the VfD, or contacting the person who placed it there to find out if they'd made a mistake. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:54, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Sneaky vandalism

I've been noticing an increase of one-off vandalism of a certain type recently by anon IPs; with a random comment added and immediately, in the next edit, removed by the same IP. I know this already happens in tests and whatnot, but it just seems to be happening more commonly than before. Like any good pirate, just keep an eye out. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 08:47, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Having stupid day today, sorry. Why is it a problem? Bishonen | talk 11:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Isn't, especially. The worst it could possibly do is lessen credibility slightly in the far future, by having the page history look weird. Just thought it was worth noting. -Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 11:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this is typically vandalism, just newbie experimentation ("My god! I can edit it. Well, I didn't really want to put that there.") -- Jmabel | Talk 05:42, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

I know *that* rationality of it there, I'm just seeing quite a bit more of it lately, and hoping there isn't some sort of weird pattern going on. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 06:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I have made the same observation over the past months, and I am glad you brought it up because it made me wonder, too. But I can't see any other motive than individual tests, either, so I hope that's what they are. Rl 07:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Impersonators

Marubudshinki (talk · contribs · block log), Marububshinki (talk · contribs · block log), and Marududshinki (talk · contribs · block log) are all impersonators created to revert edits made by legitimate user Marudubshinki in Eric S. Raymond and Richard Stallman. I don't know the user, but these impersonators were clearly not created in good faith. One has already been blocked. Rl 13:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• All now blocked. Radiant_>|< 13:52, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • I can't prove it's the same user, but Qronky (talk · contribs · block log) has just turned up on Richard Stallman (and Talk:Richard Stallman) to make personal insults against User:Gronky and take over a battle that had been started by address range (*.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net) – the same range that started the war waged by the impersonators above. Rl 15:11, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
• Presumably the same impersonator has now created User:RI. Can someone please take care of this? Rl 20:01, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Done. --cesarb 20:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks! Rl 20:34, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
• And now User:gadtium. Probably someone else should block them, not me.-gadfium 02:09, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Done. --MarkSweep✍ 03:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Open Letter to Wikipedians

An open letter to the community can be found on my talk page. TheMessenger 19:22, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Should I shoot him? --Carnildo 19:52, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Took me a while to get it. JRM · Talk 19:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Bang. I have moved the discussion to a section of the village pump policy page. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 22:14, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Given that people who are not totally out of their minds have added comments to it, that's fine. Note that the initial version was posted as a "WikiProject", which I speedied. JRM · Talk 22:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

• Actually I found that rather funny. All your wiki are belong to us! But also, I'd love to get an IP check on that guy :) Radiant_>|< 08:50, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Billybadboy (talk · contribs) and Lake of radium (talk · contribs)

One of my user pages came under attack from a vandal in my absence today, though fortunately it was only the one that I keep for such events (User:Francs2000/temp). However in his message on my talk page Billybadboy (talk · contribs) made suggestion to the use of sockpuppets if I block him (for previous vandalism) and used the term nooga nooga nooga. This same three-word term shows up in the vandalism today of Lake of radium (talk · contribs) and afterstudying their edits in which at about the same time they have both vandalised or added to the same pages I have come to the conclusion that both are the same person. I have blocked the first as a sockpuppet of the other (it was created later) and blocked the latter for 24 hours for vandalism of Wikipedia. I am posting this here in case my action as being someone personally involved in this comes under scrutiny from others. -- Francs2000 | Talk 20:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Tykell

I'm not sure what to do about Tykell (talk · contribs). His Talk page looks in places more like that of a troublesome anon, full of vandalism warnings. He has up-loaded a fair number of images, none with cources or copyright details, most of which have been put up for deletion (some now deleted) or tagged as having no source; on one set of images (photos of U-boat commanders) he removed the no-source template and added "fair use", with the claim that he had got them from [http:www.uboat.com], and had been given permission for their use. When User:Harmil checked this he was told by that site's admin that he'd never heard of Tykell, and asked that we not use his images. Does this warrant blocking, or is there some other route? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:20, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The images don't worry too much - there are a lot of images here that claim fair use from a sight (even w/o permission). Maybe a confused newbie? Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 03:59, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

There's a difference from being confused about copyright law and outright lying and pretending to have permission. If he's uploading lots of copyright violations it take people time to tag them all, remove them from articles, list them at the copyright violation page, wait for something to get past the backlog... It's a real problem. DreamGuy 05:14, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Well, by permission I was thinking that maybe user thought that permission was given by fair use or something... maybe assuming too much good faith though :) Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 05:17, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

He's done too much of it (and had done before this batch of images) to be simply confused (he's also too belligerent for that). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I've seen other administrators block for copyright fraud, which this would be a case of. Rob Church ^{Talk | FAD} 10:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

*zzl

Nzzl (talk · contribs), Dzzl (talk · contribs), Kzzl (talk · contribs). Clearly sockpuppets or meatpuppets of each other, have been POV pushing on at least one article, and Nzzl posted a note to my talk page with his sig saying he was Kzzl. Or some crap. There's probably more of them, too. I say we remove these before they confuse people more and become a valid thread.

He made Category:User_dz-N, too. Adam^Rock 17:08, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

wikicheese vandal

152.163.101.7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and probably others editing page content and adding

YOU SMELL LIKE WIKI-CHEESE!!!!!~TEH LOLZ!

Quite rapidly to pages and userpages and talkpages Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 04:15, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

• Looks like its time to review Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive40#Category:Wiki cheese-ology about the wikicheese vandal. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:19, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

It edited User talk:The Wife of -Ril-, which I suppose is just random coincidence. -Splash 05:31, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Image vandalism/graffiti

Greetings: 23:57 CDST Friday August 26 have observed repeated insertions of image graffiti of flaccid & erect penises totally unrelated to article "Autism", which article was recently featured on front page. Regretfully was unable to determine code lines that created these image graffiti to correct them.

Andrea Ray-Chandler

Eh? No such edits on Autism as far as I can see. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 05:06, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but when we get a report like this and there's no bad edits, check the templates. A vandal had inserted the penis image into Template:Ref and Template:Redirect. --Golbez 05:15, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

User 58.104.87.64 is deleting votes

This user has now twice deleted my vote at Wikipedia:Pages for deletion/WCOOP. Paul Klenk 12:14, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Socksex, Planetpjs, 58.104.87.64 all vandalizing vote page

This page Wikipedia:Pages for deletion/WCOOP is being vandalized by the above three users. Paul Klenk 12:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

You're looking for WP:VIP. In any case, Socksex has been blocked, Planetpjs seems to be an educatable newbie, and 58.104.87.64 looks like Planetpjs logged out. JRM · Talk 12:32, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Planetpjs a newbie, sure -- but how exactly have we determined he is educatable? Paul Klenk 12:39, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

By the magic of Wikipedia:Assume good faith. Nobody ever tried talking to him yet. Let's see what happens. Reverts are cheap. JRM · Talk 12:41, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Point taken. Thx. Paul Klenk

Chuck F

Chuck F, an editor banned by ArbCom from "editing editing any article related to libertarianism, socialism, or political ideology", has returned to his old tricks -- having been banned under the ArbCom decision from editing Ron Paul, he's back again as 203.112.19.195, one of his favorite anonymous IPs which figured prominently in the ArbCom case. RadicalSubversiv E 17:36, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

More Death Threats

Hello all User:Paul_Klenk taught me how to use this page anyway User:Bhadani made death threats to me here pleae help me this is not nice and i am kind of disturbed thank you.Wiki brah 18:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Latest "Love Virus" Unicode exploit

Here's his user contribs: [18]. The only way I could get there was by clicking "block" in RC, blocking (even though the user name field appeared to be completely empty), then clicking on User: in the block log. Then the rollback function was available.

Yet another persistent vandal. Sigh ... Antandrus (talk) 18:15, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

User:0waldo

Not only keeps adding a spamlink to IP address but also insists on vainly adding his name to the article here. I told him this is not acceptable on his talk page and he rsdponded by putting both link and his user name in the article again here, SqueakBox 18:32, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Newbie, warned and watched. Dragons flight 19:52, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

• I would think that "getmypc.info" would be a good entry on m:Spam blacklist, would add it myself, but it is now protected. ∞Who?¿? 20:51, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Probably overkill in this case. He did back off and start discussing the issue on the talk page. Besides, it is not really evil, just a cute tool he created that he wanted the rest of the world to know about. Dragons flight 20:57, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh its a personal script? Looked like one of those off the wall "companies" spamming their product. Yea in that case, would be overkill :) ∞Who?¿? 20:59, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

He still persists in spamming in his link in the face of concerted opposition, and in spite of having reverted 10 or so times, and in spite of warnings that he will be blocked, SqueakBox 00:38, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Given that he has now put the link in 15 times perhaps inmdeed his site should be blacklisted. Calling me Mr Chainsaw and little person isn't exactly civil either, SqueakBox 00:55, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I've blocked 0waldo for two hours and plan to continue my conversation with him. Dragons flight 01:01, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

After beiung blocked for 24 hours 0waldo's supporters have made an appearance. One anon from the same town as him followed by 4 brand new users all strongly supporting 0waldo, SqueakBox 04:55, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Also put his link into Hostname, Internet service provider and NetBIOS on his IP address, the same that originally spammed into IP address. All were reverted by different people. He re-reverted at Hostname, SqueakBox 13:30, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Complaint against User:rktect

He removes Vfd tags from articles (see Eratosthenes stadia) and distorts discussion pages so as to make them unreadable and impossible to see who said who (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Pseudoscientific metrology and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Aroura). Stuff like this has been going on for a month, and I'm now tired of reverting and repairing. Can someone please help? Please? -- Egil 18:39, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Would you consider asking him if he's interested in going to mediation? If he isn't, if you want to write an RfA, I'll endorse it. Zoe 21:37, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

We tried mediation, from August 11, with User:Improv as (IMHO a very good) mediator. After a couple exchanges of emails, rktect withdraw from the mediation. -- Egil 21:55, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Then I think an RfA is the only way to go. Zoe 05:12, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Zoe, do you really think making rktect an admin is the best way to handle this? ;-) Func( t, c, @, ) 05:20, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Erg. OK, Rfar, then.  :) Zoe 07:40, August 28, 2005 (UTC)]

OK, lets try the RfAr route. I must admit I've given up on anything else. -- Egil 20:21, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Help! Is there a way to put and end to this? (I know it seems like a small matter, but when it has happened for the N-100th time, your mouse arm really starts to ache). rktect bombed my VfD intro, and after I fixed it [19] he just bombed it again [20]. I am getting really, really tired of this. He is even bombing my sandbox [21]. And yes, he knows better. -- Egil 14:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

We can do a temporary injunction once this is accepted. In the meantime, brief blocks for vandalism would seem appropriate. Fred Bauder 14:54, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Rebecca Clarke

This article is on the Main Page and is being repeatedly vandalized. Best to keep an eye on it. Zoe 23:27, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Human Rights Servey on Wikipedia (The final post of I_sterbinski)

Dear all,

Wikipedia was recently a subject of intensive research of an huge international human right organization. A team of people from different nationalities and ages were acting on Wikipedia for 20 days, investigating previously noted anomalities of Wikipedia free editing and forming a final report, which (between the others similar reports) will later be a guide to all future moves of the organization concerning Wikipedia. Acting under an account of a real person, their privacy is to be held private. Therefore, very few private information will be revealed.

Also, this is a result of the lack of final possition of the organization concerning Wikipedia and human rights, which was still not formed.

The team's final post on Wikipedia, where they explain their actions can be found on the following addresses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:I_sterbinski

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macedonia#Human_Rights_Servey_on_Wikipedia_.28The_final_post_of_I_sterbinski.29

The team would like to thank to all the persons who took part in the correspondence with us.

We also want to appologise for keeping our identity secret for a longer period.

Best regards,

Aleksandar, Biljana, Asparuh, Christos, Valjon, Michael and Ana Luiza

I sterbinski 00:37, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I sterbinski

Spamming like every page on wikipedia quite rapidly with his "final post notification", take a look at his "contributions"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/I_sterbinski

Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 01:31, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

While I don't approve of the spam, it does make for some very interesting reading. Dragons flight 02:05, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if the phrase "final post" doesn't mean what he thinks it means. ;-) Func( t, c, @, ) 02:13, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

What he was doing was spamming various wikipedia namespace pages, then the talk page of many admins alphabetically, from A-Z. He got to T before he was blocked by the man, zscout370 (he was warned several times before not to do it too). Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 02:15, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I didn't get one :~( --Golbez 02:22, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I know, I'm a "D", where's mine? (and it couldn't have been just admins, Sam Spade got one.) Dmcdevit·t 02:33, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Aww, thanks Dragon's flight! ;) --Golbez 02:46, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I have corrected this egregious oversight, and made sure both Golbez and Dmcdevit have their own copies on their talk pages. Dragons flight 02:48, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I blocked the user for 48 hours due to the spamming. I am willing to reblock if he continues to spam upon his return. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 02:50, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I blocked Dragons flight for 48 hours for being I sterbinski's sockpuppet, evading a block, and spamming. :) Dmcdevit·t 03:24, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm disappointed that you blocked "them" before "they" got to me. I would have hoped that their USA member would have written the report so that it would be in meaningful English. Anyway, what a steaming load. Zoe 05:17, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

To anyone who actually read that document (DF?) what's the 2 line version? Guettarda 05:24, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I sterbinski (talk · contribs) claims to have in actuality been a team of 6 people doing a study for a large but unnamed NGO into the neutrality of Wikipedia's positions on issues of cultural and enthnic identity, and the viability of processes existing to maintain and ensure that neutrality. They further claim to have chosen the Macedonian conflict as a case study after having recieved several reports of strong bias in Wikipedia's apparently authoritative coverage. The process of their study was primarily to discuss and update the related articles in accordance with international norms, though at times they would intentional provoke conflicts to witness the community response. They conclude fairly strongly that the Wikipedia process is inadequate for protecting the interests of national and ethnic self-identity and providing a neutral representation of cultural and historical matters. In short, they believe these areas of Wikipedia are presently incurably biased by the effort of editors with strong POV. I have not studied the edit history of this entity, but the document itself appears credible on its face. Dragons flight 05:48, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I read the first screen's worth, but it's too late at night to motivate myself to keep reading. Thanks for the details - I'll give it a shot tomorrow. Guettarda 05:54, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

See also WP:AN/I archive 41. Thanks. MATIA 09:58, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

just looks like the latest shoots in that long running disspute.Geni 14:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

If you think that "the document itself appears credible on its face", you may be interested in that major Ukrainian fast-food chain I am selling. dab (ᛏ) 15:01, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Template:VfD

This links to Pages for Deletion, but the redirect takes you to Votes for Deletion. Unless I'm being moronic about something, that breaks the vfd3 substitutions. Template:VfD needs reverting or fixing as does vfd3 until we settle on a new name-Splash 02:46, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Another editor has just reported this on WP:AN, so I'm not making it up. It's a protected template, or I'd do it myself. -Splash 04:21, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• I belive I've fixed it by moving today's VFD page to PFD. See also Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion for discussion on the matter. Radiant_>|< 08:26, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Notanerd

Notanerd (talk · contribs)

I hope I'm reporting to the correct place. I'm puzzled by inconsistencies in Notanerd's editing history and claims made on his/her (I'll stick to his, as it's more convenient) userpage. I saw this edit [22] and wondered if the user might be a reincarnation of Skyring, so I went to Notanerd's userpage to have a look. He claims to have been editing Wikipedia since 30 September 2004, and to have become an admin on 19 March 2005. His UserContributions [23] show that he started yesterday, and that he has eight edits! I looked on List of Administrators [24], and couldn't find his name. I then looked at his (quite lengthy) talk page, and, by checking the contributions of someone who had apparently sent a message to it, I found that it is, in fact, the talk page of User:Jobe6, and has just been pasted into Notanerd's talk page.

Could someone look into it, please? Thanks. Ann Heneghan ^(talk) 12:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

zilch in buracrat log. I removed the comments from his user page for now.Geni 14:40, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's going on here. His talk page is identical to that of User:Jobe6. Can anyone confirm if they are the same user? There is no redirect from Jobe6 to Notanerd, which is standard when changing one's user name. This could be a vandal-imposter, which happened to me once: User:Funс. Func( t, c, @, ) 14:54, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not me. Jobe6 18:33, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

this shows that he might have been an anon who i had reverted vandalism from because he kept removing Eddie Murphy from the Irish americans list when it was completely possible that Eddie Murphy has Irish roots. Jobe6 18:41, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

User talk:64.109.253.204 shows that he was in an edit war with User:Lapsed Pacifist and Notanerd's first contribution outside of his user and talk pages was on Lapsed Pacifist's request for comment. I suspect he might be a sock puppet or an impersonator of User:Clawson who coincidently started editing Wikipedia in September 2004 like Notanerd said he was. Jobe6 18:57, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

The user page was just a copy of my user page at User:Pharos, and all of the 'claims' there are just facts about my participation on Wikipedia. I would link to thank User:Bratsche for pointing out this incident to me. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...--Pharos 20:36, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

All the evidence suggests that this is Skyring's sockpuppet No 19 (19 within one month of a one year ban!!!). The same pages were edited, the same way, with the same personal comments as in all the others. The user has been banned and edits reverted. Even if it wasn't, and the evidence strongly suggests that it was, stealing identities, user pages and claiming a non-existent admin status in itself would warrant a block. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 01:17, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Sockpuppet or copycat?

Consider Soilguy5 (talk · contribs) and Soilguy6 (talk · contribs). Is this a case of sockpuppetry or copycatting? -- Francs2000 | Talk 19:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• This edit makes it rather obvious they're the same person. I suppose there's no harm in this, it's way too transparent to use as a sockpuppet. Radiant_>|< 19:45, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

User:Ray Lopez and User:Calton Sr

In the above discussion about Coqsportif, User:Ray Lopez says "actually, I'm Calton's father." There is now an account called "Calton Sr" trolling about [25], who should be banned for impersonation (claiming to be Calton's mule) [26] if nothing else. Shem^(talk) 21:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Blocked Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:37, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; did we ever establish whether or not "Ray" here was another of Coqsportif's socks? Shem^(talk) 21:43, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so, but he seems to pass the Duck test. And check out his first-ever edit [27] should there be any controversy over blocking him as an impostor. Antandrus (talk) 02:34, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

User:N'SyncRockMyWorld

This is another one of those Sandboxians. Based on an edit from [28], this user could be FonzieFan, a sock of banned user Dr.Zoidberg. I wish to get some other opinions on this before I do anything. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 01:24, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, looks like this was an easy one, the user came to me at [29] and said that he/she was FonzieFan. Since Fonzie's other socks were blocked, this was also blocked by me. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 02:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I thought that Fonzie Fan and DrZoidberg are two different people. Where have they been proven as socks? -- Norvy (talk) 05:18, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

User:Joel Lindley

Anyone have any ideas how to handle this? This is not a registered user, the actual registered user is User:Joelkirk who redirects their page to this one. I checked the user rename log, and didn't see anything for either name. Maybe ask them to request a username change, if they want the latter? ∞Who?¿? 03:31, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds like the way to go. From some of the user's contribs, that's all he's trying to do. FreplySpang (talk) 03:32, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Article under attack: Hurricane Katrina

This article has been under sustained attack all day today, and in recent hours by several blankings, a Goatse vandal, and other random gibberish. The vandals all come from anon IP's. Some of the IPs display the same MO (i.e. the Goatse vandal), a WHOIS reveals that the IPs in question are from several completely unrelated organizations, which may be indiciative of IP spoofing or the use of an anonomyzer. Since this is a current event, page protection is not feasible. If you guys could help keep an eye on the article it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. -Loren 07:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

It's to be expected and will no doubt continue for a while longer, while the storm is the top news story in the U.S. Probably there's little if any coordination. Everyking 08:19, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

---

We're getting hit again by a Goatse vandal coming in with multiple IP's:

• 218.124.126.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 213.200.244.58 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 203.186.238.147 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 162.83.206.36 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Just to name a few. Follows the MO of a similar vandal who struck last night, making it probable that we're dealing with the same person. The compromised IP's come up as being all over the place (SOFTBANK BB CORP (Japan), Zimex Aviation AG... etc). -Loren 07:10, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Happening again

82.201.171.87 is repeatedly destroying. Please block him. --Red King 14:07, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Newuser patrol

For anyone doing newuser patrol (the hard way, by paging through Special:Listusers), be aware that a lot of Willy-style sleeper accounts are being created daily with a "Milk" theme. I've blocked all the one's I've found. The "User:MilkMan" vandal very much seems to be Willy under a different name, his signature style is very characteristic. Note however that there are some perfectly legitimate users with "Milk" in their name.

PS, lots of us have been clamoring for a "Special:Newusers" feature, but it seems we are getting about 10,000 new accounts per day. So manually paging through it may not be satisfactory. It's best to use a bot to fetch data from Special:Listusers on a daily basis and then do various diffs and comparisons with yesterday's userlist. -- Curps 17:28, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Mightn't pulling the entire list of users daily put a lot of stress on the servers? A Newusers page is a good idea anyway; you could pull it with a bot. ~~ N (t/c) 17:30, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I've started doing a regular (new)user patrol, for which data acquisition is almost completely automated. Server-side support would be nice, but it would be most useful in the form of a monolithic full user list (and also IP block list) in text/plain format. The resulting list is not all that long (certainly much shorter than some of the largest media files on the Commons), and the load on the DB servers would also be reduced by doing a single, unconstrained lookup instead of several constrained ones, which is how it has to be done at the moment. Thanks for the heads-up on that annoying Milk-chan brat, Curps! --MarkSweep✍ 18:43, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

It would also be nice if new account creations showed up on RC patrol, along the lines of:

17:35  User Willy on milk has joined Wikipedia.  . .  (Talk | Contribs | block)

Func( t, c, @, ) 17:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

At 10,000 new accounts a day, that would clutter RC patrol too much to put it there (one very 8 or 9 seconds).

I agree that pulling the entire list of users daily would be a bad thing if everyone did it. I guess we do need a Special:Newusers feature. -- Curps 18:36, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

How is MilkMan like Willy? His contribs show some simple vandalism and I don't see him at all in the move log. ~~ N (t/c) 18:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

It's mostly that he seems to be registering a bunch of sleeper accounts, which is usually something associated with intended pagemove vandalism. -- Curps 10:05, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Being the hacker that I am, I modified a version of Special:Listusers to create Special:Newusers, which is intended to show the most recent 1% of registrations (the current "newbie" definition in Mediawiki) organized with most recent first. Now we only need a dev to test it, fix any bugs I might have left, and install it. See bugzilla:1628 if you want to encourage the devs. Dragons flight 19:04, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how easy this would be, but what I'd like to see is a user list sorted by account registration time, similar to the RC list. That would make it much easier to detect patterns among sets of potentially related accounts, and it would make it possible to go backwards in time beyond the most recent 1% in case long-term sleepers suddenly become active. --MarkSweep✍ 01:10, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

OOhhh...would it be easier/faster for the developers to simply give us Special:Listusers sorted by date-creation rather than creating a new special page altogether? Func( t, c, @, ) 02:05, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I do not remember offhand if the database actually stores the exact date-creation. But I do know, assuming that the developers followed all the standard practices of PHP and MySQL, that it is always possible to sort any list of data stored there by most-recent creation. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:10, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

See bugzilla:3301. We may not get the exact dates, but a temporal ordering is technically very easy to do. --MarkSweep✍ 09:06, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

DotSix AKA Donald Alford

Not only is DotSix breaking his temporary injunction, he's also vandalizing my user page, my user talk page, and Banno's user and talk pages. When I vprotected my own talk page (I never imagined I'd have to do it, but what to do with someone who burns through 3 IPs in less than 15 minutes?), he went to User talk talk:CesarB. He doesn't show any sign of giving up (just take a look at my block and protect logs). What should I do? --cesarb 18:56, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I've already blocked him for 24 hours for violating the injunction multiple times. [30]. He doesn't seem to show any sign of getting bored. I think the ArbCom may need to institute some very stiff penalties for any future violations of his injunction. Carbonite | Talk 19:03, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

The whole problem is, as usual, AOL... --cesarb 19:06, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

The real problem is that your side wants to control content of Wikipedia to reflect your bias by any means necessary, including blocking those who do not agree with you, and argument _ad hominem_ like the above. That's against policy, comment on content, not on the contributor. When will you obscurantists ever learn this?--172.193.149.250 20:04, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see what you are complaining about. The above is perfectly normal and appropriate. Perhaps less so of your "your side wants to control content of Wikipedia to reflect your bias by any means necessary...", but it certainly has the merit of making people laugh. Rama 20:13, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Has anyone here done a google search on Mr. "Donald R. Alford"? He has been trolling/disrupting Usenet and other online forums since at least 1999, and always with billions of different psuedonyms. Given his history, I'm surprised it took him so long to find Wikipedia. Func( t, c, @, ) 02:16, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

No need to google it, it's already at his RFAr: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DotSix/Evidence#DotSix is Donald R. Alford. It even links to the huge list of pseudonyms. --cesarb 02:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Willy's back

Check the move log, a small cleanup to do. -- Curps 19:04, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Washington Convention Center got double-revert broken, admin cleanup needed. ~~ N (t/c) 19:10, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

User:[email protected] evading 3RR block

[email protected] (talk · contribs) was blocked for 3RR vios on Michael Cusack and Cahal Cardinal Daly earlier today.

Appears to be back as a combination of charmingly-named sockpuppets and anonymous IPs:

• [email protected] (talk · contribs) (evidence: this revert same as this revert)
• 67.100.109.48 (talk · contribs) (evidence: same revert again)
• [email protected] (talk · contribs) (evidence: related edit)

User has also admitted anonymous hate-speech vandalism of Bleiburg massacre article, and has announced their intention to evade any block. And as if all that weren't enough, they like to refer to other editors by sectarian insults.

Demiurge 20:02, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Real life sometimes intrudes

Encyclopædia damatica is an article about a website that has many detractors. In the interest of NPOV the detractors criticisms of the site should be included in the article, of course, but they should not be allowed to use Wikipedia as a foundation to harass and attack the websites owner.

The current protected version is actual, real-life harassment of the websites owner. It is harassment to link the owner of the site to their real-life employer, a fact that has nothing to do with the website itself. It is wiki-vandalism (and further harassment) to include an excessive number of inline links to outside information and pictures that have been removed from the article itself.

This information says, in essence: "I know where you live." "I know where you work." "I know what you look like." That is stalker behavior, not encyclopedic. Publicizing it is incitement to other detractors to take on real life harassment via letters to employers, prank calls, etc.

I reverted the page firmly believing this is vandalism and harassment. I'm now blocked. 3RR does not cover vandalism and harassment. If listing to this information was done on a talk page it would fall under WP:RPA, we shouldn't allow it in an article either.

Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about this. There is a real life person here who these detractors are trying to ruin by sending disparaging letters to real life employers. By not doing a sanity check before blocking someone on 3RR and then PROTECTING the page with the links intact, Wikipedia administrators have tacitly endorsed using Wikipedia as an information source for this harassment. User:SchmuckyTheCat 135.214.154.104 21:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

• No they haven't. The {{protected}} specifically says that it in no way endorses the current version. Whichever version is protected, there will always be a party complaining. Radiant_>|< 13:25, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

{{vfd}} and {{vfd3}}

"Votes for deletion" is being renamed to "Articles for deletion". See Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion for details, and a substantial list of people who agree. However, as a result, Template:Vfd temporarily links to both "Votes" and "Articles" pages, while the change is being made. The template is protected as it has generally been, but some admins have been reverting it anyway, which has the result of messing up today's VFD page. Could I please ask that people stop reverting it? User:Uncle G is working hard on this change and he knows what he's doing. Of course further input is always welcome. Radiant_>|< 12:14, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's entirely fair to complain of people editing the template while protected when you made your edits and then protected it after you'd done that. This edit war is bad, and there's plenty of blame to go around. Why don't you revert to the old version which though it may not be to everyone's liking served for a very long time, and tomorrow when at least the biggest concerns have been discussed it could be changed again. That would be a lot more effective than what those of you revert warring are doing now. --fvw* 12:23, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

• The protection doesn't really have anything to do with it; this template has been protected for months for visibility reasons. Also, the version I protected was by Uncle G. And third, the biggest concerns have already been discussed (on Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion) and it seems that the reverts are being made by people who haven't read the discussion. Note for instance how User:Zoe reverted herself after reading up. Radiant_>|< 12:50, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

User:Tern evading block as User:195.188.254.82

This user has blanked about 20 pages thus far, continuing at a rapid pace. He posted a message to User:Our Phellap, saying he wouldn't be editing on certain articles any more, and several of the blanked articles are edited only by OP and Tern. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 15:38:11, 2005-08-30 (UTC)

Blocked. [31] He claimed he was editing from a public computer so I reduced the usual time period. FreplySpang (talk) 15:56, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

User:Ghirlandajo

Ghirlandajo has for some reason decided to remove content on foreign influence in early Russian history. It began on Etymology of Rus and derivatives, where he mass deleted content 1 and 2. Now he is attacking Early Swedish History, where he removes information on Swedish Vikings in Russia 1, 2, 3 and 4. When I reverted his mass deletions, he accused me of vandalism and he writes that information on Vikings in Russia is unflattering and Russophobic interpretations. I would be very grateful for advice on how to proceed in this situation.--Wiglaf 15:56, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Now, he is doing personal attacks as well [32].--Wiglaf 10:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

DotSix AKA Donald Alford violating injunction at the village pump and other articles

I believe that Dot Six [33] using another IP has edited the villiage pump [34], a violation of the temporary injunction issued against his editing by the arbitration committee [35] --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 19:05, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Using his main IP he has also violated the injunction at Talk:Freethought. Here is the diff [36] --Nate Ladd 20:21, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Just revert him. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 18:49, 31 August 2005 (UTC)