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Are Admins treated differently than other wikipedians?
There have been a lot of studies on wikipedia. I am wondering if any outside group has studied our WP:ANI page? See, I have a theory, that admins get special treatment compared to the non-admins. Unfortunaly this theory is only based only on personal experiences and my own anecdotal evidence, and maybe completly wrong.
I want to show if this theory is correct or incorrect by going through maybe three or four WP:ANI. Comparing how editors were treated.
Not on ANI, but yes, they are treated differently, look at this diff [1]. DuncanHill (talk) 04:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Kinda missed the argument. We can continue this on my talk page, if you like. I am interested in finding out if there has been a sociology study done on the ANI. Travb (talk) 04:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I probably figured there wasn't. Thanks User talk:Iamunknown for the awesome site! Travb (talk) 05:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that admins are treated differently. We are volunteers like everyone else, working hard to keep this place free from crap, trolls, spam, and articles on myspace bands. What do we get in turn? Whining, abuse and threats. Remember the little dutch boy with his finger in the dike? He was buried by it when the floodwaters overwhelmed it. Such is the life of an admin. AKRadeckiSpeaketh 05:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Why is it when I read the story, there was no dam collapse and no dead Dutch boy? —Kurykh 06:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
You must have seen the Disney movie of the story...--Isotope23talk 17:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I know; I was kidding.--Isotope23talk 20:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I suspect that admins are held to a higher standard in some ways, and given more benefit of the doubt in other ways. The latter would be largely by other admins, I expect. I wonder how one would measure such a thing? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
From anecdotal evidence, I can attest to some degree of group think (see the case I mentioned in my RfA). But how to measure this? That's a good question! — Sebastian 09:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about group think, but I know that someone could very easily measure treatment of the community of admins vs non-admins. Take two similar cases (or more) and see how the community reacted to each when the disruptive wikipedian was an admin or non-admin.
Since there doesn't seem to be any study on this. I started User:Travb/ANI, an amateur attempt to answer this question. This page will be an immense amount of work which I may not ever finish.
My little research background keeps nagging me that I am missing something, probably a lot of factors--probably because I skipped several steps before starting examining the ANIs. Travb (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
In my experience, long-time contributors are treated with more leniency than newcomers. Since seniority is closely correlated with adminship, the true cause of any preferential treatment may be difficult to discern. At the very least, you're going to need to add a column for "Number of months editing". — Satori Son 00:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Admins are treated differently; to the detriment of the admins. And I say this as an experienced non-admin with no desire for those extra buttons but also as a human being who does know about wielding power, and admin status is certainly power. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's a clear cut case of "admins are badly because they are admins" or "admins are treated better because they are admins". It's probably true that admins are treated differently, but anons are treated differently, as are brand new users. Obviously, Wikipedians make judgements of users based on certain characteristics, which I think is only human. Phenomena like confirmation bias can exacerbate this. For some users, this means they distrust all new users and anons, because they've seen a lot of garbage, either from redlinks or strings of numbers. For someone that's had a really bad experience with an administrator, or several administrators, this can mean that they make certain judgments about all administrators. Similarly, other administrators are often more likely to believe the word of an admin against an new user, or an anon that is perhaps experienced but has a dynamic IP address.
The real question, IMHO, is whether or not there are reasonable, appropriate steps to mitigate these aspects of Wikipedia. Considering how much humans like to categorize, recognize patterns, and throw out everything that doesn't fit the thesis (kitchen sink included), I'm less than hopeful. But it would be an interesting subject of study. A better methodology would be to study to outcomes of certain issues involving adminstrators, and then replicate those issues with "regular" users, new users, anons, and perhaps some of the "big names" that are higher on the totem pole than admins. Natalie (talk) 03:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
People who like to categorize and pigeonhole things, sometimes to the point of absurdity? Working on this project!? Well, I never... -GTBacchus(talk) 03:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC) ;)
Heresy, I know. But I hope I'll simply be exiled, rather than burned at the stake. Natalie (talk) 03:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Eh, there are various backlogs around, that could just about earn you an indulgence. I'll bet the banner at the top of the page could shave a century or so off of your purgatory time as well. Wikipedia's kind of a cheap date, that way. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Just read WP:AN to see just how blatantly admins get treated with more leniency than non-admins, and to see how admins attempt to block discussion of their behaviour by closing threads. DuncanHill (talk) 04:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Well established valuable editors who are not admins get essentially the same treatment. It's not the flag, it's the accrued esteem. WilyD 04:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Personal attacks and abuse of admin tools = acceptable? DuncanHill (talk) 04:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Behavior that helps the encyclopedia is acceptable and behavior that hurts wikipedia is unacceptable. Contributors contribute for free. This unpaid labor is motivated by many things. We don't drive away people with a history of useful contribution lightly. Jon Awbrey is an example of someone who contributed a lot and had to cause a great deal of disruption before he used up his "accrued esteem" and had to be banned. Contributors who have done very little to actually improve the encyclopedia are taken out with the trash far faster. That is as it should be. WAS 4.250 (talk) 05:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Sub pages
I've noticed people moving threads to subpages. Are these threads still ending up in the archives? Have a look at the subpages of AN and ANI here. Might be worth someone checking whether the old pages did end up in the archives. Is this subpage method new? I'm not entirely sure it is the best way to handle this sort of thing. More use of "resolved" tags might help, or telling people to discuss at other venues. Carcharoth (talk) 09:31, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh hang on, I see now. The link to the page remains on the main page, and that link is still accessible from the archives. Still, if you want to see the consequences of a "subpage" system several years down the line, have a look at the sprawling subpage structure of RfA and AfD. I challenge anyone to find the non RfA subpages at RfA, and the non-AfD subpages at AfD! Excessive numbers of subpages can results in such miscellaneous pages getting lost unless they are prominently linked from lots of places. Just something to think about before going too far down the subpage route. Might be better to manage the board better and direct further discussion to the appropriate venues - sometimes another venue altogether is better than a subpage of AN or ANI. Carcharoth (talk) 09:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
My apologies - the reason for the moves is hidden in #Frequent abuse of AN for personal vendetta above. I don't see your concern that these discussions can't be found anymore. For one, Since all moved pages had at least a handful of contributions, they all show up in the history, and you can find them just fine. (We could even change the bot to include a special edit summary when archiving any links to subpages, so you could specifically search for those.) Moreover, there will be much fewer cases in which you will have to search for a discussion at all: Linking to these discussions is actually one of the reasons why subpages are preferable: All existing links just stay correct, as oposed to links to ANI#issue, which all point to nowhere when they're archived 24 hours after the last post. — Sebastian 11:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I did see the earlier discussion, but wanted to raise some new points. Specifically the consequences of hundreds of subpages in a few years time - a point that you didn't respond to. The pages I am worried will be lost are ones like Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRHeader, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentsHeader and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/sprotected. In other words, the subpage structure is being used for two purposes: (1) genuine subpages; (2) long threads. This could cause confusion later. I, for one, often use the subpage listings to try and get an overview of how a particular ares of Wikipedia is organised. All the functioning subpages should be accessible by a few click from the main page, but if not, the subpage listing is an alternative. Seriously, try and find the administrative subpages at RfA in the link I provided above, and give again here. Hundreds and hundreds of subpages, with the few "other" subpages being lost in the noise. As for linking, threads without a subpage still have the problem, so this is an incomplete solution. Some people do use the archive search engine, so that should be changed to search all subpages (if it doesn't already), not just the archive subpages. If the problem is large edit history for a page, then we should start a new page each year. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (2008), and so on. Ditto for the village pumps. Carcharoth (talk) 11:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
That would be a better solution. But sometimes moving to a subpage is not needed at all. Take for example Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/King James I of England. That is actually quite a short thread, but if people had been following it (instead of just going "ooh, bit too large, let's yank that off to a subpage"), they would have realised that it was petering out to a close. There was a minor exchange still going on between me and Allstarecho, but that would have stopped soon. What was really needed was for someone to step in and say "resolved" (it effectively had been), and ask people to continue the extra discussions elsewhere or in a new section. Then it would have been archived 48 hours later with no problems. I still think the best solution is better management of the boards (AN and ANI). Carcharoth (talk) 22:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to archive it manually and delete the sub page. I think we should set a standard for minimum length on these to avoid creating too many. I suggest about 50k. - JehochmanTalk 22:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Another concern
I've just discovered the concern raised here. What can be done about this? Carcharoth (talk) 22:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
My feeling is that creation of these subpages should stop. Now. Only for the really excessive threads do we need subpages. Other than that, judicious use of new subsections and resolved tags should help. The King James thread for example was split into three subsections. It might have looked like a long thread, but most of it was old discussion that wasn't archived because the discussion was still continuing in one subsection. Carcharoth (talk) 22:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
The subpages won't be archived by the bot as long as nobody puts a date in the section. Sign using three tildes when starting one of these, like this: - JehochmanTalk I agree that this should only be used when a thread exceeds about 50k. Very few get that long. - JehochmanTalk 22:52, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I think that threads should not be moved to sub pages except in egregious situations - it merely prolongs the dispute. By this time, the Durova thread might have been archived, we as a community might have been (ideally) working towards a constructive solution but, because the thread will, essentially, never be archived, there is still as much heat as ever. --Iamunknown 06:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Where do I find responses to my query about checking whether there was a reply on my spotting "possible vandalism"? The problem appears to be having to trawl through multiple archive pages when a link would be useful. Jackiespeel (talk) 17:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Can off-topic discussion be removed from incident sections?
I can see things getting quite messy if they can't. 67.135.49.177 23:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
It might be a good idea to break it off into it's own section if the circumstances permit... but I would remoend (edit: "recommend") against removing text without a very good reason (reverting vandalism, libel, etc). ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Eagle's archive search not searching far enough up
Yes, I'm aware of the situation, hopefully by this weekend I'll have everything fixed up and working again. The problem is the archiving bot's format has changed, so the automatic update system on the search broke. —— Eagle101Need help? 00:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
A relatively small number of admins frequent this place, leading to the potential for feedback loops that prevent the formation of a representative consensus. Admin A says something, then B and C support. Next time B says something, and A and C support. The prevailing view may not represent what the community wants.
Threads sometimes become too long for the board.
Sometimes a case does not receive enough comments before it gets archived.
Disruptive socks start frivolous threads. Administrators may be tempted to remove comments about themselves that have been posted by socks of banned users.
To help improve the effectiveness and quality of this board, I propose that we appoint a group of ANI clerks to maintain order on the board. Specifically:
Moving very long threads to subpages.
Preventing threads from being archived before they have received due consideration.
Seeking additional comments from uninvolved parties if a clique grabs hold of an issue. (added 17:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC))
Investigating sock puppet postings and removing them as necessary.
Refactoring (or collapsing) excessively long and unhelpful screeds.
Once clerks are appointed to do these jobs, other admins would be relieved of these issues. This would tend to reduce the potential for "meta arguments" about whether a particular housekeeping action was proper. Additionally, the clerks would have a clear understanding not to engage in housekeeping if they are involved in an issue. We have clerks for Checkuser, and Arbcom, so why not here also? The need is just as great, if not greater. - JehochmanTalk 17:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Sounds sensible. Before moving fully to such a system, I suggest a trial. It is possible that informal clerking may work without the need for a formal system. Carcharoth 17:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd strongly prefer an informal system since clerks have proved to cause some contention in the past. Clerks are beneficial for process-heavy pages such as ArbCom and CheckUser where organization is crucial. Pages such as AN and ANI are much less formal and process-oriented. I think a few guidelines for organizing the pages would be more useful than instiuting a clerking system. ChazBeckett 17:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
My main concern is that ANI is used to discuss community bans. We really need to keep order to make sure those bans are proper. Bans are every bit as serious as what goes on at Arbcom. An informal system with written guidelines would be ideal. Redlink: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Clerks. - JehochmanTalk 18:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I think some good points are raised in the opening of this thread. Clerks may help resolve some of the difficulties - transparency (as to appointment, removal, and operations) will be essential if they are to function well. As to the original point 1 about the small number of admins participating, this is a real problem because of the feedback loops and "group think" that this can produce, which can divorce the board from the broader community and create the perception of cliques, something which can be very demoralizing to the non-admin approaching the board. I believe that this particualr aspect of the issues identified needs more scrutiny to help identify ways and means of improvong the board's operation. DuncanHill 18:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
If any editor in good standing can clerk, what's the purpose of a list of clerks? These lists seemed to be the most contentious part of past clerking systems. ChazBeckett 18:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I am not familiar with past disputes. Can you illustrate how such a list could cause a problem? - JehochmanTalk 18:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
One past dispute that comes to mind was on WP:CHU, where the "official" clerks disagreed with a user helping out, leading to a great deal of tension and several lengthy threads (see here and here for more info). Basically, if all users are allowed to help out, a list doesn't accomplish much and introduces a distinction between "official" clerks and people just helping out. ChazBeckett 20:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
As per Carhcaroth. Sounds sensible, I'd love to have a go. :) — Rudgetcontributions 19:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Note: Discussion about exact proposal located here. Davnel03 19:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure how having clerks solves problem 1 (which I'm not sure is a real problem, as AN/I is probably one of the busiest and most-participated-in pages on Wikipedia). Solving problem 2 by moving complicated issues to subpages would seem to exacerbate problems 1 and 3 – if and where they exist &dnash; by moving issues out of sight of all but the most-invested parties who might be motivated to watchlist a subpage. If a discussion is getting too long and hanging around for several days, then it might be appropriate to move it to another venue (RfC, Arbitration, etc.) that is designed to cope with long, detailed discussions, rather than add another function to AN(/I).
I'm a little nervous of some of the language in the proposal. How does one determine if a 'clique' has hold of an issue? That is, how does one distinguish the actions of a clique or a conspiracy from a group of rational individuals who have independently arrived at similar conclusions based on evidence presented?
I'm all in favour of collapsing screeds (or just very long submissions) using appropriate headers and footers; this is a relatively common practice now, using the {{hat}} and {{hab}} templates. Parties (involved or third-) can be encouraged to provide useful one-paragraph summaries of evidence or incidents when a long block of text is collapsed. Formally establishing a panel of clerks to do this seems unnecessary. Anyone who wants to do this, can. Similarly, anyone can flag an issue as having been dealt with by using the {{Resolved}} template, and any editor is welcome and encouraged to remove postings by sockpuppets of banned users. Lastly, if an issue isn't receiving the attention that it needs, one only has to add a comment to it once a day for it to stay on the big board—the archiving bot works based on the datestamp of the last comment to a thread. Of course, if an issue hasn't received appreciable comments in 24 hours, this may not be the right venue anyway.
If there are (meta-)arguments about the appropriateness of housekeeping actions – really? Are there? I don't see them very often, that's for sure... – then we just need to hammer out some reasonable guidelines as to what sort of housekeeping is permitted. Again, no need for specific, identified clerks; we can all pitch in. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
If we did have clerks they could make sure that discussions of community bans were properly archived and the records were maintained. That would go a long way to address outstanding concerns from closing down CSN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spartaz (talk • contribs)
I beliebe this has been suggested before (including by me) and I think it is a good idea. A major function of such a role should be refactoring attacks, trolling and incivility. A clerk should feel able to remove a comment back to a user's talk page and invite them to rephrase it; it is much better if this is done by someone not obviously a friend of the attacked party. The fact is, however much we might say that this is not the Wikipedia complaints department, that is one of its major functions, and for that to run smoothly and with minimum drama, the more overtly inflammatory or misplaced remarks should be "edited mercilessly". As we've seen recently, there is little chance of an issue being addressed properly if it is buried under a ton of comments arguing about some point of principle which is only tangentially related. I also think the job should be done by non-admins, for the most part, and this would be a great place for admins manquées to show their talent at defusing tense situations. Electing mainly vandal fighters as admins gives us a lot of combative admins. Guy (Help!) 21:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I think Guy/JzG has made some very good points, I especially like his idea about getting the job done by non-admins. I believe this could be beneficial as it would reduce any "us vs. them" perceptions, as well as broadening the range of editors likely to get involved in the board. DuncanHill 21:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
If you want to manage traffic on these boards, fine, but don't call the people doing it "clerks", don't have an official list, and definitely don't have membership screening or requirements. If the stated concern is that there are too few admins monitoring this board, leading to groupthink and positive feedback loops, the last thing you want to do is create a small clique of managers. Inevitably the people who volunteer to manage the board, whether designated clerks or not, will come from that same small group of interested admins. ArbCom has clerks by choice and they set the rules and parameters as they choose; other clerks (Checkuser and Change Username) have been somewhat deprecated and great efforts were made to open the ranks, demystify the process, and remove unnecessary hierarchies. I'm not sure a U-turn would be beneficial. Thatcher131 21:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, no official list, no calling them clerks. But the idea remains sound: to encourage third parties to refactor the inflammatory and misguided, and keep discussion focused. Guy (Help!) 23:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
A clerk is not a manager (at least not in my variety of English). I think Guy/JzG addressed the issue of "interested admins" by suggesting the rôle be filled by non-admins. DuncanHill (talk) 21:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
We're all "clerks". No need to increase the bureaucracy...if a non-vandal fighting non-admin wants to be more active here then let them "have at it". There's nothing stopping them. There's absolutely no need to create another class of user and lot's of reasons not to. RxS (talk) 22:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Not all users realise, or are experienced enough, to know that they can, if appropriate, take certain actions on WP:ANI. I, for example, have moved WP:AIV and WP:RFPP requests and marked them as {{resolved}} here. I know better than to do that if there are other issues which need admin intervention, but to ease the admin load I've been cheeky. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 23:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
How about a strict guideline for appropriate (non-controversial) "housekeeping" edits that are needed to keep AN and ANI running smoothly, with the note that while anyone can do these edits/movings/refactorings, it is best to be sure of what you are doing. Then stick a note on top of the page to tell people about it, and invite people to dive in and help out. Anything controversial should be avoided. If anyone complains, leave things the way they were and merely add a comment instead. And only do the edits if they help. I'm thinking here of the standard refactoring and editing done at places like the Reference Desks. Let's start the list of "non-controversial housekeeping edits" small, and slowly expand, stopping at some reasonable point (beyond which it will be instruction creep). Carcharoth (talk) 00:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with RxS - we don't need a bureaucracy, formal or informal. We should encourage users to help out here and comment. However, one of the current issues is that many users don't know they can comment. There is already an instruction that any user can post to the board, will a different message saying any user can clerk make much of a difference? Mr.Z-man 01:34, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
There could be guidance on one could do…but yeah, out with bureaucracy. 哦，是吗？(review O) 02:06, 05 December 2007 (GMT)
The board is pretty unstructured. The clerks page would give up and coming editors ideas how they could be helpful, and might put some of them on the path to adminship. - JehochmanTalk 03:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I guess I'm just fundamentally opposed to adding another layer of beaurocracy - especially one called "clerk", because - let's face it - that particular title has had some issues. I don't understand why we need to codify this. Why can't we just put out a note every once in a while asking folks to remember to do X, Y, and Z.. and make sure that it's also addressed to non-admins? I guess I just don't see the need, but I see a potentially huge downside if it backfires. - Philippe | Talk 03:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Instead of bringing clerks, bring more administrators here. That would solve the problem without adding an extra layer of deception. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 03:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, this proposal seems like a great idea :) SQLQuery me! 04:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Here's my question, who decides who gets to be a clerk and who doesn't? Kwsn(Ni!) 04:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I see two options: Admin A, B and C choose them since they are the ones who are most active here, or Wikipedia:Requests for clerkship. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 05:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I also agree Guy that this would offer a way for prospective admins to show their skills in defusing conflicts and fostering productive conversation. I also agree that we do not need a formal role here and that the work should be done informally. Perhaps what we need is a very prominent link sonewhere on the page to a sub-page that details how to deal with all the valid issues that have been brought up. If this includes all the practical markup stuff, it would make it easier for dunces like me who can barely use wikilinks to help out. A page like this would make it easy for admins and non-admins to help out in passing. SpartazHumbug! 07:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, after thought, I disagree with the proposal. Clerks here are completely unneeded, why? The sheer volume of people that come by here. At a place like WP:RFCU or WP:RFAR, the clerks do the trivial doings, like archiving, blocking, refactoring comments, etc. These are things that the main "members" don't have time to do. That, and having clerks here will lead to people going "when is my RFA" or "when will I get a new flag" depending on the situation. Kwsn(Ni!) 07:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Anybody can act as a clerk, and there is no new bureaucracy. I think it is useful to have a list of instructions to guide those who may be less familiar, and to encourage participation by new people. ANI is one of the most important pages on all of Wikipedia because we discuss blocking and banning of users here. It is critically important that the discussions be kept in order, and not closed prematurely. We also need to make sure that bans are properly logged. The purpose of the Clerks' page is to provide helpful advice and document existing processes and conventions. The list of volunteers serves several useful purposes, including: (1) it is a confirmation that the volunteers have read the instructions, (2) if a volunteer subsequently has their actions challenged, the list may be evidence that they were acting in good faith, attempting to do the right thing. There is no requirement to sign the list. - JehochmanTalk 14:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, if anyone can act as a clerk (which they can), and the people signing a list have no special knowledge or power (which they don't) what good is it except to add more instruction bloat? We assume good faith, so a name on a list shouldn't be needed for that. If someone has a question there's talk pages they can use, active editors they can ask and an enormous archive they can review. Bottom line, this is new bureaucracy (logging bans, a new group documenting existing processes) and we have plenty of that already. There isn't even a big enough problem at AN or AN/I to even consider this. RxS (talk) 15:36, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Not even a big enough problem? Are you reading the same board I am, Rx? Many threads get bogged down in meta-discussion, tangential asides which grow, etc., which diverts effort from resolving whatever the initial problem was. Guy/JzG's suggestion of getting non-admins to do the clerking/tidying/housekeeping (call it what you will) has the great advantage of explicitely opening the operation of the boards up to users who may otherwise feel unwelcome here (and believe me, plenty do), as well as giving admins and non-admins more experience of working together to make the boards work - good for everyone in my opinion. I would add that any proposal which can get me speaking up in support of Guy/JzG has got to be good for the Wikipedia - as it is helping to reduce friction between one admin and one non-admin who've had a difficult time in the recent past. For anyone to be able to add themselves to the list strikes me as being in the best "anyone can edit" traditions of the Wikipedia, and I hope would ensure a more balanced and representative sample of editors coming here to see what's what. DuncanHill (talk) 15:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I am reading the same one in fact. You talk about meta-discussion like it's a bad thing. Those pages are where general policy and convention get sorted out. The last thing we need is for (self appointed) people to decide what's relevant and start removing comments. The best tradition of "anyone can edit" would be to let anyone edit...if people don't feel comfortable editing those pages change the header, don't create another set of users to "help" guide discussions. If those same editors have questions, encourage them to use the talkpages created for the very purpose. RxS (talk) 15:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflicted)Well I'l agree that meta-discussion isn't a bad thing - so long as it doesn't swamp the original query. Let anyone edit - we agree about that too, I think we differ on how to accomplish it. I strongly believe from personal experience that 1) only a very limited subset of admins use these pages regularly, 2) an even more limited subset of non-admins use these pages regularly, and 3) that this is not healthy for the Wikipedia. So, my perspective on this matter is how do we involve more editors - both admins and non-admins - to contribute here? and related to this how do we help reduce any mistrust or misunderstanding between admins and non-admins?. I believe that the clerking proposal, incorporating Guy/JzG's suggestions, will go some way to achieving this. I certainly don't see it as a panacea, but I am a believer in the inevitability of gradualism, and a step in the right direction is better than nothing. DuncanHill (talk) 16:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Discussion on the talk pages tends to get spread out in the archives. It is very helpful to collect useful nuggets on a single page. Information such as what templates to use to collapse a discussion, or how long a thread needs to be before it gets sent to a subpage, should be made visible. - JehochmanTalk 16:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd favour a template full of handy tips on how to keep things organised and collegial, at the top of the AN/I page, that any editor can refer to and use, over setting up another clerkship. (a toolbox if you will) And I even like the idea of clerks... ++Lar: t/c 00:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Its really simple folks, if sections get longer then about 36 or kb, (about when the software alerts you the section is too long) it might be time to move to a subpage. As far as archiving, its not a wise idea to close off discussion before the participants are finished. Every time I"ve seen it done, it has caused much strife, and most the time the discussion just continues elsewhere anyway. The only time that discussions should be "closed" is when they are really "closed". Ie, page was protected, uncontreversial block, etc. Otherwise things should wait until they are archived by the bots. (These are the two issues that I always see on ANI myself, folks not moving long sections and folks trying to close off discussion before said discussion is complete) Thing is we really don't have any sort of guidelines saying "move long sections, don't close contreversial sections" etc.
As far as discussions on bans, when a user is banned, it should probably be logged somewhere by the admin doing the block, but thats something else that could go in a simple template.
Please do note when I say guidelines I mean just that, a few bullet points somewhere that says something like...
Please move long (over XXKb) sections to subpages.
Please do not close contreversial sections early.
Following a ban, please make a note that the user is banned on page XXX, with a permanent link to the discussion.
A few more points, should not be that many really.
One more point, as far as closing discussions, its probably better to mark discussions that an admin took an action on as {{resolved}} and have the archive bots archive sections with that template sooner then the normal 24 hour waiting period. (perhaps archive in 6 or 12 hours). This would allow continued discussion if needed, and the section will go away quickly if there is not any more discussion occurring after the admin has taken care of the situation. —— Eagle101Need help? 00:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
That would be good. Carcharoth (talk) 00:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
There are good reasons not to create subpages. See Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#Sub pages. The main one being that is has, when this was tried, caused discussions to die, hence effectively having the effect of archiving without the objectivity of the bot, and also causing problems with watchlists and archiving. It has also sometimes had the opposite effect of prolonging discussion, and people carry on and on, when at ANI, the thread would have died earlier. What is needed is an assessment of the reason why the thread is so long. Are people going off-topic? Then suggest (politely) that the discussion continues elsewhere. Is it a high-volume discussion with lots of people invovled? Then split into subsections so people can still edit each subsection without edit conflicts and so on. No need for subpages, except to reduce the overall size of the page itself. And in my opinion that is better done by manual archiving of old sections that have been marked resolved. Carcharoth (talk) 00:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Could I just observe that the widely used "arbitrary section break" is possibly the most annoying, meaningless, and counter-navigatory abortion of an idea I have ever seen. It makes following threads on your watchlist a right bugger. I just needed to get that off my chest! DuncanHill (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Is it the name change, or the way lots of sections have the same name, or both? Carcharoth (talk) 03:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Both! A page will come up on my watchlist, with something happening in "arbitrary section break" - no way of knowing what thread it is without going there, which on a busy page can be somewhat narksome. Something like "Original thread name - section break" would at least preserve the name of a section. I know it's slightly off-topic for this thread, but it is sort of related, and it does really, really get my goat. DuncanHill (talk) 11:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunatly there are space constraints. Be creative. Normally after moving to a subpage, conversation continues with the existing participants, but no new participants join. To help keep the thread alive on ANI, somebody (anybody really) could simply update the ani section with a summary of any new sections created. (just the section title). Alternitively move the early discussion to a subpage, and leave the last subsection on the main ANI page... (Just make sure to put at the top under the top header that the start of the conversation is in a subpage) this allows discussion to continue on ANI, and avoids the problems of having to summarize an ongoing discussion (don't have to worry about it being neutral). We need to be a bit more creative then just slapping another "power" and "posistion" role ontop of the existing bureaucracy though. Encorage users to assist with these tasks with a template, but for <insert deity here> don't go about making "clerks", its only an invitation for drama later when one of them screws up. Plus gets the focus wrong, as we are supposed to be working on the encyclopedia. There is a difference between just putting a notice at the top of the page saying "these are best practices", and having a "formal" or even a list of users who are "clerks". The first can be done to great effect without imposing any new source of "authority" while the second cannot say the same. —— Eagle101Need help? 05:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Eagle 101, can we change the archive bot's behavior so it only archives a thread after somebody marks it resolved (and there's a 6 - 12 hour delay)? My concern is that quiet threads shouldn't be archived until somebody affirmatively states, "yes, we are done with this." We don't watch issues to slip through the cracks. If somebody slaps {{resolved}} on a thread prematurely, anybody can remove it to keep the thread going. - JehochmanTalk 12:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm disinclined to believe clerks for this noticeboard are a good idea. In response to the points made by Jehochman: 1, yeah, and who'll volunteer for the position? You guessed it. The use of clerks will entrench the supposed dominance of this board by the same people, not counter it. 2, that doesn't happen more than once or twice a week. Individual users seem to be splitting subpages off just fine. Doesn't take a clerk to do it. 3, if more comments are necessary, the section can be unarchived and move to the bottom of the page. What would a clerk do that would garner more comments anyway? 4, why would a "clerk" be better for removing troll threads than any other uninvolved user? Especially if there's no selection process, I don't see how this would help. If you want to help out in the maintenance of this noticeboard, great, help out. But I don't see a convincing reason official clerks are needed to do it. Picaroon(t) 01:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Proposed new noticeboard
No, we might not have enough of them yet. I know that's a scary idea. I have just proposed one to be related to political and social issues at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposed new Admin noticeboard. I would welcome any opinions, positive or negative, regarding that proposal. John Carter (talk) 16:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Interesting solution, where is the problem? Has there been enough traffic going to ANI or other locations to warrent the new board? If not just go there for the time being, when there is a real problem that you can point and show me 3 or 4 *recent* (less then a week old) cases that would have benefited from such a board, I might change my mind. —— Eagle101Need help? 00:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure if this is really needed, what we have seems to work alright. KnightLago (talk) 19:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Ability to search archives
Does anyone know how far back the archive search works? I am looking at a block that lists an WP:ANI thread from August and I can't find it through the search. If we are going to have a bot remove threads this quickly, it is extremely difficult to work with if there isn't a way to find old threads. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Inflammatory thread titles
I've noticed that inflammatory titles like "Harassment by User:X" can damage a user's reputation because they appear in the edit summary, which shows up frequently on user watchlists. Isn't it unfair to allow accusations to be advertised in this manner via watchlists? Such titles may contain allegations that many people will see, but they may not look at the actual details of the case. Should we neutralize titles, changing them to NPOV versions such as "User:X" or "User:X and User:Y", to help reduce drama and protect the reputation of editors who may be unfairly accused? - JehochmanTalk 17:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Accusatory or uncivil titles could be altered to a more neutral tone. For example one might change the title of this thread to be "Thread titles that are potentially inflammatory". Of course in this case the title is fine, that was just an example. 1 != 2 17:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, so long as an accurate & explanatory edit summary is used when the title is changed. DuncanHill (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that a neutral tone for single-user issues could be "Re: User:X". That assumes nothing beyond the fact that they are being discussed, and if normal courtesies are followed, they should have been notified anyway. It means we might have fewer users with hackles already raised joining a debate. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 00:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Subpaging short discussions
When the idea of making subpages for long ANI discussions was introduced, I was under the impression that they would be used only when necessary to make the page a manageable length. Are things like this acceptable? -Amarkovmoo! 17:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
My take is that, as in this case, discussions are moved when they are turning into discussions of policy rather than anything requiring admin assistance. YMMV, of course. BLACKKITE 17:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
What was being discussed is policy as applied to a specific user. That's always been part of why ANI exists. -Amarkovmoo! 17:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Gotta love the archivers!
I'm tired of trying to get people to pay attention to what JzG is doing with the tools. All I want is for some uninvolved admins to engage him in discussion about his pattern of behavior. No "pound of flesh" necessary, if he'll just stop misusing his toolkit. If he won't then there won't be any choice but to RfC. Trust me when I say I don't relish doing that, with the abuse that's levied out by some of his defenders here at AN/I. I can only imagine what it would be like at an RfC... Mr Which??? 02:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Keep in mind that RFC is a public venue, more so than here, since anyone can get involved in an RFC and post whatever they wish on it. As I pointed out before, I suggest you come up with reasons why, in the blacklisting case, why you feel the website should be useful to use. Right now, I just notice people wanting that site unblacklisted only because JzG did the listing. Just stay calm, just stay civil. User:Zscout370(Return Fire) 02:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I think you'll notice that throughout this fiasco, I've been relatively calm. I've had a bit of righteous indignation at an admin or two who tried to squelch discussion with the archive feature, but otherwise, I've tried to avoid attacking other people. Their actions? Fair game, though. As for the blacklisting of legistorm, it was poorly done. Sure the site has advertising, but so does every newspaper we link to here. The facts it presents are useful, non-partisan, and completely neutral. In other words, very helpful to the project. The only real explanation I've heard on that matter is, "Well they were added by SPA accounts." Yet, when Alansohn readded them, he was reverted by Hu12. Anyways, I'm tired of all this, so I'm going to go edit some articles for a bit. Mr Which??? 03:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I personally do not see the ads as a major problem; that is why adblock was invented. I do not know who Alansohn is, so I cannot comment about his actions, but I do agree that accounts whose sole purposes to add the weblinks, or IP addresses that belong to the company, should not be adding the links en mass. I think that was the major problem in the case. Anyways, staying calm is good and editing articles can also relieve stress. User:Zscout370(Return Fire) 03:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Speaking for myself only, I closed out the threads related to that topic because it became clear that no productive discussion was happening - just bickering between sides. AN/I has a specific purpose that needs to be maintained in order for that purpose to be achieved - i.e. quickly responding to notices of specific incidents that require admin attention (warnings, blocks, deletions, etc.). Point of clarification, as well - it says 'Archived thread' but that isn't actually what is happening - I (and others) use the discussion-top and discussion-bottom templates to close out the thread. Content is ultimately archived by a bot based on how long its been listed. AvruchTalk 04:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
What roads remain if one files a report, but the issue is not resolved and simply disappears into the archives? Thanks, Guido den Broeder (talk) 17:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Because those users are primarily contributers to those wikipedias, and don't have a userpage here maybe.--Phoenix-wiki 11:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Someone tried to link to those from his/her post, but forgot to add colons. Fixed. Prolog (talk) 12:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Archiving
I notice a recent edit war about whether or not to archive a particular discussion. I have wondered before whether there is a consensus or policy about whether/when to archive a particular thread. Is there? It seems to me that it is often used as a well-intentioned attempt to prevent unproductive bickering, but that it often gives the appearance of trying to stifle legitimate debate. So; is there a rule? Should there be? --John (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The common sense response (which, obviously, would not be implemented) would be to archive it when and only when it appears the discussion is at an end. I would suggest if anyone reopens a discussion, let them. A discussion should only be archived when it is over, and it is only over when nobody has anything further to add. Preemptive archiving causes more ill-will then it prevents, and also leads to discussions in multiple fora and accusations of "censorship". Neıl☎ 13:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
That seems like a very sensible response to John's pertinent (for me, in relation to Callmebc) question.
I'm curious as to why you think that your common sense response "would not be implemented". (I do understand that there is a natural and justifiable housekeeping urge to mark things as "resolved" to stop the page growing ever bigger. To tidy them away after a gap of [say] 24 hours without an edit being made in a particular section would also seem reasonable). Alice✉ 18:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that archiving a thread shouldn't be subject to an edit-war - if its archived, and someone unarchives it, leave it unarchived. Lots of times people will keep contributing to an argument or discussion long past the point where something needs or will actually be done, including when something is materially resolved or when no consensus is likely to emerge as to what action should be taken. In these cases, it makes sense to archive the discussion to clue people in that the portion of the discussion relevant to AN/I is complete. Its simple to unarchive, it doesn't get removed, and people can still add to it if they want even without removing the archive tags. 24 hours is quite awhile in the movement of AN/I, and often no significant contributions to a dispute will be made after just a few hours of rapid discussion. Avruchtalk 19:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
You'll notice that no additional responses besides yours have been added to the Callmebc section since you unarchived it, and that most of the discussion there has been complete for quite some time. It might be more effective to contact Haemo on his talk page, as it seem slikely he isn't still watching that section. Avruchtalk 19:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Proposal
Since from time to time editors come to AN/AN/I with bot related problems, I suggest including a link in the top navbox to the Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard which is an existing place for people to complain/ask questions about the numerous bots that run here. MBisanztalk 19:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that a link to that noticeboard is warranted, but I suspect that severe or widespread issues will still be brought to ANI for what is percieved as a quicker response, since ANI is generally busiest and, thus, most watched. No harm in attempting to filter some of the simpler items to a better forum. UltraExactZZClaims~ Evidence 18:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Excellent idea! Alice✉ 18:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Mangling headers for "resolved"
Can someone point me to the discussion where it was decided this would be done? I don't think this is appropriate at all; it breaks section linking, and as such has almost an effect of "stealth archiving" those sections [as someone clicking a link might mistakenly think that it was no longer present on the page] —Random832 18:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
What does 'breaks section linking' mean? Its just useful (in my opinion) for folks who are scanning the contents list to see what is done and what still needs to be addressed. It also isn't exactly very 'stealth' and is accompanied by a
Resolved
template which you didn't remove. Where was the discussion that it should be reverted? Avruchtalk 18:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the problem Random is pointing out is that if someone links into the ANI page from somewhere else, with a specific pointer to a section header, when the "resolved" is included, those links coming in will not function properly anymore. I can see that being annoying if you're trying to follow up on a discussion elsewhere and click in expecting to be directed to it, only to wind up at the top of the page because the header's been changed. I'd suggest that just the resolved template is more appropriate than changing section headers. Tony Fox(arf!) 19:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
However, I do, now, see the benefit of having it made clear in the contents list; I've been wanting to do a javascript for something similar for the content list for AFD for a while. This should be doable; I'll have something later this week probably. —Random832 19:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I understand. This is a problem frequent contributors to AN/I are probably used to (because headers change and sections are archived with regularity) but I can see the problem. It would be nice if there was a way to represent at the top of the page which sections on a 300kb page still need attention. Avruchtalk 19:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That would be great, Random. Avruchtalk 19:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I've got a very rough proof of concept at the bottom of this version of my monobook.js (still looks ugly, and it's not done, but it does put "resolved" at the end of each entry that has a resolved tag immediately below the header) —Random832 19:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Would a method similar to that used at WP:DRV be of value? When an item is closed, it's collapsed into an archived discussion, and the un-collapsed sections are the ones that still require attention. I could also see some sort of custom Table of Contents format that lists whether an item is resolved or not, but I'm unsure how we would put something like that together. This may be where the clerk idea comes into play. UltraExactZZClaims~ Evidence 19:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Collapse boxes are incompatible with the MiszaBot archiver used at AN and ANI. They don't save any page loading time, and they make it harder to do plain text searches of archive pages. Collapse boxes were formerly used at WP:BLPN and WP:COIN but they were dropped when bot archiving was instituted. EdJohnston (talk) 20:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
In theory, a collapse box not containing the header would not create a problem for the bot, but anyway - Check out my monobook - current version bolds sections that are not resolved, italics on sections that are resolved. I'd also like to see the bot archive resolved items quicker, maybe in an hour (enough time for someone to reverse a bad resolve) instead of a day —Random832 20:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I think a quicker resolve archive makes a lot of sense, especially for people on slow connections. I've added your code into my monobook.js but it doesn't seem to alter anything, can you glance over it and see if I left out something key? (I've done the ctrl-R on Firefox). Avruchtalk 20:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I've removed it temporarily... I noticed a strange thing where on AN/I I have to go two sections up and hit the edit tab in order to edit the section I want. Not sure what would cause that. Avruchtalk 20:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Try again -- it sounds like a bot archived sections between the time you loaded the page and the time you clicked "edit". This would cause such a problem to occur. 75.5.236.14 (talk) 07:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
You need to use ctrl-shift-r to reload a changed monobook.js. —Random832 23:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Another thought - if somehow (not sure how) when the heading was changed, an anchor (span link) were added at the end of the heading line, with the same anchor name as the former name of the section heading, then incoming links wouldn't break - they'd link to the hidden anchor, the former name of the section. -- John Broughton(♫♫) 16:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
New archiving proposal
At the moment, nobody archives the page manually, I assume that is so that we don't archive topics prematurely (say if a user wanted to hide the discussion of them). Would it be possible to set up an archival method where if a section is no longer needed, an admin enters the title of the section to a form and a bot archives it? This could be done involving a fully protected page which the bot will scan and archive any section listed (and remove the listing so it doesn't get clogged). Sure we could start archiving manually, but I think it would be easier to copy/paste the title onto a page which will do the archival properly and quickly (and meaning that only Miszabot/Mercurybot will appear in the history of the archive). Thoughts? James086Talk | Email 12:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Please god no! There's enough trouble already with disputes about closure of threads - if we start letting admins actually archive discussions they want off the page things will deteriorate rapidly and massively. DuncanHill (talk) 12:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
No, we don't need it, but why would it have to be an admin archiving the page?--Phoenix-wiki 13:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
It was an extension of Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 5#ANI is a high traffic noticeboard, (seems I'm a bit slow) where it was proposed that the addition of the resolved template would make an archival occur faster. The major problem raised was that it was open to abuse if anyone could add the template. I'm unsure if it would be a problem, if it's not then anyone could archive. James086Talk | Email 14:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
It is also open to abuse if only admins can do it. As I said - there are already frequent disagreements about the use of "resolved" or other thread-closing devices, and I believe that this proposal will only exacerbate the problem. DuncanHill (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I think some people who want to continue a dispute on AN/I (with a nice public audience) sometimes get upset when a resolved tag is placed. On rare occassions, something is (resolved) when it isn't - this is generally because new information comes up that changes the situation, not because someone maliciously placed the tag in the thread.
Anyway - Misza13 is planning to speed up archiving in general and specifically archiving threads marked resolved (using his bot). Avruchtalk 21:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
And can we please stop forcing discussions to end like this? There is simply no reason to force a discussion closed unless it has gone off topic/is achieving nothing. Maybe the argument can be made that my linked example wasn't achieving anything, but the forced archive didn't achieve much either. In fact, it merely hides the discussion from anybody who may have had something to add. Can we simply let the bot do its thing? - auburnpilottalk 23:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
"Gone off topic/is achieving nothing." Agreed. Thats what had happened there, and after days of no significant comments one person added one comment and expected an immediate response (therefore the original unarchive). Avruchtalk 17:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Hiding or speedy-archiving the resolved issues may not save much space on the noticeboard. At this exact moment I count 36 open issues at ANI, of which 4 are marked resolved. How does getting those 4 out of the way faster make a substantial difference to anyone? Usually I want to look at the resolved issues to see if I agree (Issues here are not closed the way AfDs are closed, with a clap of thunder). I wouldn't like these supposedly-resolved issues to disappear in two hours due to accelerated archiving. EdJohnston (talk)
Sorry can you clarify the propusal? You want to restrics howmany times an editor can post? Or you want to archive the posts? Igor Berger (talk) 13:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I want to send posts that would come here in error to other pages where they are better served. Like people who come here to complain about a deleted article, might be better served at Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. Not archiving anything or restricting anyone's ability to do anything. MBisanztalk 13:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I was getting that vibe, so came back for an input. Sounds like we need more categories, so a disembarcation page to different categories. So when they come with a problem we dirrect them to the right sub board. Think of it as a forum architecture. But before doing the template collect sub boards. Like 3RR, NPOV, etc..what do you think?
Request is started in AN or ANI and then they are dirrected to go down the directory tree. Or if they know what is the problem they can go straight to the branch. I hope you are following my logic. In software design the tree is upside down with the root facing the sky. Would be nice to have an admin rights functionality to move the case back to the root.
Or do you want to have chambers. Like room 1, 2, 3 etc. And you have links to these chambers from AN and ANI respectfully. Igor Berger (talk) 14:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Well actually, neither. Right now we have a nav-box that links various boards, request forums, report forums together so that users can navigate to pages that are most relevant to their need. I'm merely saying that there are more pages that are frequently relevant that should be added. Sort of like saying right now users have 10 links to pick from and I'm saying they actually need 15 to pick from, does that make sense? MBisanztalk 19:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
AN/I vs. TTN - A AN/I_TTN subpage needed?!
Since TTN gets reported to AN/I at least once per day, perhaps we should have a standing thread or subpage for him and a note at the top that says "Please add complaints about TTN to the TTN section only." Avruchtalk 18:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The precedent would be Wikipedia:administrators' noticeboard/Wiki editor DonFphrnqTaub Persina. I don't think it would be appropriate to name him at the top. Maybe just a standing polic that when someone complains, their complaint is moved to the subpage and replaced with a {{:see also|[[Wikipedia:administrators' noticeboard/User:TTN}}. MBisanztalk 18:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Better yet, create, transclude an old discussion, protect. They tend to get really formulaic. Will(talk) 02:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Note that the page you mentioned as a precedent was not created due to volume of mentions on ANI, it was created because the user has a right to see and answer any discussion about them and it is established that his browser is not able to load ANI. —Random832 19:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
For the record, we used to have an ANI subpage used exclusively to address TTN's actions. It seems to have been active for only a month, which is a rather short duration compared with TTN's terminally controversial behaviour and the endless complaints. PeaceNT (talk) 19:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I brought this up at WP:VPP a while ago, and only User:Shalom replied (last version before archiving here, 4th section from bottom). I thought about it some more, and after seeing other recent proposals for changes to ANI, still think it’s a good idea, so I’m proposing it again, but here this time. Shalom said he thought it had been mentioned before, but I can't find a link. If anyone knows where that discussion was, please add a link here.
The proposal is that WP:ANI be organized similar to WP:RFA, with all new threads on a separate page. WP:ANI will just be a page that transcludes them.
Advantages
New subjects still show up on WP:ANI, both in the history (when the link is added), in the table of contents, and in the text (as transclusions), so people can find new discussions as easily as before. We can steal the coding magic at WP:RFA, where hitting the edit button on the main page takes you to the subpage.
If a new thread interests you, watchlist it. If it doesn’t, don’t. If two editors are bickering with each other half the day, it no longer shows up at the top of your watchlist every 2 minutes. If you don't like watchlists, you can still scroll down the page to find it that way.
Easier to track when someone has replied in a thread you are actually interested it; you just watchlist that particular thread.
Easier linking: when you link to a WP:ANI thread elsewhere, it stays valid forever. The link doesn't break when the thread is archived.
Easier archiving: I’m no bot person, but surely it would be fairly easy to create a bot that runs through all the pages currently transcluded onto WP:ANI, finds the pages that have not been modified in 24 hours, and then removes the transclusion from the ANI page.
Better archiving: History stays with the text. Only thing archived is a link to the subpage.
Easier un-archiving: just re-add the transclusion to WP:ANI. In fact, if desired, if an issue flares up again after a few days of silence, the discussion can just be re-transcluded and continued on the existing page, rather than in a new section.
Possible problems, and my suggested solution
IP editors can’t create pages, so could not create a new topic page alone.
Solution: They can add a new section to the actual WP:ANI page, and someone with an account (you can call them a "clerk" if you want, or just an "editor" if you don't like the idea of clerks) can transfer it to a separate page for them; similar to what is done when an IP wants to create an AFD. As long as there is a mechanism in place, I don't think this happens often enough for a slight complication to be be considered insurmountable.
Solution: Add a date stamp to the name of all pages. This would also help organize the subpage space better. Instead, it would be WP:ANI/04-01-08/The cabal is attacking me.
Too complicated.
I suspect it wouldn’t be too hard to create a little template thingamajig, like those used at RFA and/or AFD, to pre-load the page name. Most of the behind the scenes stuff would be fairly invisible to the user. All you have to do is (a) click the button to create a new thread, (b) type your thread and save, and (c) transclude the page on WP:ANI. In a perfect world, it's conceivable that a fast-acting helperbot could look for newly created ANI threads and do the transclusion for you.
The problem with the entire WP:ANI page taking a long time to load is not helped or hurt, if I understand how transclusion works.
But if all you’re interested in is a couple of particular threads, you only load those, and not the main ANI page. For truly long threads, you could always change the transclusion from {{WP:ANI/04-01-08/The cabal is attacking me}} to [[WP:ANI/04-01-08/The cabal is attacking me]], and the link would still be there on the main page.
Problem I can't think of a solution for, but which I think is outweighed by advantages
You can't take a quick look at the history of WP:ANI to see what topics are active. But this isn't too useful now anyway, because the history of WP:ANI gets altered so frequently.
In summary, I like how the WP:RFA page setup works: watchlisting WP:RFA tells me when new RFA’s are added, I can read all of them (if I want to) on WP:RFA, if any of them particularly interest me I can watchlist the individual RFA and see each time it is edited, and if there’s a drama-laden RFA that does not interest me, I just don’t watchlist it. I think the same approach would work better here at ANI. Thoughts? --barneca (talk) 21:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
You'd have to watchlist several pages every day rather than just one. John Reaves 21:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Oops, meant to include that in the "Problem I can't think of a solution for". Yes, that's true, but I think it's a relatively small price to pay. --barneca (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
It'd be a small price for a rather small problem though. John Reaves 21:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
You don't hear if the name of the thread changes to something more accurate
When a header is changed, you've got redirects and other issues associated with pagemoves.
If someone is vandalising WP:AN/I, you have to either individually protect each effected page or cascade protection (cascade effect is similar to what we have now, but cherry picking protection ((without it showing up in the main WP:AN/I history)) is a problem).
Often times a thread that doesn't grab your attention might do so later on as it develops, this would be hard to manage if its run like RfA (especially with header and directions on each individual page).
Adding the instructions to each subpage would dramatically increase the size of the main WP:AN/I - at WP:RFA, the instructions relevant to the individual RfAs are small. But the instructions relevant to each individual AN/I thread are basically the entire WP:AN/I header.
Avruch1:The subpage can be renamed by moving the page, the transclusion on WP:ANI could be renamed too. If the transclusion isn't renamed, I think (going to experiment in my sandbox in a minute, will correct this if I'm wrong) (yes, I checked, it works) it will follow the redirect. Also, since the topic title is in the subpage, changes to that show up right away in WP:ANI.
Avruch2:See 1.
Avruch3:Hadn't thought about that, but it's a feature, not a bug, I think. If I understand right, cascade protection of WP:ANI would, at worst, be the same as we have now, and if vandalism was targeted to one subject, we could have the option of protecting only that page. Page protection isn't my forte, so maybe this complicates things in a way I don't get. It's a bug after all, see below.
Avruch4:True, similar to my "Problem I can't think of a solution for". Can't easily see which topics are active at the moment. But you can still see them transcluded at WP:ANI, they don't disappear if you don't watchlist them.
Avruch5:I'm confused, I anticipate almost no header or instructions on each subpage at all. The instructions and main ANI header stay on the main WP:ANI page, you just push the button to create your thread on a subpage.
Thanks for commenting, I already have more comments than I did when I put this on WP:VPP. --barneca (talk) 21:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
My two cents: Please oh God Please!!!. — Coren(talk) 22:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
To be less empathic and more pragmatic: we can keep ease of use trivialy. I will code up a bot that simply creates a new page from sections created on the main AN/I page. The newbies don't have to change behavior and there is no visible cosmetic changes. All the goodies, none of the worries. :-) — Coren(talk) 22:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
That... would be good. Can you have it do both WP:AN and AN/I? Avruchtalk 22:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The bot can be made to be pointable at any appropriate page, it's about two days of work — I'll get started if this proposal gets momentum. A nice thing is, in theory, we can just turn it on and new threads will just start transitioning painlessly and seamlessly. — Coren(talk) 22:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Are you aware that cascade protection does not and cannot work with semi-protection? I have _never_ seen ANI fully protected. —Random832 23:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I wasn't aware, that's unfortunate. Semi-protecting without cascading protection (either the main page, or one or more subpages, whatever is being attacked) is less clean, but still possible. I'd imagine most multiple-IP attacks are to make a POINT, so it's unlikely all subpages would be targetted. Still, add that to the "Problems" column. --barneca (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
That is something that, should it prove a problem in practice, is amenable to a bot solution... although in that case it's not nearly as uncontroversial. — Coren(talk) 01:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not an administrator and have had virtually no need to use this page, so my only interest is a casual one... but for what it's worth, I think this would be a massive improvement. Many AN/I threads are widely linked to from across Wikipedia, and given that it makes sense to give them separate articles at permanent locations and titles. (It would also allow watching of individual AN/I threads rather than the whole page.) It seems to me like this change would make this page much easier to use, with very few obvious drawbacks. Terraxos (talk) 04:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, this is getting surprisingly little attention (pro or against). Given that I have a solution which, technically, should not break anything for newbies and transition smoothly, I'll just be bold and get the ball rolling with the bot approval and coding. This is one of those cases, I think, where the general discussion is just "meh" but the end effects will be quietly appreciated by most and simply ignored by the rest. — Coren(talk) 15:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Please do code up a bot and request approval. My guess is that there are a number of other pages where the same approach would work well - in fact, arguably, this (if I understand it correctly) could make the AfD process easier because (maybe) editors could just post a new section to the main page and a bot could take care of creating a new page and creating a log entry. (I'm sure I'm missing something, and I'm not intended to divert the discussion into a new direction, but the less that new editors have to understand transclusion and have to post to multiple pages to get something done, the better. -- John Broughton(♫♫) 16:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
So, the bot is up and running here, and the request for approval is there. All we now need is an okay. — Coren(talk) 03:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Only have a minute or two this morning, but what I see at User:CorenANIBot/Incidents looks good to me. Once things are up and running, I assume the bot won't edit the main page much; otherwise the addition of new topics would get lost in a sea of bot edits. Will review later. Now that the weekend is over, maybe this will get more attention. Thanks, Coren. --barneca (talk) 11:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
arbitrary section break
I don't like this, at all - I like having one page on my watchlist. Perhaps worse, this will also cause problems when it comes to naming threads. It will confuse newer editors who try and create a thread under a fairly general header such as "Sockpuppet" or "AFD disruption" - these are common section names at the moment. We will end up with people editing old archived threads because they haven't understood the "rules". Right now AN and ANI may be long, but they are simple to use and to negotiate. It is vital that they remain simple, and creating complex systems solely to assuage a few complaints of "the page takes too long to load" is not good. AN and ANI are not solely for the benefit of experienced users, they're a place for new users experiencing problems that require admin attention, and anything that would make it harder to negotiate than it already is would be a bad thing. New users don't know how to mess about with transclusions, and we should not require them to do so. Appointing people to clerk the page, spotting untranscluded threads that needed re-transcluding or getting the format just so so it works would be a pointless administrative task. It's a cliche around here, but this is a solution looking for a problem - and worse, I think it will cause more problems than it resolves. Neıl☎ 13:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Neil. While I am understanding of those who this page takes some time to load, there are more solutions then the one currently proposed. This is going to be complex, and I don't want to increase complexity. M-ercuryat 13:17, January 7, 2008
Actually, naming thread is not a problem. The bot creates dated subpages, and if you create a thread with a name that already exists that day you it will get a subpage named "<Thread> 2", "<Thread> 3" and so on. The subpages' name get change, but not the actual thread name mind you (the header is not changed). — Coren(talk) 13:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, then the naming isn't necessarily an issue - but the process as a whole would still be far more complex than at present, and the only improvements I can see are better archiving. Four of the seven advantages listed are about how great the archiving would be. The other three are about watchlisting, and I would say this would be a drawback to watchlisting, not a benefit, as you would actively have to seek out and "watch" any threads first - at least now, you can see what the "hot" thread is at a glance. For me, I would rather have the board(s) be simple to use than have easier archiving; the benefits of this change do not outweigh the drawbacks. Neıl☎ 14:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you'll find divided opinion about watching, at least. Personally, I don't particularly like having my watch of AN/I take up several hundreds of my revision count on a good day (and having the simple list of editors span many lines) — seeing only new threads there would be a Good Thing for me. As for simplifying watching, I had considered including a clicky to directly watch a subpage along with the header (in fact, one of my earlier prototype provided such a link).
Adding a thread, at least, is exactly as simple as it is currently— just add a section. — Coren(talk) 04:09, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I support this idea, especially as some issues are resolved quickly, get the resolved/archived tag, and then clutter up the page until a bot archives them. The RFC-life interface would make page management so much easier. MBisanztalk 04:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is main article fixation. Most users/admins have ANI watchlisted for cases of obvious abuse, but people end up posting there for topics that aren't obvious abuse and/or need to be handled elsewhere. IMO, I think that any topic that can visably take up more than two pages of text needs to have its own page. ANI should, in my opinion, be for urgent incidents— not content disputes, allegations of admin abuse, uncivil editors, etc. Possibly, if we just lessen the requirements for forking a page from 50kb (which is huge) to something considerably smaller or looser (e.g., "if a conversation becomes long, then any non-involved admin can split it into a new page"), just so long as a copy of the original complaint remains behind for quick reference. I think that will alleviate any of the concerns that any given person is trying to "hide The Truth™," "take soandso's side," etc. --slakr\ talk / 11:33, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I was, I think, one of the first people who decided that splitting stuff on ANI into subpages should be something routine, and I think it would be reasonable to say: anything that lasts more than three days, anything that is more than 10kb, or (and this is the important bit) anything that is likely to do so; should be split. It's beneficial to split something as early as possible, if you know it's going to be split, since then the history will be there instead of here. And I do agree with leaving the original complaint, and maybe maintaining an executive summary of the ongoing discussion. (this would ideally be a job for the clerks, rather than anyone involved in the discussion) (one last note: I disagree with "any non-involved admin", I was doing this before I became an admin and I think I did just fine) —Random832 19:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, the only reason I didn't just say "editor" was because it's the Administrators' noticeboard, so it made sense that from a simple PR perspective that people who come here looking for help from an admin will get some sort of reply from an admin (as opposed to a normal user, which they've possibly already tried doing with little success). --slakr\ talk / 19:50, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Another idea
Here's what I was thinking: User:Slakr/Sandbox/ANI. Anons could post to a subpage transcluded into a section on the main page and someone can add it manually (I'd say let the bot auto-add it, but that would present a target for ip hopping vandals). What do you guys think? --slakr\ talk / 19:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Right March.com radio broadcaster Bill Greene, who edits here as User:Profg, has made a podcast from an anti-liberal anti-Darwinist movement "conservative viewpoint" available at http://web.mac.com/profg/iWeb/Site/Podcast/7D1AFD6C-C07F-11DC-B69C-000A959E8368.html discussing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The podcast opens suggesting using google to search for evolution or intelligent design, and you'll find Wikipedia near the top results, "But let me tell you, there's an incredible liberal bias there" then describes WP as being mostly edited by students and academics who don't need to spend their time trying to make a living, filling their heads with "liberal mush". Near the end of the podcast he says "But I wanna tell how how you can take action on this... The first thing you can do, on the issue of intelligent design, is go to wikipedia.org and go to, say, the section on intelligent design, and read it, and see if you could improve it. Or maybe it's the page on evolution, or creationism. Go to one of these pages and see if you can improve it. Anyone is allowed to edit it. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but really, it's supposed to be their premises, be bold, go right in there and improve it, but within five minutes, what you have written will be completely reworded, or kicked out. If you go to the discussion page and try to talk about it, you will be slammed. And if you get a little bit out of hand, because it's easy to get upset about these kind of things, you'll be kicked out. You're history. But you know what? Get a whole bunch of your friends to all do it at once. Everyone get on the phone in a conference call, or maybe get your iChat going or something, and everyone go in at once, because they can't stop, say, a dozen people, or 24 people, or 50 people, or a hundred people if they all come in at once and say 'no, we're going to do this' and they're concerted about it. Take action! Get it done!" ... dave souza, talk 11:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
If people do come along and improve the article, good on them, we like that. But the first sign of this being a type of attack - especially if his listeners don't "improve" the articles and just vandalise - then someone will protect them from editing until they get bored. It's a bit of a waste of energy for everyone involved, but it's not the first time someone has thought that this is a way to break Wikipedia. ➔ REDVEЯS is standing in the dark 11:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
"they can't stop, say, a dozen people, or 24 people, or 50 people" -- yawn. These people for all in the world seem to be thinking Wikipedia has been going strong for six years just by bambi-eyed trust that nobody on the wide internet will get it into their heads to do any mischief. Big surprise these are the same people that embrace muddle-headed pseudoscience... You also got to love the approach of "these Wikipedia geeks have no life, so all you hard-working faithful, spend your time with some pointless revert-warring..." dab(𒁳) 11:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd put my money on the "Wikipedia geeks"... -- ChrisO (talk) 11:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
It's that very geekiness and lack of personal lives that allows us to be technically proficient enough, and have enough time, to guard against the kind of "uprising" he calls for :) Equazcion•✗/C •12:12, 12 Jan 2008 (UTC)
Hey, I have a personal life! Just last week I had an awkward, 3-minute conversation with someone I'm not related to and don't work with. It counts. ➔ REDVEЯS is standing in the dark 12:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Frolicking aside, I suggest all serious talk about how to respond to this go to WP:ANI, where there's been a parallel thread. Fut.Perf.☼ 13:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
discontinue archiving
Resolved
I propose we discontinue all archiving of AN/I - any actions taken based on it can be explained in a log or edit summary, and anyone who wants to see the discussion leading up to it can dig through the page history. —Random832 19:15, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Very bad idea. it makes searching the archives inpossible. one should be able to search the archives. βcommand 19:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
this proposal was more to make a (non-disruptive, so lowercase) point about the current silliness at WT:RFR than anything serious. But anyway, we could solve your issue by requiring everyone to be meticulously precise with their edit summaries. —Random832 19:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
A WP:POINT, yes.--Docg 20:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Concur with Doc, trout-slap to Random: please don't make frivolous suggestions to prove a point. Some of us are not bothering to monitor your dispute and don't want to be dragged in through pointed suggestions elsewhere. Thanks. ➔ REDVEЯS is standing in the dark 20:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Explain to me how an isolated "frivolous suggestion" is disruptive. Do you, in fact, know the title of the page redirected to from WP:POINT? —Random832 19:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
user disregards all attempts
This may not be the right place, but what happens when a user persistently vandalizes a discussion page and rejects all warnings as well as expressing the opinion that arbitration is a waste of time? Can I report vandalism on a discussion page by a registered user?--mrg3105mrg3105 14:22, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
From the look of it [3] you two are engaged in a content dispute, this is not considered common vandalism so AIV is not the place to report. - Caribbean~H.Q. 14:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Archive error?
I'd like to find out the final outcome of a thread about user:RightGot, which was on WP:ANI on 19-21 January. It looks like most of the stuff from that time has been archived but this particular thread is missing from the archive. Any ideas? andy (talk) 10:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Items at AN/I or ANB are generally referred to in ongoing discussions as "Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Whatever it may be" . Once the discussion has been archived, this gives a link only to the main AN/I page. Usually the item can be found by searching the archive, but we should devise some way of having stable links. DGG (talk) 15:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#Proposal No. 58379 to change WP:ANI (currently first thread on this page) would solve that, but it seems to have died. I still like the idea a lot, especially with Coren's bot doing almost all of the heavy lifting (see his fine-tuning of the idea down further in that thread). If I were God Emperor of Wikipedia, I'd say let's try it for a week and see what happens, but for some reason I don't quite understand I haven't been proclaimed God Emperor yet. --barneca (talk) 15:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I like being able to see all edits to ANI on my watchlist, not just when threads are started or archived. I've always thought it would be useful, however, if the archives were listed alongside relevant dates so looking for archives from way back when isn't an agonizing search for a needle in a haystack. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Here's a novel idea. Could the archive bots be coded to also write an "Archive index" file; just some subpage that contained a list of the titles of threads and the archives they are located at? Even something in plain text could be searchable using only the "find" function in your browser. That would expedite finding old threads. This seems like a trivial thing for a bot to do; its a simple find and write function, which is essentially what it does to archive in the first place. It could just identify each thread header and post the text contained in the header to a file like Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive Index or something. This seems workable. Anyone know if this can be done, and who to contact if it can be? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The ref-desk bots have always done this automatically (presently operated by Ummit). Someguy1221 (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
It's been fixed, there was a problem with including a page. Nakon 04:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I saw. I was going to delete the comment, but you had already responded. Horologium(talk) 04:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
It's already fixed; someone had added a bad link to section about Ling.nut, so his FAs were transcluded.[4]SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Collapsible sections
I have written a script which collapses sections on AN/I. It collapses sections that are marked as resolved, and also sections which are over 600 (text) bytes and have not received a response in over six hours. A summary listing the most recent timestamp and size of the section is included, and the 'resolved' tag, including its parameter if any, is also included, in what is displayed below the header while the section is collapsed. There is a stable copy in User:Random832/monobook.js. It is not testedworks in MSIE.
Questions for feedback - should sections marked as stale be collapsed? The 600-byte threshold is intended to avoid collapsing sections which only contain a single comment (i.e. a report which has not been answered), is this a good threshold? (The thread "Block evasion by User:Ottava Rima" with only the complaint is 522 bytes) I can probably count timestamps to check for a longer unreplied post. —Random832 21:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Do you want to collapse even really short resolved sections, or just sections that are somewhat longer and resolved? Regarding 600 bytes and six hours - some folks leave really long complaints that take as long as a day for anyone to comment substantively (from what I've seen). The other possibility is that these steps, if found acceptable, could be programmed into a bot/the archive bot. Avruchtalk 22:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Would there be any way that when the box is collapsed, it displays how many replies a thread has had? It would make it easier to spot out the ones that shouldn't have been archived. Apart from that, sounds really good! Would it be a monobook addition, or would it be a script for this page? Ryan Postlethwaite 22:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking of it as a monobook addition, or maybe a gadget. Right now, it works as a monobook addition, and feel free to install it to test. I'm out the door right now, but I'll take your suggestions into consideration. @Avruch, currently it collapses all resolved sections regardless of length. @Ryan, I could count timestamps pretty easily to show a reasonably accurate number of replies (much easier than counting paragraphs [have you SEEN how messy indentation markup actually is?], which is why I didn't initially implement it as I thought I would have to do it that way). I don't think this should be programmed into the archive bot, partly because the collapsible table style is messy, and partly because it's _not_ useful to have them collapsed in the actual archives (since if you go into one of those, you're probably searching for something, and text search doesn't work with collapsed elements) —Random832 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Future thoughts: I could possibly have it sort sections by last replied date if there is interest. Ideas from this could improve my existing TOC hack (since this method does not require the resolved tag to be the first paragraph of the section). —Random832 22:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Known Issues: Breaks TOC linking (each section eats the anchor for the next, and when collapsed the link doesn't work). Last section eats the category list. —Random832 22:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
New version. fixes TOC linking, fixes category list, number of comments shown in collapsed view. Will not collapse unanswered threads. —Random832 15:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Does not work in Opera. —Random832 22:02, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Will Beback
I have been asked several questions at by Will Beback (talk·contribs) at the talk page for Lyndon LaRouche. The answers to these questions (and arguably, the questions themselves) will not help improve the article. I tried to answer Will at his talk page, but it is protected/locked. Please unlock his talk page. Thanks. CM (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Opps, I did not see the talk page message. Thanks. I'd still support the unlocking of the user's talk page. CM (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Resolved tags
I've been using Random's javascript tool to alter the TOC based on whether sections are marked resolved. Anyone have a quick way to mark things as resolved? I guess its laziness, since it takes 2 seconds anyway, but a 'Resolved' button would be handy. Avruchtalk 14:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I've tried to start the beginnings of a script here. I probably made several syntax errors, so feel free to correct them. I still have to implement the main function, though. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 03:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Possibly useful template
Please note that the Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents (WP:AN/I) is NOT for dispute resolution. Administrators cannot intervene in content disputes; you must seek dispute resolution by following the steps outlined in WP:DR. If your incident report cannot result in an administrator action (warning, blocking, protection, or deletion), you should take it to an appropriate forum.
Something very very odd just happened. I refreshed the incidents noticeboard, and for some really strange reason, all the threads changed, they were replaced by threads, bizarrely, from March 2005, only i wasn't in the archive, the address just said it was the noticeboard. How the hell did that happen?--Jac16888 (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Flood of IP vandalism. Page is semi-pp for three hours. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
ah yes, should have thought to check the history. Cheers for letting me know--Jac16888 (talk) 02:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Glad to hear it was nothing major, but I was kind of looking forward to a possible time paradox on Wikipedia... Or maybe a wiki-haunting. -- Ned Scott 04:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Dumping long threads to subpages
Is this now standard practice? There's a new thread about Betacommand that has just been excised out of sight to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand - [5]. For ongoing, very lengthy threads that have been up for a number of days, then yes, by all means, move them to a subpage, but after less than a day? I don't think that's advisable - it greatly reduces visibility. Neıl☎ 15:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm 50/50 on this. The existing BCB threads were a mixture of forest fires created by users who, frankly, want us to say "fuck all fair-use legal provisions" and very long, rambling threads that an attempt to add to meant a minimum of three edit conflicts. Taking the heat out of this by shoving it sideways might help either or both problems. As for whether moving stuff to a subpage is generally a Good Thing, well, no, it isn't at all. ➔ REDVEЯS knows how Joan of Arc felt 19:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
There are 3 schools of thought on this one. One says that discussions shouldn't be split as it hides them. Another says when they hit a predetermined size. And a third says when its continuing issue like the Muhammad pictures or User:hopiakuta. I tend to think the third is the better scenario, as long as a pointer from each time its initiated is left on the main page. By that time enough users know that X is a continuing issue and not to ignore it. With a long, one-time thread, people who haven't visited the conversation might not know its important enough to go to the subpage. MBisanztalk 21:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I think people sufficiently flock to any topic concerning Betacommand. Should this become common practice? Surely not. However, for topics that get brought up relentlessly (and pointlessly), it makes sense to move it to it's own page. In this case in particular, where the same issues are being repeated. They should all be in a central location. Lara❤Love 21:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I wouldn't advocate doing it often or as a matter of course. In this case, its a spreading conflict that just gets worse by dint of it being in many places with different people making the same argument. The related threads are all relatively new (older ones escaped to archives, miraculously) and they are still almost 200kb. Avruch T 21:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Any better ways at handling permalinking?
Aaaaaaah! Apologies in advance for the irate voice, but today was probably the squillionth time I followed a WP:AN/I#Whatever style link to a discussion, only to find the thing had been archived. I'm too blurry-eyed to go looking through the archives for the topic because I probably have to squint through ToCs of dozen new archive pages with zillion topics each to find the topic I'm looking for. Once a topic is archived, it's (almost) poof-gone!
Here's a idea for some bot maker or another: Master index of topics. Create a new massive AN/I/Topic_Index and subpages for AN/I/Topic_Index/February_2008 or whatever. Now, if I follow a link that says WP:AN/I#Bloody_trolls_at_it_again, and it's been archived, I'll just append a bit: WP:AN/I/Topic_Index#Bloody_trolls_at_it_again, and on the resulting page there's a link - just a link - to the real archive subpage, so I find out it's been archived to /Archive3213. If there's multiple topics with same title, just add month and year for a more specific guess: WP:AN/I/Topic_Index/February_2008#Bloody_trolls_at_it_again.
Would this be problematic? (With hundreds of tons of subpages, it's probably not that funny to use...) Or are there better ways to handle permalinking? Or is there a search engine specifically for AN(/I) content? (Plug in the topic name and blam, there you go?) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 11:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I've had similar concerns. Part of the issue is the title of the section, perhaps an automated date script could be added so the likelyhood of two sections with the same name is lessened. Benjiboi 14:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Suppose a bot checks for incoming section links, while archiving a thread, and updates the link targets so they instead point at the appropriate archive? Might be a bit involved (external and internal links, encoded and unencoded, shortcuts and all that jazz) and could have some pitfalls, but might be worth exploring. Thoughts? – Luna Santin (talk) 00:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
What happened
A strange thing seems to have happened when I was editing the noticeboard. All I did was to write a short reply to a user but looking back at my edit it seems to have caused a virtual mayhem on the page [6]. Was I accidentally editing an old version? Anyway, sorry for the mess and thanks to NE2 for fixing it. JdeJ (talk) 08:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi. I actually need your help for those Cemal Gursel related images' clarifications at the discussion board (/* WP:PUI */ )because I frankly did not see the problem. Because I am not well versed with Wikipedia and your concerns I am sure are very to the point, I just need your pointing out what exactly is the concern for those 3 images that appears to be in public domain freely. Thanks fo ryour consideration and guiding on this which I believe has been very useful to the article's quality as well. Could you let me know here or your talk page or the article discussion page? Leblebi (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2008 (Sorr, I just could not find the "Cemal Gursel need more eyes"
discussion paragraph to contribute.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leblebi (talk • contribs) 13:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Some months ago I suggested adding a direct reference to Wikiquette alerts on this page for issues regarding WP:CIV/WP:NPA which don't require admin intervention but could be helped by third party discussion. At that time simply to help limit unnecessary posting here. Currently it, WQA, is up again (incorrectly) at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts (2nd nomination). Rather than killing this debate citing an error in venue (parts of WP:DR aren't WP:MFD), it'd probably be better to show why WQA is useful. This ,referring minor issues which may not belong here to WQA, could help illustrate WQA's use. Anynobody 00:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
excise -- see talk
I asked about the actions of an administrator who unilaterally deleted eight articles yesterday.
I deleted the names of those eight articles because I am disappointed in the replies my question is getting.
I was disappointed because administrators, who can look at the text of the deleted articles, as I can not, are commenting on the merits of the specific articles, rather than the general question of when administrators should ignore the recommendations of Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators, which states
Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 13:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I understand your concern about people using their own judgment rather than going by the speedy criteria, but how can we determine if we think the articles were speediable if we don't know which ones they were? delldottalk 22:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Redesign of the top section
I have worked up a proposal for a redesign of the header section of WP:AN, which is currently extremely cluttered. It's currently at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/newheader. I'd welcome comments and criticisms on the talk page, particularly about the ToC and archive box, and possible colour-schemes. Happy‑melon 14:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Looks good in general, but I'm not sure about removing emphasis from the "this is not DR" parts— users have enough trouble understanding that as it is. — Coren(talk) 03:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
The ANI header is now redesigned as well, modelled after the the new AN header. Comments welcome. — Edokter • Talk • 01:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a decent idea to me, but I am not sure of the title. Perhaps 'new user reports'? SorryGuy Talk 02:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it was 1AM when I saw the post the page had been protected and created it on the fly. Feel free to rename and reformat. MBisanztalk 02:25, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Why is it protected and how long is it going to last? 86.44.6.14 (talk) 08:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
There was vandalism and page blanking, it is now unprotected. « Gonzo fan2007(talk ♦ contribs) 08:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
It would certainly seem to be sensible to firefight on only one front at a time. Sadly, this excludes sensible anon IPs but I can't see another way round the current situation. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 01:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Request for unbanning
I was advised that this is the place for making a case for unbanning editors.
I would like to request that User:Lir be unbanned (agan).
The user is required for participation in editing/authoring articles as part of Military History project Eastern Front revamp/expansion.
While I appreciate the difficulties Lir has with Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia admins have with him, these issues seem to me to be quite separate from his ability to contribute to Wikipedia content.
Lir has expressed to me that he wants to contribute productively to the articles in question, and has demonstrated this ability, albeit his edits were undone by another editor based on the banning, and having foregone any discussion in talk. Given Lir's personality, and history, this seems to have been an expected result. I dare say that behaviour in administrative realm does not equal poor article content assumption.
My proposal (I'm aka mrg3105) is that Lir is unbanned on the basis that he limits his contributions to project articles and lets bygones be bygones. All discussions should be limited to article talk pages.
There is a lot of editing and authoring to do there, and I would ensure Lir has what to worry about as part of the team of editors and proposed project parameters and goals.
It seems to me that people like Lir need a bit of mentoring and understanding, and for lack of it they become perennial banned editors, literally since Lir is clearly not masochistic, but has been banned, and unbanned since 2002, including by Jimbo Wales. People with that much dedication, even if exhibiting a degree of self-destructiveness, should not be excluded from Wikipedia because, although seen in a negative "light", are also the best advocates of Wikipedia, and its best defenders.
I do not think it will be productive to dwell on the past. I propose that Lir be brought back on a 6 months probation to allow him to demonstrate ability for editing without seeking administrative recourse. Is this acceptable?
I think you mistake dedication for nuisance. The following is not true: his edits were undone by another editor based on the banning, and having foregone any discussion in talk. I think if you look at the talk page (and the time and date) this categorically untrue. Dapi89 (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
ANI semi-protected
Just a heads up, I have semi-protected WP:ANI due to vandalism. Sean William@ 22:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I had five edit conflicts just now trying to edit a section. That's fucked up. We need to do this up like the RfAs and AfDs, where each discussion goes on its own subpage, which is just transcluded onto the main page. Kurt Weber (GoColts!) 03:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd love that idea... MBisanztalk 03:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
That wouldn't fix anything; you'd still have the same EC in editing that specific section. btw. Coren had a BRFA up recently in relation to this, and nobody really cared. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 04:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Just for the sake of numbers, imagine if we'd been doing that for the last 100 archives. I took a random sampling of about 12 and got an average of 55 sections. That'd translate to 5500 subpages. If we'd been doing that the whole time we'd have over 20000 subpages. That seems, unwieldy to me. --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 04:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid it would break my computer to look, but given 100 AFDs per day, thats 30,000 AFD subpages per year I think. And it would certainly help with section links disappearing as the page gets archived. MBisanztalk 06:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
As I've said before, I like being able to watchlist an entire noticeboard; having to watchlist every single section would just explode my watchlist to insane and unmanageable levels. Anyway, editing a section shouldn't cause an edit conflict with someone's editing another section, so as mentioned above, it wouldn't solve any problems. AFDs are different, from my perspective. The possible administrative results of an AFD are extremely narrow, so someone interested in what's getting deleted need only know what articles are up for it. And that's easily accomplished by watchlisting AFD/T, or just the articles one cares about. That's simply not possible with noticeboards, as there are no "this article/user is now being discussed at the <insert noticeboard name here>." Someguy1221 (talk) 06:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I should point out that "a bot" can server the function of "some nice auto-confirmed user" for that task. Funny enough, that's exactly what CorenANIBot was designed to do. :-) — Coren(talk) 13:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Additionally, you'd have to ensure that each subpage got a unique name. So unless we're archiving by day or by month, it will get very confusing after awhile. Although, WP:AN/2008/03/Topic Title might not be too bad. ^demon[omg plz]15:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
That's basically exactly what the bot does. — Coren(talk) 04:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Like H2O said, this wouldn't actually help. You'd still get an edit conflict. The only reason you get it now is because people are editing the same section as you anyway, not somewhere else on the page...at least, if you're hitting the 'edit' button by just one section. Otherwise I'm less sure. --Masamage♫ 05:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Would it help if the page was archived more often? Starting with threads marked as resolved perhaps? 52 Pickup(deal) 08:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
If a thread is truly inactive, then it won't be contributing to the edit conflicts. And as mentioned before, even if it weren't, it would not contribute to edit conflicts in other sections. All that would accomplish is keeping down the average size of the board. The most annoying thing for me about edit conflicts is getting one because someone inserted a new section under the one I was editing without using the add section tab. But then, only the devs could alleviate that one. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh yeah. Good point. (I'm not my brightest on Monday mornings...) That said, reducing the board size isn't such a bad thing either. 52 Pickup(deal) 08:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
The main advantage of separating the sections is not to avoid edit conflicts, but to make the page reload smaller when there is an edit conflict; the software can't figure out which section is which through an edit conflict otherwise, so you have to deal with the entire page on the edit conflict resolution screen, making editing very slow in some browsers. --ais523 10:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, I get that issue on this machine, even for being a fast machine (I think, it's an issue with Iceweasel... Anyhow, as coren mentioned above, there's a bot approval request up, for exactly this task. I know, when I edit conflict here or at ANI, it's a HUGE pain, to load the entire page, and re-figure out where I meant to put my comment. Of course, on some issues, it'll be big anyhow, but, maybe a lot less big... SQLQuery me! 11:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I protected AN/I for 5 hours due to the recent edits, feel free to unprotect or extend if the need arises. « Gonzo fan2007(talk ♦ contribs) 07:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
New Block Requested for Thegingerone, for violating the three-revert rule
I didn't notice this earlier. This did violate the rule on the Rudolph Valentino page.Kevin j (talk) 00:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Abusive language through emails
Can someone let me know on if any action be taken on an editor who is continuously sending me abusive emails? Help on this issue is appreciated. Cheers Wiki San Roze†αLҝ 11:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
possibly. Is the user currently blocked? ViridaeTalk 12:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Not any that am aware of. The user am talking about is User:Tayibe1948. Can I forward the emails I received to someone? Thanks Wiki San Roze†αLҝ 12:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
How to close/resolve issues
Can we please come to a consensus on how to close or resolve issues raised at AN and ANI? Right now on ANI, I see several issues that are marked as resolved using a template (and many do not explain how the issue was resolved) and a few that are "archived" using some gaudy template that encloses the text in a colored box with warnings not to edit the content. Is there a method to this madness that I am not seeing or understanding? --ElKevbo (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
There are at least 2 versions of the resolved Check mark that are done on an admin preference basis. And I think its the same way for the rest of the styles of resolving. Could stand for standardization. MBisanztalk 08:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Though does every thread need a resolved tag with an explanation of why it is resolved, sometimes the thread is only two lines and does not need an explanation. I think the current system is just fine. Tiptoetytalk 22:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Marking a thread as resolved will get it archived to the archive page more quickly since there is at least one bot (whether it's still in development or now active) that picks up on it. —Random832 (contribs) 14:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Replacing banned users comments
Because I see it as coming clean about the history, it matches my knowledge from extensive observation and personal conversation with the blocked Sarsaparilla, I am reverting the TW revert of his last IP edit to this report. I believe it really should be here for the record; it is civil and does not attack or blame anyone for his problems.--Abd (talk) 17:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with your decision, but won't revert your undo. I've renamed this section to avoid any confusion about the events. The previous wording could have been taken to imply that my reversion earlier was vandalism. --Onorem♠Dil 17:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
My apologies, no such implication was intended. It was a "vandalism revert," not a "vandalizing revert," but I do realize that someone could read it incorrectly. Your edit summary called Sarsaparilla's edit "vandalism," therefore your revert was a "vandalism revert." But, of course, your edited section header is totally appropriate. And thanks for leaving the material in place. Material submitted by blocked editors *may* be reverted on sight, but it is not *required* to do so, and the welfare of the project not only allows but also requires that we judge each situation on its merits. Your removal of the material was totally legitimate, and I believe that my restoral of it was likewise, on the grounds that what I know to be the honesty and clarity of it may be useful in the future, if and when these events are reviewed. I could have, instead, made a reference to history, but, for the convenience of the reader, I decided to bring the text back. Thanks again.--Abd (talk) 18:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't think that's what you meant, but the wording left it up to interpretation. For what it's worth, my edit summary did not call his edit vandalism. --Onorem♠Dil 18:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this was missed
Hiya. I submitted a complaint on the 26th about an administrator, JHunterj a little bit ago. Unfortunately, no one commented on the complaint to resolve the problem, and it was archived by Miszabot II. I've re-posted the complaint (with comments from the accused) Could I trouble someone to take a gander? I think the admin is confused in the matter, and its a problem that should probably be addressed before it slips through the cracks yet again. - Arcayne(cast a spell) 19:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I guess I have numerous questions about your reply. Does an admin have less responsibility to refactor comments and edit war than ordinary editors? I ask because the dude was refactoring in his POV into archives.
Secondly, I know what forum shopping is, and had someone commented, I would have discussed the matter there. Forum shopping requires an "ask the other parent" component that wasn't present. As for "not getting the answer I wanted", I guess that's accurate, since I didn't get any response. My assumption was that you folks had just been too busy to address it. Note that I didn't even consider possibility that JHunterj was given a pass simply because he was an admin (and if it was true, shame on you).
The complaint was offered in good faith about activity that would have warranted a warning for a normal editor (if not a block). It bears noting that not a lot of the complaints in AN/I go unanswered, and one involving an admin's actions escaping judgment is fraught with sinister implications, especially when the ones judging the action are admins themselves.
Tell you what, do me the small kindness of looking at the complaint again as if the offender was not an admin.
And if you consider my implication was made in bad faith, I apologize. Maybe also consider that accusing me of forum shopping is also an assumption of badf aith as well. - Arcayne(cast a spell) 20:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Not missed; correctly archived without action as no action was needed. Have you tried dispute resolution for what is, in effect, a content dispute? Also, not meaning to be funny, but posting in multiple places because you haven't got the response you wanted tends to be thought of as forum shopping and goes down badly. ➨ REDVEЯS paints a vulgar picture 20:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I guess I have numerous questions about your reply. Does an admin have less responsibility to refactor comments and edit war than ordinary editors? I ask because the dude was refactoring in his POV into archives.
Secondly, I know what forum shopping is, and had someone commented, I would have discussed the matter there. Forum shopping requires an "ask the other parent" component that wasn't present. As for "not getting the answer I wanted", I guess that's accurate, since I didn't get any response. My assumption was that you folks had just been too busy to address it. Note that I didn't even consider possibility that JHunterj was given a pass simply because he was an admin (and if it was true, shame on you).
The complaint was offered in good faith about activity that would have warranted a warning for a normal editor (if not a block). It bears noting that not a lot of the complaints in AN/I go unanswered, and one involving an admin's actions escaping judgment is fraught with sinister implications, especially when the ones judging the action are admins themselves.
Tell you what, do me the small kindness of looking at the complaint again as if the offender was not an admin.
And if you consider my implication was made in bad faith, I apologize. Maybe also consider that accusing me of forum shopping is also an assumption of bad faith as well. Of course, I tried DR, but the offender merely blew off my inquiries until well after this report was initially filed. - Arcayne(cast a spell) 20:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Of course, marking it as resolved while we are still discussing the matter does lend a lot of weight to the 'giving the fellow admin a pass' argument. Maybe if you could be troubled to explain why no action was necessary? I mean, if it isn't too much trouble. - Arcayne(cast a spell) 20:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Talk pages for discussion. Dispute resolution for dispute resolution. Administrators' noticeboards for things administrators can act upon. And no, policing discussion or solving disputes do not come under that banner. As for your edit summary ...watching you[r] buddy's back?, well, I would generally decline to stoop to answering; however, in this case you got a completely neutral admin (and spat in his face, I note) as can be found if you try to look for a single interaction between the other party and me over the past 4 years. As far as I can remember, there never has been one. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? ➨ REDVEЯS paints a vulgar picture 20:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
(←dent)Talk pages for discussion and DR for dispute resolution; I actually knew that. Redvers. I posted here because it wasn't a content issue or a personal dispute. At all. Rather, my posting here was to point out an oversight at the Incidents noticeboard. Note again, the complaint was for 3RR (a total of six reverts in the same article) and for refactoring his own personal view in the archived sections (a view that had not appeared in the pre-archived sections at all). As that is against the rules, I posted to AN/I. It was - as you noted - ignored. Saying that attention isn't warranted isn't actually good enough when someone takes the time to ask you why, and tossing a bit of bad faith onto their request is unwarranted. By pointedly ignoring the matter, you opened the door to the implication that the offender got a pass bc they are an admin. Discussion is warranted, and no one (not even now) has pointed out how :JHunterj's actions weren't a violation.
And while we are on the topic, it is perhaps you are not used to "stooping" to commenting that you missed the entire summary: "swift action or watching you buddy's back? Actions speak louder here, or are supposed to". Granted, perhaps the 'couldn't be bothered' attitude from you was a bit grating, and I poked back. The comment meant to imply that you gave the offender a pass bc they were an admin, not bc you knew them. When
your (Redvers') wondrous response to a succinct complaint about an admin is ignored,
and a request to have an admin actually look at the complaint is pooh-poohed by the same admin,
and the resubmission of the complaint is marked resolved without any explanation as to why the complaint was invalid
I think its fair to wonder why no one wants to address the content of the complaint; indeed, it begs the question as to why the complaint is studiously ignored. As I said, actions speak louder, and your initial non-action and subsequent curtness speaks relative volumes. My comments are not intended as a spit in your eye, Redvers. Of course, why should we let the actual facts get in the way of a juicy persecution complex? > - Arcayne(cast a spell) 21:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Arcayne, I think you're a little mistaken here in your suggestions that people are working together to quash your complaints. We seriously don't need escalating arguments at WT:AN, if so, you'll get no-one to your thread and then where will you be? We want to help, but there are limits if the ones we are meant to help come up with ridiculuous 'stories' to repel those are actually assisting with your situation. Sit tight and wait for responses, don't badger the first one. Rudget. 14:29, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I don't really think its really collusion at all; it just seemed passing odd that after I post here, Redvers' first response to mark the complaint as resolved, when it seemed rather clear (I thought posting here was an indication of that) that I felt it deserved a bit of consideration. That the complaint was against an admin made it even more odd. I don't mind waiting at all, but with Redvers marking the complaint as resolved, it would seem my wait was moot. If I am wrong, and you cats are talking about it behind the scenes, then forgive me for thinking it was a 'here's your hate, what's your hurry' situation. Please feel free to let me know what's going on when everyone's done sussing things out. I would like some help in understanding how my complaint wasn't of substance, so if I see others getting blocked for doing the same thing, I will know how to contest for them to be unblocked - Arcayne(cast a spell) 00:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Vandalism problem
Resolved
– advised on editor's talk page
68.191.179.217 is making vandalism in articles. A few users warned him but he simply doesn't care, he continues to vandalize. Just check his talk page. I'll warn him, and if he vandalizes wikipedia again, he should get blocked.
I would suggest putting this note higher on the page. Today, I had to tell three different people that "he called me a name" is not a reason to immediately go to WP:AN asking for a block. It is annoying how many messages here are like that (and really annoying is how much my talk page has become that). Should we start closing the threads to make it clear that this is not the way to get results? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
We should be directing editors to WP:WQA instead, then closing the threads. I gather that's what you had in mind --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 02:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Except that WQA is usually either moribund when it comes to answers or an exercise in tarring and feathering users. So I'd go with saying "get a thicker skin" and closing the threads. There may be a nicer way of saying this; alternatively, cruder ways of wording it are not unacceptable. ➨ REDVEЯS is always ready to dynamically make tea 19:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Administrative backlogs
The page currently suggests that the noticeboard should not be used to report administrative backlogs: "To report administrative backlogs, add {{adminbacklog}} to the backlogged page."
But I have to wonder ... how many people really check Category:Administrative backlog? I've seen pages tagged with {{adminbacklog}} remain in the category for weeks and some pages are virtually always tagged as being backlogged. Black Falcon(Talk) 18:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. Looking through some of the archives, I notice that the suggestion not to use WP:AN for backlog notices is ignored on numerous occasions. Ultimately, I suppose that this applies. Black Falcon(Talk) 19:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
ANI fuels drama
ANI fuels drama by providing a large crowd to leer and jeer at the daily drama. I think Wikipedia would be better off if we got rid of this page entirely, and instead encouraged people to go to a specific venue for solving their problems. WP:EAR and WP:WQA are two good places for a lot of ANI stuff to go. The advantage of other noticeboards is that the crowd is smaller so there is less incentive for grandstanding, and the people who frequent the boards have consider experience handling specific types of issues. JehochmanTalk 01:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
How would you make sure that anyone reads those boards? I tend to report Soccermeko's resurrections there, instead of through sockpuppet channels, simply because if I report it there it gets dealt with in an hour or so, and if I report it other places, I wind up battling the socks for days. I'm sure other users post their issues here for similar reasons.Kww (talk) 01:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I block large numbers of sock puppets at WP:SSP. The ratio of effective work to time-wasting drama is much better at places like WP:SSP and WP:COIN (where I spent a lot of time before becoming an admin). If people are lost, they can go to WP:EAR and get advice how to solve their problem. This board, WP:ANI, tends to make matters worse not better. JehochmanTalk 01:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Repeat after me: AN/I doesn't fuel drama, people fuel drama... — CharlotteWebb 02:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Drama requires a stage, and a big audience. If we break things up into smaller stages and smaller audiences, there will be less drama and more work. JehochmanTalk
Quite the contrary; I've seen lots of drama that provides its own stage, and doesn't give a damn about the size of the audience. :) EVula// talk // ☯ // 18:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The drama isn't the problem. The problem is what causes the drama, and that won't go away if we take away the outlet. The drama will just spill into other places, where it can actually do more damage. WP:ANI actually does a good job limiting drama because it's so high-traffic, so while some issues do create a big fuss, a lot of others get a little attention and then die, as they should. Mangojuicetalk 14:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll freely admit that I, at least, read WP:ANI for daily entertainment, but I do also attempt to make useful contributions to things there that catch my interest. Jtrainor (talk) 12:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
ANI unfortunately is one of the aspects of Wikipedia that has not scaled well. It is likely to only get more chaotic as the community grows, if the current structure is retained. 129.174.91.115 (talk) 22:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Any process that uses people will result in drama. If we get rid of the board the drama will just move to somewhere else. (1 == 2)Until 22:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Having ANI makes it easier for some new users to get attention quickly if they need it. If we make them hunt for the content specific noticeboard that they want, it will probably cause frustration. Frankly, I don't mind the drama here - I tend to ignore it, if it's not a topic I'm particularly interested in. - Philippe 22:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I've had thoughts similar to Jehochmann, that we and sometimes also the users might be better of without ANI. It is ill-defined (what exactly is an incident?), it doesn't scale, doesn't have the features of a good trouble ticket system, and once archived you don't find threads easily. Most importantly, it is centralized and attracts crowds. Once you post there, you can get either a swift response or literally anything else might happen. The problem of alternatives remains. Possible answer: Promote and refine the more specific boards and add something decentralized such as {{adminhelp}} in the line of the {{help}} one. Probably we still need one catch-all board, not elats a place where people can refer to for administrative actions and 'abuse'. --Tikiwont (talk) 14:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
ANI is an excellent tool for getting quick admin attention in blatant cases, but it's a lousy tool for requesting administrators to dig into complex disputes. Instead of getting rid of ANI, I think a better option is to work harder at educating editors on how and when ANI is to be used, and how to best write an effective ANI report. Towards this end, I recently rewrote Wikipedia:Disruptive editing#Dealing with disruptive editors (discussion about the change is ongoing at the talkpage). One of the things I focused on in the rewrite, was explaining when ANI was to be used, how to write a focused report, and further, what to do if the report was not successful in getting administrator attention. If we can help educate editors on this, I think ANI will end up with less drama, and administrators will be able to respond to complaints more quickly and more effectively. --Elonka 14:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
82.58.65.162
Resolved
– All reverted and level 1 warning left
82.58.65.162
account just opened. inserting linkspam
Mccready (talk) 13:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
In future, this would be better reported here Thanks. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 13:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The massive AN/I page
As I've been perusing ANI a lot recently, I've almost immediately started to wonder why it is not setup more like AfD, with every reported incident getting it's own space. I imagine though this may have been discussed a lot in the past. Could anyone point me in the right direction for an old discussion on this topic so I can see editor's thoughts/consensus? Thanks Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 18:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
This was tried not too long ago, as I recall, and it was a failure. Problem is that nobody sees the discussions on their watchlists. I don't want to speak for everyone, but I know that for myself, it's much easier to have it centralized on one page. EVula// talk // ☯ // 18:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Why couldn't people see the discussion's on their watch lists (like we can for AfDs)? I personally have a huge problem with loading up to the bottom of the RfA page. Do you have links to discussion over this? This is mostly a curiousity thing, I'm not really bringing it up for consideration again. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 18:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it was tried, it was proposed and Coren set up a bot that could operate it. The problem was, indeed, that folks wanted each post on each subject to show up on a watchlist without having to watch subpages individually. Avruch T 19:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's what happened. Ultimately, no consensus to make the change; almost all the opposition was based on this issue. I'll try to dig up a link in the archives to the discussion. --barneca (talk) 19:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Yep. Spoiled the joke. I hate myself when someone has to explain a joke to me. Lo siento. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
NO no a millions times no. Having them on subpages would blow out my watchlist so fast its not funny. It would also reduce notification of new topics you might be interested in (because they are only seen in the watchlist of the main page once, after which you have to have the subpage on the watchlist). ViridaeTalk 03:47, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
We could arrange parallel processing. Editors with usernames A-L would post at WP:ANI1 and M - Z could start threads at WP:ANI2. The advantage of this approach is that it is scalable. We can have as many noticeboards as we need to keep the page length within reason. JehochmanTalk 04:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Or, sections larger than 30KB (or similar) could be branched into a /subpage. NonvocalScream (talk) 04:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Just an idea I have had; any ANI section still active after 36-48 hours after first post is automatically collapsed. Most, if not all, of the parties active in the discussion will be aware of the details - anyone else will have to go by the general heading (and digest in the collapse field?) All recent stuff will be in full view of the passing audience. I suggest a 36-48 hours, as to allow all the different time zones and editing times of day for editors to get maximum exposure. LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Collapsing doesn't help the "loadability" of the page, just the readability. Here's a variation on the theme. 36 hours after they've been initiated, all open threads are collapsed AND moved onto Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/older by a bot. This page is then transcluded onto ANI - keeping everything together. That will reduced the byte size when people are posting onto ANI. And that way, watchlists will still light up for new posts in threads for the first 36 hours, if you want longer than than, simply place Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/older on your watchlist too.--Docg 12:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable, although I wouldn't see the need for collapsing if it makes no difference to loading - there will be the menu at the top of the page top for navigation. If you want to work up a wording for a proposal at the appropriate venue I will certainly second the suggestion. I think the time limit needs to be agreed, but certainly no longer than 48 and no less than 24 should be the area. LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
(You can tell that I am not the most technically adept...) Will the transcluded older topics still be logged in the page menu, or will the menu simply list the transcluded page, or would it be similar to the way the RfA mainpage lists the transcluded RfA pages? LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not a regular participant in AN/I; I've just occasionally been involved in discussions of incidents affecting articles I regularly edit. I find the present system is useless on my watchlist, for it shows every change to the 30 other discussions on AN/I that I'm not at all interested in.
I'd much rather see it set up with each reported incident getting it's own page. I can see how that would be difficult to those who regularly monitor AN/I, but for those of us who use it as a tool in resolving issues in articles we use, the separate page for each incident would be a godsend. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I disagree with User:Gwynand. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 06:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if each incident gets its own page, then people who have the main AN/I page on watchlist will see the new sections being created and based on the gist of the title can decide whether to check it out or not. Then, people can scan through AN/I and watchlist whichever of the subthreadings that are transcluded they so choose. That way when a post happens in a section, it only updates the watchlist for the people watching that section, but when a new section is added, everyone watching the main AN/I page sees it. ⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 06:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Problems with a group of new editors - making substantial changes, deleting verified passages and inserting instead quotes from anonymous websites
A group of new editors who seem to have found an agreement outside of WP (see talk page of that atricle) made big efforts to change the article of Dorje Shugden substentially without any discussion. Any request for discussion on the changes were neglected. Moreover verified passages were deleted and balanced views deleted and insertion from a anonymous website made. I like to ask you for your help by checking the subject, revert or a temporarily block of the article. I have sent all new editors welcomes and ask for collaboration but as you can see from the talk page they just ignore. Thank you very much, --Kt66 (talk) 20:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
ANI is protected so only admins can edit it. useful. not. Mccready (talk) 13:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Er, it's only move-protected at the moment. [8]x42bn6TalkMess 19:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
119.63.129.28
has already been warned on linkspam. is continuing eg at Breast Cancer. block suggested. I tried using the spam page as suggested but it's busy and I can't use itMccready (talk) 08:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
You're reported it to WT:WPSPAM so that should be alright. But could you use WP:ANI instead of this page (which is a talk page) next time? Thanks. x42bn6TalkMess 14:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Broken?
Can somebody find out which template has been tampered with, because the entire noticeboard appears to be broken, and it goes back through the last several revisions. Horologium(talk) 03:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Something very odd is going on... I think it might be deeper than a template stuff up... -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 03:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
AN/I and AN are both broken. Horologium(talk) 03:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
It looks as though someone has changed the text to white, perhaps--notice that the "Until" in Until 1=2's sig shows up, as do some blue words.Gladys J Cortez 03:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
It's fixed now, whatever it was. Horologium(talk) 03:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Some sneaky vandalism on a template used in the header. Vandalism reverted, template protected, user blocked. Mr.Z-man 03:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Exactly What Is a Content Issue?
Is violating a policy about content a conduct issue or a content issue? For example, is persistent violation of the no original research policy something to be reported here? Life.temp (talk) 01:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Violating a policy about content tends to be a editorial issue. Only when the user throws a tantrum or is constantly incivil does it become behavioral. -Jéské(v^_^vE pluribus unum) 01:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)If repeated, it's conduct. You should give templated warnings from [[9]] and then report to WP:AIV after the fourth. However, it's better to try and engage the editor in discussion on the article's talk page, if possible. --Rodhullandemu 01:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Surely persistent, repeated violations of policy are not allowed? Civility is not the only operative policy. If someone shows a repeated unwillingness to abide by core policies, why would we want them editing here? Dlabtot (talk) 03:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that there is no authoritative process for ruling on violations of content policy. When there is a conduct violation, it can be reported here, and an admin (possibly in collaboration) makes a ruling about whether a conduct policy has been violated. Then, takes action using the special admin tools. In contrast, no authority makes a ruling about whether the "no original research" policy has been violated, and then takes action. If the majority on an article want to violate content policies, Wikipedia seems to have no way of addressing the problem. This sort of thing happens frequently in some of the small culture war articles, where there may be only 3 editors. Life.temp (talk) 05:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
That's not quite the same issue. It sounds like you've got editors forming a faux consensus to keep an article outside of Wikipedia policy norms. This sounds like conduct, it breaks conduct policies and it will be judged ultimately as a conduct issue. But it is actually a content problem. No, really. I know it sounds perverse, but you need to strip the entire issue back to the ultimate cause or ultimate problem. The problem in this hypothetical case isn't actually the editors' behaviour - that is just a symptom of a fault with the article. So you need to pursue the fault with the article. This is a slower, more painful process than expecting admins to act immediately. Instead, it requires time and effort. So people don't bother, then get offended at a lack of admin action. And then admins eventually step in when the conduct starts to spread outside of the walled garden it was in, the offending editors get blocked and the article(s) gets rewritten... making it seem like admins have acted in a content issue after all, just too late. So, no, admins aren't likely to step in if things are at the point you think they are. Make your stand thoughtfully, forcefully but politely on the talk page of the article. Wait for that not to work, then pursue dispute resolution, making your case thoughtfully, forcefully but politely. Let them move to attacking you and don't fight back. Keep calm and rise above them: you're setting them a trap; let them be the ones who spring it. Then, eventually, they will do something wrong conduct-wise. Then you can report that. Or they'll go quiet and you can rewrite the article without challenge. Or admins will step in, seemingly at random, and set things back on the right road - and not because they're admins, but because they're long-term editors who have been convinced of your case and will be acting (almost always without the tools) in the best interests of Wikipedia. ➨ REDVEЯS is now 40 per cent papier mâché 20:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment. There are some content-related issues that cross over into conduct problems. A very obvious example is edit warring, where the issue crosses from a simple disagreement into a disruptive back and forth battle over an article. If someone repeatedly violates/ignores consesus, that's not a content issue, that's a conduct issue. It is not simply a disagreement over content, it is an editor disregarding our community norms for a collegial editing environment. A bit more towards the content side, you may have editors repeatedly inserting original research or otherwise unverfied information against objections and causing disruption to the article. Similarly, such a case should be treated like a conduct issue. Another example would be repeated misrepresentation of source or use of false sources. A further example would be obviously using an article as a soapbox. Many editors engaging in these examples will claim it is a "content issue", trying to cloak themselves in immunity from sanction based on that principle. Not all conflicts involving content are "content issues", as much as some editors would like to assert otherwise. In the kind of instance Life.temp brings up, sunshine is the best medicine. Post on the original research, fringe and/or reliable sources noticeboards. Ask for third opininions and community feedback. Post to relevant WikiProjects with a neutral message asking for extra eyes. Such limited strangholds are unlikely to hold up under such scrutiny without revealing serious ownership and advocacy issues (which then clearly cross over into conduct issues). Vassyana (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
New rule request
"All patronising lolcats (etc) will be removed on sight" - any objections? It's funny to whoever added it, but usually whoever makes a post to AN or ANI does feel seriously about their report, and for an admin to mock it with one of the stupid LOL SRSLY I IZ REPORTING TO FBI or something along those lines is patronising towards good faith users, and has no positive benefit on the discussion. Grow up, children. Neıl☎ 00:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, lets remove all sense of humor from the Wikipedias. For the record, I don't appreciate you removing any edit I make to WP:AN/I because you don't like the substance of it.⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 00:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't know. This page is long enough, do we really want to increase the size by adding images? Probably not a good idea. - jc37 00:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
The page gets archived, whether it contains an image or not (size doesn't and shouldn't matter in this respect). I personally see nothing wrong with it. It lightens up the mood from time to time in heated conversations. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 00:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. If it were someone spamming pictures, that's disruptive. A single picture offering commentary relevant to the topic is perfectly acceptable. I'll note that we have humorous pictures on various policy pages as well, aka wikipe-tans everywhere, the trenton new jersey one on the NLT page, etc. Are those any less patronizing? Of course not, because there's nothing patronizing about any of the images in the first case.⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 00:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Lightens the mood for who? Those using ANI for entertainment, or those who feel they have legitimate concerns? I don't see policy pages as a very good comparison. Pictures there aren't obviously targeted and dismissive. I don't think that there should be an outright ban on all lolcats, but the basic rules of civility should apply. --Onorem♠Dil 01:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Also important not to bite the newbies. But I also agree that we shouldn't completely stop using them: where they're humorous in a non-rude way, they're fine (and even desirable as a way to lighten the place up from its usual doldrums of eternal drama). Heimstern Läufer(talk) 01:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Lightens the mood for anyone getting heated I suppose. Don't take yourself too seriously and all that "nonsense" I think that matters. I don't like to see things turn into large disputes. Humor helps now and then. It acts as a gentle and sometimes subtle reminder. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 01:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that page size is something to discount. Editors who edit through a dialup, or other not-so-fast ways, shouldn't be penalised because someone posted an image to this page. And AFAIK, the page is archived based on date, not size. - jc37 00:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Without commenting one way or the other, size considerations really seem ... moot. The admin noticeboards are already of such an obscene length that a few extra kb here or there just isn't going to matter. Vassyana (talk) 01:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)One of my typical mistakes as usual. But I don't think page size is something to worry about, since its always long to begin with. Dial up users can always start new sections and edit only sections per the usual. If they found that a noticeboard is too long, they can just single an admin out. Shorter conversations is a better way to save space if thats the only concern. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 01:06, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
AN/I is currently 563 KB of text. That's a two-minute download on fast dialup. --Carnildo (talk) 02:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - ANI is full of depressing things and a humorous image might lighten the mood a bit - I posted Drama-icon.svg to summarise a small drama about FU images. And really, the size argument is moot - the pages are 250kb of wikicode already. Sceptre(talk) 01:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not a size issue. There's assumptions being made here that a) lolcats are funny (maybe), and b) that these lolcats are funny (dubious). I would say it was funny when Gurch did it three months ago.
But it's not about whether they are funny or not. It's about whether someone raising an issue in good faith deserves to have some smart-alec experienced user mock him. It's childish, patronising, unproductive and insulting to do so, and it does not reflect well on the person who adds it (and then re-adds it - yes, you, Swatjester). I noticed that Swatjester has assembled a whole array of these "hilarious" lolcats on Commons, so no doubt they will be crowbarred into anything he considers unworthy of his valuable time from now on. Neıl☎ 09:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok. You don't like lolcats. Since when does that allow you to remove my edits to a talk page, or to AN/I? ⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 09:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
How can you not like these cats? Kudos for picking out cute ones. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 09:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Neil, I count 3 times now that you've removed MY edits from either this page, or AN/I, because you did not like the content. In what reality do you think that is a) not disruptive and b) within your prerogative to do? ⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 09:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:RPA. A user receives a death threat, which clearly he takes seriously - even if you don't - and your response is to mock it. That's insulting to the user. I believe you're carrying on like this about the threat purely to make a point that you don't like the WP:TOV essay. Neıl☎ 09:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
You'd be wrong then. I don't care about TOV as an essay, so long as it's being properly represented as an essay and nothing more. As for personal attacks, I'm not attacking anybody personally. Which user is named in any of the images, hmm?⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 09:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
By that argument, I could put a big flashing GIF that said "GREAT BIG IDIOT" at the top of a thread, but it would be okay because it didn't NAME the person who started the thread. Neıl☎ 09:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)I agree with Neil on this, and would add it's hard to trust the judgement of any admin who pisses about with stupid images and comments. DuncanHill (talk) 09:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Probably hard to trust the judgment of anyone who makes comments like the above either. But to each their own, right? ⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 09:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see it as a moke. Its a thankful image. And can I ask that you guy stop reverting the image? That looks rather bad. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 09:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
What is a "moke"? What is a "thankful image"? Who do you refer to when you say "you guy?". Thanks. Neıl☎ 09:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I think he meant "mock" (ery), I have no idea about thankful image, and you guy probably means "you guys". Incidentally, there's a response for you on my talk page Neil. ⇒SWATJesterSon of the Defender 09:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)You got me with little to no coffee. Thats "mock", an image thanking you for bringing it to ANI's attention, and "you guys" = Neil and Swat. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 09:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the translations. I am done with edit-warring on the images - I have made my views known, I think it's unhelpful and childish to mock good faith complaints with lolcats (I notice someone on AN has now created one to mock the Arab-Israeli conflict), and someone else will, sooner or later, put an end to it. Neıl☎ 10:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
The lolcat to which you refer is not mocking the the Arab-Israeli conflict. Why on earth would you assert that it is when it so clearly is not? How much is your argument undermined by so doing? --Tagishsimon(talk) 19:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Lolcats are just humor, the main problem is WP:TOV being pushed out of proportion to the level of involving government agencies on obvious pranks, seriously this week somebody contacted the FBI when someone posted a dialogue line used in a movie, TOV should be used when viable such as in threats to schools or something plausible, calling the FBI on a Michigan "terrorist" was just paranoid. - Caribbean~H.Q. 20:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. Also, new article needed at War on terros. Can't believe it's a red link. --barneca (talk) 20:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that size is a major issue with both the AN and AN/I pages, and while I know that there have been discussions before that have no reached any form of consensus, the size of these pages is a major problem: I'm on broadband and even trying to edit the page as a whole locks up my browser for up to 30 seconds at a time. So I make a proposal:
How about we do like the RfA pages, and make each AN and AN/I topic a separate page, with a bot automatically transcluding each onto the main AN and AN/I page? Anonymous users would have a setup like how the AN and AN/I pages are now, with users (or bots) creating the new pages for these anonymous users. That way, it would be much easier to avoid edit conflicts, solve page size issues, edit separate sections, etc. What say you? — scetoaux(T|C) 03:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but this has been beaten to death a bunch of times. See above and the archives for past discussion. Basically, if it was set up that way, no one would be able to use their watchlists to see when individual edits are made to sections. One would have to watchlist each subpage and manually add each subpage to their watchlist each time a new section is made. As you can see that really wouldnt work. I do agree though that the size of this page is annoying, maybe quicker archiving? « Gonzo fan2007(talk ♦ contribs) @ 06:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
One potential solution would be further subpages of AN. Pretty much from its very inception it has been three pages -- WP:AN, WP:ANI and WP:AN3. I don't know what divisions I would choose, but if there is a way to make the subpages more specific, it might well help the ameliorate this problem. Sam Korn(smoddy) 10:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
You know, that actually sounds like a good idea. What would you suggest as the alternate noticeboards? I figure it would have to be things that are most commonly place on ANI or AN. One could be for purported threats, as I see this alot. Legal and other. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 16:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
That would be OK but my experience is that editors post to whichever board they're aware of, regardless of topic. And whereas we can try to educate (i.e "This would be better reported at WP:AIV in future"), I don't see that issue going away. An alternative is to move off-topic posts to appropriate boards, but that would mean leaving a "moved" message in case the editor later checks up on progress; in these (simple) cases, it's easier just to deal with the report by blocking, protecting or whatever. Some editors do not read the instructions at the top of the page. However, in principle, not a bad idea. We already have a WP:3RR board which seems to function well, for example. --Rodhullandemu 16:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
We can still move it to the right one, leaving a message on their talk pages. We shouldn't need to leave a moved message on the board we removed it from, the edit summary is there for that purpose. But this is just all my opinion. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 17:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I quite like this idea. "Incidents" in itself is far too broad and I don't know what drives the name of this to warrant content disputes. I think content disputes should be more forcefully shown to WP:DP rather than drag it on and on before someone closes the thread 50kb later.
Sub-categorising WP:AN would help a lot. Basically, merge WP:AN and WP:ANI and link newcomers to a front page for help, with categories which act as noticeboards. I've a few categories in mind...
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Sanction feedback (shortcuts: WP:AN/SF, WP:ANSF) - Sanctioning feedback, for the usual "I've blocked user A for blah blah blah" or "I've placed user B under WP:ARBPIA for blah blah blah". Could be better than the above, as the above seems to be rather random and sparse in its occurrences.
This isn't exhaustive and there's likely to be far too many categories here but if we could just get one or two more subcategories it could easily shave the size of the pages down by quite a bit. The drawback, of course, is that there's more pages to watch. x42bn6TalkMess 17:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Waaay too many sub-pages. Let's just pick a few, and leave AN as the misc/other page.
I think making the redirects could be non-controversial, and could be changed/reverted should new pages become wanted/necessary.
I think the easiest way would be to leave AN for review/discussion by admins (and others). So "admin review", and other such things would be fine. A lot of the other proposed pages sound like a "request for admin action". There doesn't need to be an "incident" for someone to request help from one or more admins. And I think that just adding that single page should cut down on the size of AN. See below for a suggestion to sub-compartmentalise AN/I. - jc37 21:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Another possible solution
Sorry for the subheading, but this is rather long, and separate from Sam Korn's idea above.
I was one of the people who proposed subpages before: Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 6#Proposal No. 58379 to change WP:ANI. I really think the advantages of having a separate page for each topic outweigh the disadvantages (see link for a list of advantages and disadvantages, as I see them anyway). However, it seemed to me that the main reason it wasn't done is the desire to have one page watchlisted to see all the activity on all the subjects.
A couple of weeks ago, I had an idea: Why not have a bot watch all the subpages in the ANI space, and post a null edit to WP:ANI with the author, their edit summary, and which page it was? I asked a bot person if this was feasible, but haven't heard back, so I'll throw it open to everyone else, and see if they think it's feasible. Here is how I described it to them; if a bot can do this, I really think this solves most of the problems. It isn't perfect, but nothing is, and I think it addresses the major objections to separate subpages. --barneca (talk) 17:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
You might recall our discussion a few months ago about changing the way ANI works: converting it to an RfA-like or AfD-like transcluded list. It seems to me it failed mostly because people wanted to be able to watchlist one page, and see all the changes that were made to all the threads. I’ve been thinking, and I think we could actually solve that objection. Not only that, I think we can also improve on the current situation, where long threads are shunted off to subpages, which no longer show up on the watchlist. Seems win-win to me, but I’d like a bot person’s opinion.
How hard would it be to have a bot post a null edit on the new, improved ANI (I know, not really a null edit, but adding a harmless space) every time someone made an edit to any of the active subpages?
For example, EditorA posts a new thread at the bottom of ANI. ANIBot-I notices this, and creates a subpage with an appropriate header, moves the text to the subpage, and replaces the text on ANI with a transclusion of the new subpage. EditorB clicks on the [edit] button on ANI (just like now), but this takes him to the subpage, where he makes his edit (just like RfA and AfD currently). ANIBot-II notices this, and makes a null edit in the appropriate section of the main ANI page, with the edit summary “EditorB: (insert their edit summary here)”. EditorsC thru M do the same thing, and ANIBot-II does the same thing. EditorN, who watchlists ANI and not the subpage, notices all the action, leading her to go to that section to see what the fuss is about (just like now). She can see the thread on ANI (just like now). She can edit the thread by clicking [edit] (just like now). Everyone is happy.
Now, say the thread gets so long, it’s starting to make ANI difficult to load. ANIBot-III notices this, and when a subpage gets to be a certain size, it doesn’t transclude it on ANI anymore, it just replaces it with a pointer to the subpage (just like now). However, ANIBot-II still does its thing on the ANI page, so people watchlisting ANI still get their notice that there is activity on the subpage (which is one of the main reasons people disagree about the current subpage setup; the lack of notice on the main page that a subpage is active). Everyone is happy.
Meanwhile, EditorO links to the discussion on a talk page or edit summary somewhere. He links to the subpage, so the link will never break. If he makes a mistake and links to WP:ANI#2008-04-23 Admin abuse, then a year from now when EditorP runs across the link, there’s no searching through the archives looking for the thread; it’s always going to be at WP:ANI/2008-04-23 Admin abuse. Just replace the # with a /. Everyone is happy.
Once a day, or twice a day, or continuously, when ANIBot-IV notices that there has not been an edit made to a subpage in X hours, it removes the transclusion on WP:ANI, and adds a link to WP:ANI/Archive/2008-04. That’s it, no copy-paste archiving. History remains with the discussion. No one needs to know what day an article was archived to find it. No links are broken. If we want, the bot could also add archive tags to the discussion, to prevent further edits. Or, depending on what people want, it could leave the subpage unarchived, and just relist a subpage on ANI if further discussion ever occurred; i.e. threads never truly close. Or, if people want, it’s much easier to manually archive a thread early; add the archive tags to the page, remove the transclusion, and you’re done. Everyone is happy.
The only remaining weakness I see is the rather heavy reliance on bots (although you probably think of this as a plus ;) ). But if the bot goes down, ANI doesn’t seize up or anything. Discussion still goes on in the subpages, and experienced people can move new topics to subpages themselves. The only critical thing you lose when the bots go down is the update to the main ANI page. Life would go on.
Much of this is just a consolidation of stuff you’ve already worked on, or stuff that’s already been discussed. The only thing that's new (and I don’t know how feasible it is), is the ANIBot-II and ANIBot-III work. In particular, how feasible would it be for the bot to watch not only all “active” subpages, but “all” subpages, so that edits to dormant subpages can be dealt with?
What do you think? I have to run, but am very interested in what you think about the feasibility of a watchlist bot. I'll check in later. --barneca (talk) 14:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Have you given a thought to just how many subpages this is going to lead to? At the discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/CorenANIBot and the corresponding WP:AN discussion, someone made the astute point that this would lead to the creation of over ten thousand subpages per year just for WP:AN. Doing the same thing to ANI and/or 3RR, both of which take far more traffic than AN, would push that number over 50,000. That strikes me as a rather dubious solution to a problem which is not crippling. What we do need to do is gently prod Misza until he finishes rewriting the archivebot to take the {{resolved}} template. That way, old discussions are rapidly cleared out of the way to leave room for new ones. Happy‑melon 18:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
AfD creates over 100 subpages a day - a minimum of 36,500 subpages per year - and it hasn't broken anything yet. A simple naming scheme like WP:ANI/2008-05-08/Thread title would make the subpage space easy to organize/navigate. If watching that many subpages was too much for a bot, it could always only watch the couple of dozen pages currently transcluded on ANI. And this proposal solves (again, IMHO) more than just the size of the page. --barneca (talk) 19:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I vote yes for barneca's system. Barneca is the man. As long as a bot notifies me of changes, I'm fine (I'm in the camp of I wanna see the whole picture, not just what I watchlist (like afd)). Otherwise, a (possibly simpler solution) noted above is a faster archiving to keep the size down of ANI (if that's the main complaint of a large thread). I know edit conflicts are also a complaint and it wouldn't solve that necessarily. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I admit that I didn't want to get too involved in this topic last month, as I didn't want to rehash what had been previously discussed. However, for the record, I would very much like to see sub pages, assuming it isn't worse than the current system. Barneca's suggestions seem very good. Also, I think the AfD procedure is far superior than RfA... anything to make it closer to that I would definitely favor. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 19:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm in favor also, as noted in the last thread. Do you think we should seek more attention to this conversation? Maybe add this conversation to centralized template? We should really move this conversation to another page before that happens. Maybe a subpage of this talk, something like Wikipedia talk:Administrators noticeboard/reform or something similar? SynergeticMaggot (talk) 19:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Probably move directly to WP:PEREN? :) --barneca (talk) 20:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
(outdent)No, I don't think so. If we can come to an agreement as to the method and standardize it, I'm sure there will be more agreement. This way, or either way, we can just watchlist the noticeboards we want and not just one or two which has gets heavy traffic. I'm only suggesting we get more people into the idea. I'm under the impression that not many editors are watching this talk page. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 20:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm leaving for the day, but I'm fine with moving this to wherever you think best. --barneca (talk) 20:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
(e/c)Re to SM - anyone watchlisting WP:AN is automatically watchisting WT:AN. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Then let me rephrase. No one pays attention. This and the above thread proposes to change the way we use ANI-AN. You'd think everyone who posts to these boards would be interested. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 20:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree completely with barneca's proposal, and I think this should be put into WP:CENT for increased visibility. If no-one objects I'll do it myself. — scetoaux(T|C) 20:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
If you are serious about implementing this, then I suggest someone contacts Coren: his bot was designed to do precisely what you've been discussing. Happy‑melon 20:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Ive got a simi-working version of miszabot that archives using timestamps and templates. the only issue I have is that it cannot parse the config misza bot has. βcommand 2 21:06, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
This "sounds" interesting, but I think it may make it more difficult for non-experienced users to post/comment. - jc37 21:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I made a similar bot proposal here. Another approach I've been toying with (that could be made to work either with one massive page or with sub-pages) is a newsreader approach. This would be an on-the-side system that monitors certain pages, characterizing every edit by the "threads" (that is, sections) it affects. Editors who choose to do so may read the page via this system, thread-by-thread, viewing only changes since their last visit. They can then kill or promote threads for future visits, or come back to Wikipedia to add a comment. Bovlb (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Barneca's suggestion sounds reasonable... as long as people can watch edits to AN/ANI without watching a thousand subpages, it should be fine. AletaSing 21:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Simple temporary solution
Make more use of the ((Resolved}} tenmplate, and have a bot remove resolved issues to a page such as AN/Resolved. Would cut the current page down by 30 or more percent. --Tagishsimon(talk) 00:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
How about just have the bot archive anything marked "resolved", after 24 (36? 48?) hours? - jc37
Another alternative solution
Right, I've been thinking about this and another solution came to me when I saw a page being moved on my watchlist. When a page on a watchlist is moved, both the original location (now a redirect) and the new location are automatically on the watchlist. If, therefore, once a day, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard was moved by a bot to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/2008-05-09 and the bot then included the last few days' pages to the top of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, that would fix the size problem while not creating issues with watchlists.
The only difficulty is with discussions that continue for a long time -- perhaps there could be a page Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/On-going discussions that would be included above the dated ones. Discussions that were still active when the archiving bot moved the page could be moved to there and then merged back into the dated page when the discussion was finished.
My only remaining concern is the possible divorce between diffs and the page content.
There would be no problem with diffs and oldids: the link will still take you to the addition of the material, even if the page has been moved (try picking a random oldid, then changing the oldid number by one (keeping the page title the same). You'll end up somewhere completley different). I'm not sure how this would affect the size of the AN page though. Happy‑melon 19:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The original point was that the page was too big to edit, not that it was too big to view. Sam Korn(smoddy) 19:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Then edit it section-wise. I also like the idea of having the bot archive {{resolved}} sections faster. Stifle (talk) 11:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
As has been mentioned in previous debates, splitting the noticeboard into subpages can make it very difficult to effectively monitor the goings-on of the site as a whole, which is one key purpose of this central noticeboard. We can find useful alternatives without breaking down the board, though; what about another page linking currently active threads, sorted by useful characteristics like topic or users mentioned? By that method, we could achieve the sort of topical breakdown x42bn6 mentioned without significantly changing the current operation of the noticeboards themselves. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Alternate idea
I've also noticed that when a page is moved, both the target and the original stay on my watchlist.
Some of the higher volume pages are moved by a bot on a (semi-)daily basis. (WP:SAND, for example.)
This page could be switched that plan.
It would be simple enough to have a bot move this page daily. That, and it would be an automatic archive, and the page history would then remain with those commenting.
No loss on the watchlist, and no loss of page history, and by moving, the page acts as the archive. (So no more needing to scan the archives looking for some thread for linking.)
Sounds like a "winner" to me.
Just prior to implementation, (for historical reasons), I would suggest moving this page to maintain it's long history, and once the ongoing discussions on the page have finished, treating it as an archive index page, with the archive box remaining. That way the page hostory stays intact, and a link to all the "old" archive pages stays intact. - jc37 19:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
A problem - many discussions last longer than a day. Sometimes longer than a week. This idea would fragment discussions and make the page much harder to use. GRBerry 18:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Betacommand and size
Would it be worth removing the issue to a separate page? Agathoclea (talk) 17:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Currently the noticeboard is at 416KB. HappyMelon has tried to help in the past by early archiving and splitting threads, but it seems like this page is constantly above the 256KB goal. Maybe a more aggressive archiving or splitting system (say once a thread reaches 25KB it's shunted to a Holding Pen or something similar) is needed. MBisanztalk 04:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Check above. There was already discussion on this. I still feel something needs to be implemented, but this just hasn't gotten enough notice to be changed yet. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 04:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but I believe that we need to change the amount of time that MiszaBotII archives this page to something like 12 hours or 24 hours (and even then, it might still be too large.) Cheers, Razorflame 20:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Stale time limit proposal
Being the only regular administrator at 3RRN, it's very hard to enact blocks from old, untended-to reports. If I make a block to a user whom has broken 3RR but hasn't made a revert for a number of hours, then I run the risk of making the block punitive and not preventative. Administrators do not make punitive blocks, blocks/page protections are in place to prevent damage to our encyclopaedia.
I cannot, in my conscience, make a block 3-4 hours after a users last revert, it's unethical and totally punitive. I propose that a) more admins work on 3RRN regularly in order to process reports b) more non-admins work on 3RRN reports to quicken the process and c) we work on establishing a rough guideline (3 to 4 hours, in my opinion) on what is considered a "stale" report [where no action can be taken as it can be perceived as "punitive"]. ScarianCall me Pat! 21:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't think, given that it actually takes quite a while merely to generate such a report, and that reverts in a 3rr violation can take place over four hours apart (indeed, they frequently do), that this places an undue burden on editors trying to prevent violations, and encourages edit-warring and system-gaming. IronDuke 21:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
If you want something done, consider getting other admins to regularly keep an eye on this noticeboard. It's difficult coping with the stress of numerous people breathing down your neck for decisions you consider logical. Is 6 hours a better timeframe? If we agree on this, perhaps I can re-analyse those other posts? ScarianCall me Pat! 21:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that's quite true that you're the only regular administrator there, Scarian. But I'll see if I can contribute there a bit more. At any rate, though, I think 3-4 hours is far to short a timeframe to consider an edit war stale. Heimstern Läufer(talk) 21:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I've generally used 24 hours as a stale timeframe. Heimstern Läufer(talk) 22:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
I can see a time limit, but for a violation measured in days, the time limit should be somewhere around a day. Forcing users to generate the report and get it processed within 3 hours seems incredibly rushed.Kww (talk) 22:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Violations are measured in 24 hours! We don't block for 3RR violations made within 36 hours or 48... it has to stay within 30 tops... otherwise it just becomes too punitive. ScarianCall me Pat! 22:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Is 6 hours okay? Any longer would just seem punitive as the user may not have made a revert since then. We're not punishers. It can take 10-15 minutes to compile a report after the user has violated WP:3RR. That would leave 6 hours (subject to the individual admins discretion) for an admin to notice the report, reports can be dealt with within less than 10-15 minutes. That's 6 whole hours for an admin to turn up. We have 900 active administrators and, recently, it's just been me. ScarianCall me Pat! 22:03, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
We should be able to find a middle ground. I think the main problem is that there simply aren't enough admins who regularly patrol the 3RR noticeboard. WP:SSP suffers from a similar problem. If we could get a few more admins at WP:AN3, we could ensure that blocks are not punitive by shortening the time limit to under a day. Enigmamessage 22:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
This seems like an entirely novel interpretation of 3RR, at least in my five years or so experience with it. Does this mean to Scarian, that as long as admins are slow to read the notice board, no one will ever be blocked for violations? I guess that whenUser:Fovian Author next violates on this same edit of Barack Obama, I'll post the report again. 3RR should provide slightly less gentle encouragement to editors to refrain from edit warring, not simply to prevent the one next reversion. FWIW, I've been blocked a couple times over the years (mostly correctly), always more than 12 hours after my last edit; in one case I think more like 48 hours afterwards. I've also filed a pretty large number of reports, and have never seen a report addressed within 3-4 hours, even where a block resulted (or especially then). LotLE×talk 02:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that since the "rule" refers to the number of reversions within a 24-hour period, a report should only be marked as "stale" once 24 hours has passed since the last reversion in a report. If a shorter time limit is set, you could find yourself in a situation where warring editors will be able to watch for stale results and then begin warring again. On a related note; if there is a problem of a lack of administrators to monitor the noticeboard, it adds weight to the argument that the barrier to becoming an administrator should be lowered. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree with Scarian here. The entire purpose behind the 3RR rule is to stop edit wars. If an editor hasn't made a further revert in more than three or four hours, then we aren't really seeing an edit war. The objective is for everyone to take a step back, and once that has clearly happened over a few hours (e.g., editor participates in talk page, stops editing completely, responds to a warning on their page by saying they are going to bed, or otherwise refrains from editing the page further) then there is only a punitive element to the block. Edit warring is not being prevented by blocking someone while they're sleeping. Risker (talk) 04:00, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Certainly, sometimes 3-6 hours is enough that it may be stale. But not always, especially with slow revert wars. Something like this really needs to be up to administrative discretion (which is why if I'm in doubt, I generally just leave the report to see if another admin wants to take any action). Heimstern Läufer(talk) 04:18, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
You have to take into account the need for escalating blocks. In cases where there have been multiple acts of edit warring that have resulted in earlier blocks, the length of a block is necessarily extended to discourage future edit warring. This discussion arose from a report about an editor who had already previously been blocked for edit warring, so a block of longer than 24 hours would probably have been appropriate. Since no block of any kind was enacted, the editor in question will probably edit war in the future. In fact, the previous report on this editor was also marked as stale, and so the editor came right back and edit warred again. -- Scjessey (talk) 04:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Fovean Arthur hadn't been blocked before, but you are right to object in his case. Clearly an abusive editor and Scarian enacted a block. Enigmamessage 16:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Scarian has raised a very important issue. I fully agree that there comes a point when the 3RR report is stale and then our objectives are better accomplished by a warning rather than a block which would be punitive. The problem with arbitrary time limits is, as Scjessey says, warring editors will game the system by pacing their reverts. The way forward is, as suggested, firstly for more administrators take an interest and secondly for reporting editors to accept that when admins come to the board they will use judgement in deciding if a block is still going to be preventative and, if not, they will not block. Smile a While (talk) 04:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree. As WP:BLOCK#Purpose and goals says, blocks "are not intended for use in retaliation, as punishment, or where there is no current conduct issue which is of concern." If an edit war is not ongoing, there is no current conduct issue of concern. That's not to say that there is no conduct issue of concern, but at that point it would be better dealt with by counselling the user rather than blocking. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
AIV
As a lot of people probably noticed, someone messed with a template on WP:AIV. I'm not sure how to fix... Tan | 39 14:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I just noticed I posted this to the AN talk page. What the heck was I thinking... anyways, someone figured out what I couldn't. Move along, nothing to see here. Tan | 39 14:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Suppose we begin like this
Here is a list of the issues presently being discussed at the AN, with my suggestions as to where they should have gone instead of here:
Announcing a new essay: to a board not specific to administrators, for instance the VP
Questioning a new user's legitimacy: Probably belongs here, though there's no reason the discussion ought to be limited to administrators. Probably best to discuss the matter on a non-admin-specific board, and then bring the conclusion to the attention to an administrator if necessary.
Announcing the closure of a merge discussion involving WP:RFCU: to a board not specific to administrators
Talking about a case of harassment: to AN/I
Handling an unusual undeletion request: Probably belongs here.
Talking about the protection policy: to a board not specific to administrators
Requesting changes to blacklists: to the talk page of the blacklist
Soliciting participation in a discussion about a template: to a board not specific to administrators
Announcement of a WikiProject being marked historical: to a board not specific to administrators
Only a few of these actually seem to belong at an administrators' noticeboard. These are things that (may) require administrative action but aren't covered by the other request pages, as well as announcements that are directly relevant to administrators. Well, why don't we put all of this at Wikipedia:Village pump (maintenance)? This will be a forum for maintenance-related matters that don't already have their own page, or that for some reason are unusual. That page combined with the maintenance pages we have already will render the administrators' noticeboard redundant.
I volunteer to keep out the things that don't belong, and redirect the confused folks to the proper destination, for the first few weeks, or longer if necessary. Nothing will be left that can 'poison' the atmosphere of the VP. (I'm not suggesting anything about AN/I at the moment.) — Dan | talk 17:12, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
My prediction: if you call it what you suggest (Village pump (maintenance)) then it will be seen as a redundant copy of Village pump (technical), admins will be as unlikely to watch it as they are to watch the other village pump boards, and you will lose or dilute the current value of WP:AN as a board where one can get the attention of a reasonable number of admins. Although many of the threads you classify above could have gone to more specific boards, WP:AN will often get a quicker response or a bigger set of eyes on something. I don't how your proposal would solve any problems, I just see it as a backhanded way of getting rid of WP:AN, and I don't see why that should be viewed as a good thing. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
(1) We've talked about admin tasks as 'maintenance' or 'janitorial' for years. Let's pretend like we meant it -- maybe the attitude of the community will begin to change. (2) 'Maintenance' and 'technical' are clearly not related; and if it were not clear enough on its face, a sentence or two at the top of the page should make it surpassingly clear. (3) There's no chance of admins simply going away. They'll migrate en masse to the new board we set up. If they're so upset that it no longer has 'administrator' in the title, then they do not deserve to be administrators: this position is not meant to be special in any way. (4) While a bigger set of eyes can get things done faster, it also leads to useless drama. I think the extreme popularity of this page is one of the reasons it (and its parter ANI) has been so destructive. We have a lot of good, hardworking administrators who are willing to deal with problems and watch the relevant boards -- it will be no secret to them that this board will need watching, and response-times will be just fine. Anyway, all this argument is purely suppositional. What we have now is a toxic and unacceptable system. I suggest that we try this as a first step toward a solution. It's worth a shot, no? — Dan | talk 17:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Could we discuss a bit more before making changes like this? I see a lot of reference to a "toxic atmosphere", but a lot of good things get done on these boards as well, and that aspect could get lost unless things are discussed properly. Has a notice been placed on the noticeboard itself, for instance, about this discussion? I also see a long list of off-topic threads - off-topic is not the same as toxic. Could you point out the threads, over the past two or three months, that you felt contributed to a toxic atmosphere. Note that tough discussions and strong opinions does not make a thread toxic, nor does AN/I-disrupting behaviour by the editors involved in the incident. It is poor handling of such threads that turn things toxic, especially when threads drag on and reach no conclusion. Maybe subpages should be used for "toxic" threads, not just for "long" threads? Carcharoth (talk) 19:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I think discussion is what we're doing right now. There's little chance of the utility of this board being lost: as long as the new scheme is clearly explained and publicized, which isn't hard to do, we can divide the labor of administrative issues a bit more evenly among the various pages that already exist, and get rid of the term 'administrator' in the title of the pages that handle especially contentious matters. Anyway, if a new scheme doesn't work, everything is reversible. We'll call it a trial period, perhaps.
Strong opinions, heated discussion and disruption don't necessarily, but certainly can, give rise to what I am calling 'toxicity'. Toxicity is strongly correlated with (1) heated, emotional argument, (2) thread length, and (3) threats, implicit or explicit, of blocking or other official sanction. The problem with an administrators' noticeboard is that the word 'administrator' in the title means that the threat of official sanction, the taint of the legal system, is always present -- if it weren't, the matter wouldn't need to be on a noticeboard specific to administrators.
My point about the off-topic threads is that if we insisted that those be moved to their proper locations there would only be about three threads on the board right now, which would all be fairly non-toxic. This supports my contention that toxicity happens when things that could have been done elsewhere are instead brought to an admin-specific board, thereby invoking all the connotations of the word 'administrator', all the community's perceptions of administrators as a class apart from regular users, and all the confrontational atmosphere that comes with the possibility of a block being issued. If we rename the board -- or, rather, decommission it, start a new one to handle the core of its old business, and direct everybody else to the other forums we already have -- then it will quit attracting these toxic issues.
I was hoping people would agree with my general sense that this board attracts nastiness, but I'll dig through the archives and find some representative examples of troubling threads. — Dan | talk 20:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
As I stated in the section above, I don't see a need for creating yet another noticeboard. We have far too many as it is, and I see no evidence that WP:AN and WP:ANI are failing to do what they've been designed to do. Certain topics will always generate heated discussion, especially when discussing bans and blocks, and retitling the page will not change that. I simply don't agree that there is a general atmosphere of "toxicity" as has been stated. If threads need to be redirected to a different area of Wikipedia, or an editor refuses to stop generating drama, archive the discussion, inform the editors where discussion should occur, and block them if they refuse. The problem is not the board itself, but that editors are allowed to turn certain threads into circuses. - auburnpilottalk 21:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I am not suggesting the creation of yet another noticeboard: I'm suggesting that we divide the tasks of the present board between the many other boards we have for specific purposes, decommission the present board, and start a new, less confrontational board to take up the slack. The number of boards remains the same; the functioning and atmosphere improves.
Certain topics will always generate heated discussion, sure. But we can reduce the heatedness in some of them -- many of them, I think -- by getting rid of the word 'administrator' in the title of the board. As I say, this means that before any discussion has occurred there is already a tense and legalistic atmosphere. We can discuss exactly the same issues without the predetermined tension if we reorganize as I am suggesting.
The problem is that "editors are allowed" to do certain things -- well, on Wikipedia editors are allowed to do pretty close to anything, and I doubt you really want to see them formally disallowed from commenting in certain ways. I don't think moderation of noticeboards is the way to go here: in order to avoid that necessity I am suggesting that we reorganize the noticeboards so that editors can still be "allowed" to comment as they please, but with a structure that will tend to discourage heatedness. — Dan | talk 21:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I really don't see you convincing me that removing the word "administrator" from the title will change anything, and we clearly need more eyes on this, so I've posted a request on AN. - auburnpilottalk 21:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
And I now see you did as well, just moments apart. - auburnpilottalk 21:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'm certainly trying to convince you. :-) Let me give the argument another shot: The word 'administrator' means that anyone who starts a thread here is at least implicitly looking for an administrator. The only reason they might want an administrator is because they want some administrator-only action to be performed. The most problematic, and one of the most commonly discussed, of these is the block. So the possibility of a block hangs in the background of every thread about a user's behavior or a content dispute. Thus the person starting the thread is implicitly requesting a block, and the person the thread is about is implicitly defending himself against the suggestion of a block. This predetermines the attitudes of those who participate in threads on this page: confrontational, defensive, and so on. This is why threads on this page turn "into circuses", as you put it. Removing the word 'administrator' from the name can begin to change the atmosphere of the page. Does that make sense? — Dan | talk 21:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Try as you might, I assure you, it's not happening. ;-) We truly have such completely opposite perceptions of AN, it's almost astounding. I've never perceived an implicit request for a block simply by posting to AN, and I've certainly never felt that any response on AN has an implicit defense against a block. For one thing, these type issues should be brought up on AN/I rather than AN, but I really don't have the same view of a block-heavy atmosphere at AN. - auburnpilottalk 22:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I guess you're right: this criticism belongs primarily to AN/I. Well, what would you think about applying a similar scheme to AN/I? (I was hoping I wouldn't have to start that way, since AN/I is a much less pleasant thing to deal with.)
Also, do you think that AN is perfectly acceptable the way it is now? I have to say I still think that having a specifically administrative hangout has contributed to the administrators becoming a separate class of user, sociologically as well as techically -- just the way we never wanted it to be. I am willing to become the temporary unofficial nightwatchman of the new forum -- keeping out the irrelevant stuff, sending people to the proper place -- if we de-administratorize WP:AN, in the hope that we'll create a collegiate atmosphere in which to bring up issues that need input from administrators, and to make announcements that are of interest to everybody who works in the Wikipedia namespace or is interested in project issues (which we have generally assumed are just administrators -- this is not so), in a way that does not formally set administrators apart. — Dan | talk 22:47, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
"What we have now is a toxic and unacceptable system. I suggest that we try this as a first step toward a solution. It's worth a shot, no?" No. AN ain't broke so no fix is required. Sometimes it can be confrontational but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, a bit of confrontation can help clear the air. RMHED (talk) 22:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
You're partially right: most of the unpleasantness takes place an AN/I. In reply to your other point, in day-to-day functioning a process can look just fine, but its general tendencies can be harmful. In this case, the general tendency of the admininstrators' noticeboard (and AN/I, and AN/3RR, and for that matter the bureaucrats' noticeboard) is to formalize the social separation of administrators from everyone else. This is a tendency that as a community we must work to reverse. Even if you don't find AN unpleasant to deal with, still you have probably noticed what a 'big deal' adminship has become. This change will begin to make it less so, and if it makes the board even a bit less tense in the process, all the better. — Dan | talk 22:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
AN/I can indeed be caustic and at times downright nasty, AN less so. Your proposal though, is just papering over the cracks and doesn't address the underlying issue. The best way to make adminship 'no big deal' is to fundamentally change the way admins are appointed and removed. The RfA process has become combative and unpleasant primarilly because adminship, once attained is so difficult to remove. This is why adminship is a 'big deal' and this is why there is often a 'them and us' atmosphere pervading Wikipedia. RMHED (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
How are these proposed changes going to have an impact on anything when we are addressing the forum and not the conduct itself? KnightLago (talk) 00:02, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
[Reply to RMHED, which I think addresses KnightLago's concern too.] Actually, I claim (and perhaps this is the crucial part of my attitude toward the problems of this community) that it does not all begin with RFA. RFA probably helped create and certainly reinforces a problematic state of affairs -- with its ever-increasing 'standards' it further sets administrators apart from the community at large, and makes adminship a bigger deal -- and in this way it is a cause of problems. But it is not purely a cause: it also a symptom. The community began gradually, in many places, over several years, to accord administrators greater respect, social status, and so on. The problem is now spread all over the community: it doesn't just emanate from RFA. Now, for instance, we have another mechanism to separate administrators from everybody else: the administrators' noticeboards. So there is no reason our attempts at change should have to begin with RFA. It's not exclusively at fault, and I don't even know that it ever was.
We could certainly try to do something new with RFA, but that's been shown in the past to be pretty darn difficult. I have not given up on RFA, but I do think that rearranging the administrators' noticeboards will prove to be a bit easier. That is why I am advocating changes here and not at RFA. Of course the changes I am suggesting do not go to the heart of the problem, but that's because there is no heart of the problem: it's spread throughout the community. These changes are not just papering over the cracks: they will begin to encourage people to talk about administrators differently, which in turn will begin to make them think about administrators differently. Any linguist or cognitive scientist will tell you that the way people talk about something, the way they hear it talked about, the connotations of the words they use for it -- all of these determine the way they think about that thing. I'm suggesting that we begin to change the way people think of administrators, by changing the way they talk about them -- by depriving them of their own special hangout. I contend that this will also help to solve problems of drama on the boards, as I have explained above. — Dan | talk 00:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
A noble ambition to be sure, but one doomed to failure IMO. Changing the way people respond to those in positions of power only occurs when you empower them. This you do by giving them the ability to remove those they deem unsuitable. A kind of reverse RfA is needed, if such a process were in existence then admins would be far less likely to abuse their power. RMHED (talk) 01:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
The only thing that dooms it to failure is the community's unwillingness to accept change: in fact your very conviction that it won't work is what makes it unable to work. If you allow the possibility that it might work, then it might work. This is entirely a matter of attitude, mine and yours and everyone else's -- and if we wish to change anything we will have to start by making ourselves more open to suggestions like this one. — Dan | talk 02:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
People could be bold and move threads (hopefully before they start to attract replies) to the correct location and leave the section header and a link behind. Providing a reply at the new location, especially if it is a quiet backwater, would also be good. The village pumps are often just a place to notify people of discussions elsewhere. Many of the AN posts could be just that - notices of discussions taking place elsewhere, but only if "more eyes" are needed. Having said that, people replying like I am now (I originally posted this at AN), will tend to split discussions, which is always a danger. One of the main problems is multiplicity of boards. Not everyone can, or wants to, follow every board. Subcommunities and regulars tend to develop around each board. In some ways this is good, in other ways it is bad. As I've said in the discussion, more proactive management of off-topic threads and more participation at other boards, plus some poeple trying to keep an eye on the bigger picture in the, um, more active threads (you know the ones I mean, the ones that attract tens of editors and kilobytes of sometimes heated discussion). Carcharoth (talk) 01:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
People could certainly be that bold, but they haven't tended to be so far. I doubt they'll start being bolder in the future. Resistance to suggestions such as this one is ample demonstration of the community's extreme timidity. I don't know anybody who's willing to manage the current boards more proactively, but I do know someone who's willing to help with a transition to a new set up -- myself. A solution that relies on many people spontaneously beginning to behave in a way that they've never behaved before is no solution. I am suggesting a change that, as I have argued above, will encourage -- though only slowly -- community-wide changes in behavior and attitude. We can't just say "Oh, the behaviors just need to change [on their own]". That is a diagnosis of problematic behavior, not a suggestion of a solution. — Dan | talk 02:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
There is certainly a need for AN/ANI/AN3. If something not appropo to the board is posted, simply move it. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Your comment appears to make no arguments, and certainly does not reply to any that I have presented in the above thread. Could you explain your position in detail? I would be glad to talk over your reasons with you. — Dan | talk 02:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd just like to give my quick opinion on the matter: It is definitely true that things are often added, and discussed at AN/ANI that should be elsewhere, as Rdsmith pointed out above. I would suggest getting rid of ANI completely. Some people use them interchangeably, and don't know the difference between the two (and honestly, I'm not sure I fully understand the difference). That leaves AN, which is fine. At that point, we'd have to work a bit harder at keeping the board clear of any discussions that could take place elsewhere (and we should actually remove those discussions, and place them on the correct noticeboard/page). - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Resolved
Done. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand blocked for sockpuppetry. FunPika 17:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)