This is a Wikipedia user talk page. For the fictional wolf of the same name, see Carcharoth.

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I wouldn't keep coming to you if I knew of a bunch of other admins who cared much about indef blocks given for no good reason. Here's a longtime name editor (several years' work on the WP) who just got indef blocked for profane incivility to somebody on his own TALK page (!), followed by (as usual) failure to kiss the rears of the proper admins. [1] In light of the JzG2 case, blocking somebody indef for this, with 3 admins refusing to unblock, is incredibly hypocritical. Worse still, I'm certain the blocking admin knows all about the JzG2 case, but did it anyway. SBHarris 00:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I left a few comments. Carcharoth (talk) 05:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input. As it happens, I noticed this because he got zapped just as he was making some productive slogging on some articles about centenarians that I'm interested in as a gerontologist. So I know he can be a productive editor, 'cause that's how I noticed he was "gone." SBHarris 05:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there. I've got another FAC going on To Kill a Mockingbird, and it is mostly unopposed, but there is some question as to the images in the article. I've placed movie stills in the article under the impression that the copyright had run out of the movie version. Someone called me on it and I have to verify that. Do you know where I can find that information? I don't suppose, if that information is inaccurate, that I could somehow give another reason for their being in the book article? I appreciate any assistance you can give me. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moni3 (talk • contribs)

Will have a look at the image question now. Would like to look at the article as well! Give me a nudge in a few days if I forget. Need to do another review first. Carcharoth (talk) 05:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I truly appreciate it. For me, 1 April typically is one of the most difficult days of the year. Invariably, people line up to complain that I'm a "spoilsport" or "killjoy" who lacks a sense of humor and should go away for the day. It always is comforting to be reminded that not everyone feels this way. —David Levy 13:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

S'OK. You shouldn't have to be the only one to try and keep a lid on April Fools. Carcharoth (talk) 13:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This wasn't me. Could you possibly go back and correct the AN/I thread? Ryan Postlethwaite 15:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected. I've also gone over to the dark side. See below. Carcharoth (talk) 16:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

too funny. :D 68.237.239.228 (talk) 16:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! Someone saw it. Carcharoth (talk) 16:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just when I thought April 1 was over and I'd get 60 days of drama free image editing to focus on my tag conflict project...Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Betacommand_and_SVGs. Should this be moved to the subpage or is it different and new enough to warrant an actual ANI thread? MBisanz ^talk 03:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really, I think, the aim should be to move away from having that subpage. This is really something BAG need to be called on - Betacommand needs to either listen to BAG or the community. The issue of running large tagging runs that he and and small group of others think will be OK, and then issues appearing when more people become aware of it, is something that needs to be urgently addressed. Personally, I think anything that has a large effect like this (number of images tagged, or being an open-ended task) should be advertised more widely than BAG. The individual tasks need advertising in specialist places, as obviously not enough people are watching BAG. That supposes that this task was even put through a bot request. Was it? Carcharoth (talk) 09:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. It was the human account, not the human running the bot account, wasn't it? Need to read more closely. This is just Betacommand running a script on his own account, isn't it. Well, there should be other ways to handle that, but I can't think of them right now. Carcharoth (talk) 09:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was doneo n his human account. I just wish things could settle down in the image area. I mean we've cleared out the backlog of NFCC non-compliance and now we're working on even cooler things like resolution and license conflict, and this just gives the whole thing an uggh feeling. BTW, that license conflict program is still running on my main machine. I may set a record with this program at over 100 hours so far. MBisanz ^talk 17:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		Aprils fools day was a blast. Loads of users lightened up to have good old fashion fun. I want to thank you for taking part in editing this page in particular and even though I may not know you, embrace the same talk pages, or even edit with you in the near future, I'd like to award you this Barnstar for making Wikipedia a fun environment in which to contribute. Until next year. :) SynergeticMaggot (talk) 13:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

David, given what happened this year, I don't think the current guidelines or policies go far enough. It would be nice not to have to do this, but what happened this year didn't encourage me - and since the Wikipedia community continually grows and changes, there will always be some people willing to engage in this sort of behaviour. I'm thinking of gathering some evidence and links to discussions about this year, and the last few years, and then proposing a guideline for community approval. Would you be able to help with this, or suggest the best places to advertise this? Does anything already exist? Would this be best handled as a new page or sections or notes in existing guidelines and policies? Also, is this best done now (while the iron is hot) or in a month or so? Carcharoth (talk) 10:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again! I just noticed that discussion of this nature already is underway at Wikipedia talk:April Fools' Day, though I'm thinking that it might be better to wait until everyone's a bit calmer. —David Levy 15:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some good discussion there, great poems, and a link to a nice collection of gags. Now, if only the more irresponsible gags can be avoided next year, it should be fine. Carcharoth (talk) 15:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some of what happened eventually constitutes an issue for the Foundation as it goes to the heart of what Wikipedia tries to be. There was a clear contrast between the brilliance of the main page and the humour of some of the inside jokes, and the kids running around opening fire hydrants and saying nyah-nyah-where's-yer-sense-of-humour. In light of changes to the user interface and admin edit-warring, crawled and cached by google, I would say that the current desultory discussion should run its course and the consensus or lack thereof should perhaps be brought to ArbCom and most certainly referred to the Board for reference. Alternativley, add a template to every page: "Wikipedia is unreliable from April 1st until all search engine caches are cleared". Whatever, guidelines are sorely needed. Franamax (talk) 03:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very anonymous comment (I know better!) and not really related to any of the work you are doing here, so I hope you can forgive me.  I want to tell you that your diplomatic and statistical contributions to the image cleanup project, especially things like this, have inspired me to open a similarly tooth-pulling discussion at Wikia, where I hang out.  I won't link to the specific page because certain people are feeling hounded enough already, but it is analogous to creating a BLP policy, which our wiki doesn't have at the moment.  That discussion, unlike Wikipedia's, has unfortunately died off without establishing a consensus on action items (albeit without veering away into a flamewar either), so I have not been a very successful diplomat, but I never would have had the nerve to try it in the first place if I hadn't been watching you post carefully reasoned perspective day after day without losing your temper.  Thank you for that.

As to Betacommand himself, I can only say that this came to mind: "For the less even as for the greater there is some deed that he may accomplish but once only; and in that deed his heart shall rest.  It may be that I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; and if I must break them, I shall break my heart, and I shall be slain; first of all the Eldar in Aman."

Best wishes on not getting burnt out.    Xeriphas1994 (talk) 16:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! That quote was nice. Carcharoth (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found an old magazine cover image that was tagged as Non-free. Image:Popular Magazine April 7 1915.jpg I changed the tag to PD-US; added the publisher and a generic source statement. Is this sufficient? I have not contacted the up loader yet. I am looking for a strategy to deal with old public domain images of unknown source. Thanks for all of your work on the image deletion mania. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 15:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as removing it from the non-free considerations, that is fine. I would be fine with the source wording, but maybe you could ask User:MECU what he thinks of the source wording, as he is someone who is currently questioning some of the boundaries of this. Carcharoth (talk) 15:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wandered by the Mythopoeic Society page and discovered there was a question (on discussion page) about the Fair Use Rationale of the .gif used; further I saw that some months later you apparently updated info and brought it into compliance, yes? First, let me say that I'm not sure who put up the .gif and didn't fill out the rationale but still (second), THANK YOU for fixing it, and (third) may I edit the bot complaint from last July off the discussion page? Or does it live there forever? Inquiring minds and all that-- Thanks again!LynnMaudlin (talk) 11:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the bot message is no problem. Might be an idea to tighten up the sourcing. The link the Mythsoc webpage shows the logo/design in use, but ideally it would be possible to link to a page that explains what the logo is, and what the copyright status is. The idea being that people coming along later can (a) verify that the logo is genuine; and (b) verify its copyright status. Sorry if this seems overkill, but it seems to be the standards that are being aimed at now. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 17:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've queried the Council of Stewards (the Board of Directors of the nonprofit corp.) and I or some other affiliated person will be along to comply. LynnMaudlin (talk) 02:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carcharoth, you were active in WP:DM last year when the development of an Article Assessment standard was discussed. For your information, this issue has been brought up again and we hope to finalise it this time around. Your input will be appreciated. --rxnd (talk) 07:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I probably won't have time to comment there, but it looks fine. Thanks for the note. I hope to get more involved over there eventually. Carcharoth (talk) 20:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article as created was an obvious A7 so I deleted it. Warden took it to DRV, so as an attempt to meet him half way I included the material in Slough railway station and created a redirect to it. Warden complained about that as well, muttering about GFDL, so I deleted it. I can't be bothered with it any more, and I've said my piece on the DRV. See also [2].Black Kite 20:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to raise the issue of Colonel Warden's "I thought it might entertain you" edit, please do so somewhere else and don't confuse the editor and the content. I would have added this content anyway, regardless of whether Colonel Warden would have done it first. It might only be a sourced paragraph or two on Station Jim in the Slough railway station article, or eventually an article, but please don't drag the Ealing Station platform 9 arguments over to Station Jim. It is intensely annoying when someone who is trying to write stuff and upload pictures, gets caught up in petty arguments like this. Carcharoth (talk) 20:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's also intensely annoying when you perform a good faith and completely correct A7 and get flamed for it. So irritating, in fact, that I'm going to take a break for a while before I say exactly what I think about the current direction of the encyclopedia and especially certain editors, which would not be a good idea. As I said at the DRV, a para about the dog in the station article is reasonable, but a separate article? Black Kite 20:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You've already said what you think here. But this is not flaming. This is normal. My views on that type of speedy deletion are that if it is contested, the simplest thing is to undelete and merge, or go to AfD. It saves a lot of hassle in the long run, and would reduce your stress levels as well. Instead of directing Colonel Warden to AfD DRV, you should have just done the merge you ended up doing. By merging, demerging, deleting, recreating, redeleting, you make things more complicated than they need to be. Carcharoth (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that I can't win. I thought the merge was a good-faith compromise, because I think the stand-alone article would've been slaughtered at AfD. Normally I wouldn't really care, but recently there has just been so much disruption and wasting of everyone's time at AFD and other locations by a small cabal of editors who appear to believe that everything is notable. I mean, when Kurt does his "ignore policy" thing at AFD, it's just treated like his self-nom comments at RfA, but these people appear to believe it. The end result is that (and I'm not talking about the stuffed dog here, in comparison that passes WP:NOTE with flying colours) the encyclopedia is filling up with trivial crap and I for one am sick of it. Sorry for the rant :) Black Kite 20:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm saying that the merge was good. I also said AfD above, when I meant DRV. I wasn't aware of the background at AfD, but then I'm pretty much a mergist inclusionist anyway. I think half the stuff that goes to AfD (and even PROD) could just be quietly merged and/or sourced by people who know what they are doing. Most of the drama comes from people !voting delete or keep without doing the research. Carcharoth (talk) 20:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[outdent] Without wishing to stir-up anything regarding the way it happened, just wanted to say thanks for adding Station Jim to the Slough Station article. You obviously spent quite a while researching and making sure it was 'right'. He was on my ToDo list (long way down!) but I never considered him as potential fodder for a separate article.

You may be interested to know that he is a minor celebrity in the area. A few years ago 'British Rail' (or whoever was in charge) wanted to remove him, and the local press led a successful campaign to keep him where he was! (I have a cutting somewhere.)

There is (or was) another stuffed dog, at Wimbledon Station I think, and in the article I read about that one it was suggested that there were once quite a few of these dogs working around the network. Now that would be a subject for an article...albeit a small one. (Just need some sources... :o( ).

Thanks again. -- EdJogg (talk) 13:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, and thank you. If you could find, or rediscover, that newspaper cutting, that would be great. More stuffed dogs? I fear some people may go into apoplexy! Carcharoth (talk) 13:17, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've also found more. Thanks for this clue! See the DRV. Carcharoth (talk) 13:23, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad I didn't look at the DRV until after I left my comments here. (Slough Station is on my watchlist, otherwise I wouldn't have known.) Some strong feelings raised here! Thanks for your (closing) comment too.

Fascinating to see how many such dogs there were. How many more did not survive to be stuffed? I'll see if I can find out the newspaper article, and if so, I'll amend the station article accordingly. (You may then freely include it on your new article about Railway collecting dogs, or whatever you call it. Certain to be chosen for 'DYK?' !!)

EdJogg (talk) 14:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As well as the Menezes incident and the bombings, it might be worth looking for comment on the attitide of the old-fashioned copper on the street to IB. I have it at third hand (the sergeant son of my parents' cleaner) that there was hostility to Blair over his post-Stephen Lawrence/Macpherson Report reforms. It may be worth seeing whether the Police Federation actually criticised him by name on this issue.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I point you to this uncivil edit summary ("Bellweather [sic] can't behave"?!? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Does he think I'm his effin' kid?!?) as further proof that if arbcom doesn't at least address ST47's behavior, he's likely to repeat it. I'll let you deal with it, though, as I'm beyond the point of dealing with him in any manner other than (a wholly justified) anger. Are we really going to allow respected admins to treat normal editors like second-class citizens? Bellwether ^B_C 20:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

He obviously doesn't want to discuss things with you. I sort of gave him an exit strategy there, but I agree the edit summary and the smiley were less than ideal. I don't think anything more I say will help. Maybe you could ask someone else for another opinion? Sorry to be of so little help, but I am trying to calm things down. Carcharoth (talk) 21:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, Carch, I'm out on this whole fiasco. If ST47 wants to call me disruptive, and say I can't behave, more power to him. I can't deal with this crap anymore. If you check my contribs, you'll see it's taken a toll on my encyclopedia-building, and it's probably going to lead to a nice long semi-wikibreak (other than vandal-protection and the like). I don't know why arbcom can't see that setting up castes of editors who can be admonished/reminded/paroled, and those who can not discourages participation in the project. Please drop a note at my talkpage if there's anything at that mess of an arbcom you think I need to take note of. Regards, Bellwether ^B_C 03:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Duh, how did I let that happen? Thanks for catching it; fixed. TONY (talk) 14:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth, this is the Foundation-L initial post on the matter[3] with a link to the "official" statement and the discussion has continued on several threads within that mailing list. Does not appear to be finalized at this point, and there are some important issues to be resolved, such as existing restrictions on certain projects (French ones for sure) that copyright to specific versions of the GFDL. There are questions of whether their info can be transferred across to the proposed new licensing scheme. You can find the archives at WP:MAIL if you want to spend hours reading... Risker (talk) 14:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. I thought, given the date, that it was about images. This is just the whole "what can we replace the GFDL with" debate. I fell asleep on that months ago. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I keep asking myself why I subscribe to that list, although it does work wonders for insomnia. About twice a month, there is something genuinely interesting and newsworthy, and then the regulars debate it endlessly for a week. Hmmm. Sounds like some pages around here. Risker (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So should I remove it from the monthly summary (i.e., is it more trouble than it's worth to draw people's attention to it)? TONY (talk) 14:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you linked was about images, but as phrased at the moment is misleading, IMO. Probably is more trouble than it is worth, as no real change. Obviously if things do change, then add something. If the new license stuff Risker was talking about come to fruition, that is something that impacts whether people want to contribute under that license (most still will), but that's not really a WP:MOS issue. I do like the idea of a summary of WP:MOS changes though. I'm afraid I only really pay close attention to WP:MOS when things get close to WP:FAC. Or when common sense doesn't help, or I can't copy what someone else has done, or I'm really stuck between two choices. Whether or not the choices I do make in editing conform to WP:MOS is another story... Carcharoth (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		For introducing the (absurdly simple yet brilliant) idea that solving the problem and getting people to help you do it is much better than endlessly arguing about actions that don't solve the problem. The idea also quickly ended an argument, will have resounding effects on Wikipedia in the future and helped my stress level and sanity at a time which I sorely needed it. Thank you for the brilliant idea and your help. MECU≈talk 17:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(By the way, you may want to archive your talk page a little more. There are bots that can do it automatically if you want.)

Thanks. I had been putting off the archive, but will do it now. Still not quite sure about having it done by bot, for some strange reason. Carcharoth (talk) 18:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I second this barnstar, and have been meaning to do so many times. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 02:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I was wondering if you'd be able to look over this peer review (article). It's got a long way to go, and any input would be greatly appreciated. :) This spam message brought to you on behalf of the current Tzatziki Squad collaboration. Thanks, Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not quite my thing (though I presume this is from the list of peer review volunteers). I see you have some feedback already, so will leave this on the back burner for now. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 21:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I'd let you know that we've had some success in finding a way to make mp3 files of our conversations available - thanks to User:Dtobias, who's donated some server space. You can now get the files from Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly#mp3_files and I hope this helps you listen, if you're interested!

I love the idea of transcripts, but haven't yet had the chance to talk with anyone about how that may be feasible. I'd like also to extend an invitation to you to come along to one of these conversations - my intentions for the project is for it to be very open, and to hear your views on a variety of wiki issues would certainly be of interest to me! - let me know if you've any feedback whatsoever on how we're doing so far, and thanks for the interest! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 07:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Will keep an eye out. Carcharoth (talk) 21:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carcharoth. I can't tell for certain but they look like white racing homers to me. Sorry I cannot be more definite. They may also be some white ringneck doves but it's a bit hard to judge the size of the birds (which would be the main determining factor) from the picture. --OnorioCatenacci (talk) 09:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Will later on try and upload two other pics I took, and get back to you (and the editor who left another comment). Carcharoth (talk) 21:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You were involved in this discussion, so I thought you might be interested in Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Criterion 8 objection. howcheng {chat} 21:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to set this up, just checking you're not already doing the same thing. Black Kite 08:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Done - Wikipedia:NFCC Criterion 8 debate. Black Kite 09:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good summary without missing anything important. The libel claim could be another sentence, but still, it proves we don't need 100kb of text about someone's misdoings. Sceptre ^(talk) 01:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No offence, but what you've written there misses out several key points. Why not try re-reading what was on the talk page? I know those who live in the area and who read about in the papers every day for months might not have the same viewpoint as someone at more of a distance, but you can be too distant from an event, and a rough and ready edit (which I've actually very grateful for) is really only a starting point. Carcharoth (talk) 01:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weeding out the POV issues "he falsely claimed" and anything not relevant to Blair himself and not as part of the Met, you'd get something close to the paragraph summary. Minus the libel, of course. The thing is, you've got to be careful with the proportion of material you put in a biography for one event - even with Clinton, the summary of his impeachment hearing is about 5% of his article. Sceptre ^(talk) 01:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well good, I'm glad you can do this sort of work as well. Like Cobaltbluetony, I will say good night now, and thanks for doing that work on that article. Carcharoth (talk) 01:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I agree with you that it would be useful to track long-term vandalism (and I thought the "giving you a cookie" remark was uncalled-for at best.) I've personally run across at least a couple of vandalisms that have lasted for more than a month, on less-active articles, and--like you--I find it depressing. Do you know of anyone who might be able to cobble together something that would track these type of vandalism reverts? Gladys J Cortez 13:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ask at WP:BOTREQ maybe? It is unfortunate that rollbacks don't have edit summaries, but I'm sure someone could generate a list of edits that were either undos, rollbacks, or had "rvv", "rv", "revert", "revert vandalism", etc. in the edit summaries, but were made a month or more after the previous edit. Or maybe two weeks or more. Or a range of times to see what the distribution is. In fact, I'll do and do that now. Carcharoth (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I recall reading about a revert that corrected vandalism more than a year after the fact; it was reported at one of the less pleasant off-wiki sites, and I'm not particularly motivated to spend the time searching for it there. My own record is, I believe, 6-month-old vandalism. Risker (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Thanks. Do you have a diff for the 6-month one? Carcharoth (talk) 13:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry no, it was a few months back when I was just hitting random article and happened to spot an incongruous sentence in some technical page. I'm not even sure I was logged on at the time, I have a terrible habit of puttering around like that from work when I am stuck on-hold or in teleconferences. Don't tell the boss. Risker (talk) 14:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I won't tell yours if you don't tell mine. :) It's just amazing to run across one of those oldies, though...the increasing sense of "WTF?" as you go back further and further through the edit history is an interesting sensation. Gladys J Cortez 16:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just happened to stumble across this discussion: I picked off three long-term vandalism edits from 2007-10-10 on 2008-04-13, so it should meet the 6-month threshold. See Special:Contributions/68.32.137.51; two of the articles had automated or semi-automated edits intervening, but nothing else. Choess (talk) 21:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I dont have the time to make this look pretty but http://pastebin.com/m4cf1e0ba is a list of results by file type, with a total of about 784659 images. β^_command 17:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Compared to a current total (from Special:Statistics, as of this timestamp) of 776,088?? That is slightly closer but still a puzzling 'increase' discrepancy of around 8000. Which do you think is more accurate? Don't worry about making things look pretty. I'll take it from there. And thanks very much for running that query. Carcharoth (talk) 17:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support in my RFA, that didn't quite make it and ended at 120/47/13. There was a ton of great advice there, that I'm going to go on. Maybe someday. If not, there are articles to write! Thanks for your support. Lawrence § t/e 17:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

..for the misspelling. I normally have no trouble with my transliteration of Sindarin. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:03, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let me explain the situation I had in mind in my comment on ANI. Very often you and I run into a "spree vandal" who is set on vandalizing until they get blocked. They vandalize one user page, someone warns them, they do it again, someone else wans them, and then finally I notice the vandalism on my watchlist. So I go, see the warnings, and leave a final warning - if you don't stop, you're going to be blocked. Then the person edits my user page. I don't believe it's a conflict of interest in situations like that to block them at that point, since I would have blocked for vandalizing any other user page. It seems to bureaucratic to me to go chase down another admin just because the person, who is going to be blocked anyway, decided to vandalize my page last. Of course it would be different if I had an ongoing relationship with the person I blocked, but in these cases it's throwaway accounts I am thinking of. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if there had been warnings but the vandalism continued, you could just block immediately on that basis. I guess it depends if the vandalism includes incivility and personal attacks on you, but then it would no longer be just vandalism. I personally would still just revert any vandalism directed at me and ignore it. You might say that this will allow them one last act of vandalism against someone else before being blocked, but that is easily reverted and I would apologise to anyone affected if the vandal was incivil to someone before I blocked them. But I need to be more experienced in this area and watch a few more cases before getting involved and putting theory into practice. Carcharoth (talk) 12:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The remedies decided by the Arbitration Committee, viewable here, instruct Betacommand with regards to the operation of BetacommandBot, including placement of notifications and civility in replying to concerns raised about its operation. Betacommand is urged to be significantly more responsive to good-faith questions from users whose images he tags and either to respond directly to such questions, and also to develop an "opt-out" list for BetacommandBot without imposing conditions on its use.

All editors are advised that periodic review of images and other media to ensure their compliance with the non-free content criteria may be necessary for policy, ethical, and sometimes legal reasons, and are invited to participate in policy discussions concerning this and related areas. Editors are cautioned not to be abusive toward or make personal attacks against participants, including bot operators, engaged in this work. The community is also urged to re-examine our policies and practices for reviewing, tagging, and where necessary deleting images in light of experience gained since the policies and practices were previously developed, including the disputes underlying this case. The Committee listed five specific points in the specific remedy that they believe any review should attempt to cover.

The Committee expects that the disputes and disruption underlying this case will cease as a result of this decision. In the event of non-compliance or a continued pattern of disputes, further review by the Committee may be sought after a reasonable time. In such a review, the Committee may impose appropriate sanctions including but not limited to the revocation of any user's privilege to use automated tools such as bots and scripts, revocation of other privileges, topic bans, civility restrictions, or any other remedies needed to end the disruption. However, please note that nothing in this paragraph restricts the authority of administrators to take appropriate action to deal with any disruptive incidents that may occur.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 12:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay concerning the talkpage deletion robot, I was drafting a statement somewhere else. You can find my thoughts on Hesperian's talkpage, so there's little point posting the same thing in different places. Regarding the undeletion of the SVGs, there's two ways I can do it: undelete all the revisions of the images, or undelete all but the last. The former will be error-free, but you'll have to revert the speedy deletion tag very fast before somebody else working C:SD deletes it. The latter method is possibly prone to errors though, so I'm debating whether to go that route without preliminary testing. east.718 at 13:12, April 13, 2008

Replied there, though I see it has now gone to ANI. Carcharoth (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to invite you to consider taking part in the AGF Challenge which has been proposed for use in the RfA process [4] by User: Kim Bruning. You can answer in multiple choice format, or using essay answers, or anonymously. You can of course skip any parts of the Challenge you find objectionable or inadvisable.--Filll (talk) 14:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are assuming good faith (!) that people won't look up the answers... :-) (or look up the most popular answers). But I will have a quick go at the multiple choice ones. May do an essay later if I get too much wrong! Carcharoth (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't want to clog up the images thread further with this, but get it and read it now. I am 100 pages in and it has me hooked. If you liked his other Culture stuff, I think you will like this. Respectfully yours, --John (talk) 20:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 20:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And, having just finished it, my recommendation still stands. It's like a cross between Against a Dark Background and Use of Weapons, with a hint of Excession thrown in. Now I'll get off your talk page and let you get on with business. --John (talk) 00:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. As I've said at the ANI thread Ned Scott pointed out to you, I don't think your deletions are problmatic, but I did notive that you replied to him but haven't said anything at ANI. Given that you are still carrying out the deletions, might you consider leaving a note on ANI explaining how your deletions are different to those of East718? From what I can see, you are deleting genuinely orphaned redirects, and doing so slowly enough to manually review them. The larger question of whether this was discussed also needs answering, if you could say something about that. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 04:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been waiting all day for you to come and talk to me. You (and others) mentioned me several times in various places without ever coming to my talk page. I can't say that left me feeling too good. I'd be more than happy to discuss my deletions with you here or on my talk page, however, I will not be posting to AN/I. I'd be much more in favor of marking it as {{historical}}, but that's a discussion for a different day. ; - )

I am currently deleting orphaned talk page redirects. The redirects do not have any incoming links and are generally the result of page moves. They are all older than 14 days. If you have any further questions for me, please let me know. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wasn't actually aware (until Ned Scott posted) that you were actively carrying out deletions at the moment (that is what brought me to your talk page above). I was looking through East's logs, not yours! The previous references had been by others to you being one of several running admin bots. I did say, as soon as I saw Ned's post, that he should notify you, and he did. Next time you feel like this, please leave me a talk page message or come to ANI. No need to participate, but just make sure people know you are aware of the thread. I'm discomfited by the notion that admins being discussed at ANI would avoid ANI - that is not good.

As for the redirects, I think the indications there are that this sort of deletion is probably best put on hold until there is consensus that these types of redirects can be speedied. I would probably support a speedy for the sort you are deleting, but others wouldn't, and we need to respect that. So could I ask you to stop and participate in the discussion as to why these redirects should be deleted, or point to previous discussion of this? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 05:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason to stop simply because there's a fuss on AN/I. If I based my every edit and action on the drama the consistently plagues AN/I, I'd be stuck in the mud, permanently. You've said so yourself that the type of deletions that I'm doing are uncontroversial maintenance. Right now is a low point in site usage for both the time of day, and the week. There's no need to get in the way of RC patrollers at some later time when now is fine. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see that WP:CSD#G6 says the vague "cleaning up redirects". That is vague to the point of uselessness. There are many types of redirects, as I've said here. It is possible that CSD#G6 was only intended to apply to type 2A and 2B (broken redirects with only one edit). Also, did you see this comment by JLaTondre? I admit that your deletions are "cleaner" than the ones East did (his ones were not orphaned and included an exclusion for Wikipedia and User space backlinks), but still, there are others objecting, which is what I meant by "we need to respect that". I also asked if you could "point to previous discussion of this" - I presume that no link means there was no discussion about this? Or was there? Carcharoth (talk) 05:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Statistics tells me that 216,100,013 edits have been made to the English Wikipedia. There are thousands of discussions every month. I certainly haven't read all of them, but I'd be shocked if one hadn't been had about this subject previously. I will say that lack of discussion doesn't imply that the deletions are controversial, though. And I haven't read most of the background discussion about many of the criteria for speedy deletion. I don't think that implies that I'm unable to delete pages under them, does it?

A few members of the community (less than .00001%) seem to be making quite a large production about something related to redirects and deletions on AN/I. But from what I can tell, a lot of it is simply a battleground in a larger political war. I see many back and forth posts between you and Maxim which seem entirely irrelevant to the broader topic at hand. In fact, the original poster posted again wondering what had happened. He had wanted a discussion about adminbots and had gotten a discussion entirely dedicated to God-knows-what.

I refuse to be part of such pointless drama. We're here to build a free online encyclopedia, or at least that's what I'm told. I do my part by reviewing a lot of old pages that shouldn't have been created and I delete them. I regularly do a significant amount of maintenance work – I fail to see how any of this really involves me. And I also fail to see how the project as a whole, and its noble goal of compiling the sum of all human knowledge, is diminished by the deletion of old, orphaned redirects in the Talk: namespace.

This conversation seems to be becoming circuitous, so this shall be my final say on the matter. Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with large parts of what you have posted here - you are either mischaracterising or ignoring parts of the ANI thread where valid points have been raised. If the redirects were recreated or restored, they would not diminish or harm the encyclopedia. Conversely, deletion of these redirects does not help the encyclopedia and should (except in limited cases) be done through WP:RfD or not at all. Several editors at the ANI thread have said this, and several have raised problems that you continue to ignore. Here is another one, from Help:Redirect: "Keep links to a page active after it has been moved (even if internal links are updated, this still applies for links from outside; also for links in edit summaries)". And that will be my last word on the matter for now as well. Carcharoth (talk) 06:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record I tend to agree with MZ here. AN/I is basically broken and rather unproductive, there are some people who live there and turn everything into a major drama. Actions which improve the encyclopaedia which are from a user/reader point of view uncontroversial will always have my support, although I'll often debate on the detail. Orderinchaos 05:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The summary I wrote during that thread was meant to get things back under control. I think in some ways it did, but then again not many people actually responded directly to what I wrote in the summary. At the least, the summary is what I will look at when I seek to tie up loose ends, though as you say, I will probably do that away from ANI. Carcharoth (talk) 05:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the most part AN/I seems to be misunderstood by (generally non-admin) users as a place where one goes to defame one's enemies. The enemies then respond in like manner, and then they go for the death match in front of an audience, unaware that nobody is actually watching. It's like gladiatorial sports in text form, minus the audience. The actual % of admins who regularly use the thing would be an interesting percentage to calculate - several I know persistently ignore it because there's too much noise and sometimes no signal at all. Orderinchaos 06:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In response to your wondering about a comment to the effect that "Consider I have been stalked in the past" - it referred to real-life, calling-at-home, threatening-his-wife, making-fake-plane-tickets-implying-that-they-were-coming-to-his-city harassment.

Just so you know. DS (talk) 00:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks. It is unfortunate that wiki-stalking uses the same terminology, and that some people shorten that to "stalking". I certainly will be more careful how I use the phrase "wiki-stalking" in future, though I can't speak for others. Carcharoth (talk) 05:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, those are the ones still in the article. The others that are being added by DEn Broeder [5] are his own books. He claims that they're the "official" books of the tournament but provides no evidence. If they are the official books then, well, *shrug* but the fact that he's already been banned from nlwiki because of this spamming is suggestive. Black Kite 12:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Yeah, if Den Broeder's books are the official ones then fine, but (I must be getting cynical in my old age) I'd rather keep books added to an article by their author out of it until he proves that. Black Kite 12:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carcharoth, I'd like to see you comment at Vereniging Basisinkomen. Since I have a COI, there is not much more that I can do there, and I would hate to see a good article go because a user dislikes me. Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, the great cross-tabbing is done and there is a list of 700 images at User:Betacommand/Sandbox 3 that show images classed as both free AND non-free. Obviously, an image can only be one of the two, so if editors could go through and correct the images, striking them out on the master list it would be great. Thanks. MBisanz ^talk 03:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some wiki-gnome work! Thank goodness. :-) Though actually, images can contain free and non-free bits. Mainly a person taking a picture of a copyrighted sculpture. Needs a non-free tag for the sculpture, but also, because the photographer decides on angle of shot and lighting, they can release their bit under a GFDL (or other) license. Makes sense? Sorry I didn't mention this before! Carcharoth (talk) 06:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, some may validly have 2 tags. But most are screenshots that are in theory fairuse replaceable, or mistagging by uploader, or user of a FUR where none is needed, etc. I'd say valid uses are maybe 5%. MBisanz ^talk 07:10, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you even try, Carch? Dealing with this arbitration committee has, in my view, become little more than tilting at windmills and pissing into the wind. Why do you still try? You're a good community member, with lots of solid ideas on how to improve the community. Those on the arbcom aren't worthy of your time. They're chasing good contributors off right and left, both with their inaction (Betacommand), and their wildly misguided, antagonistic action (Giano). As I said, I can't figure out why you still try. Bellwether ^B_C 04:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because most of the people involved are, in fact, reasonable, even if some are stubborn, prideful, verbose, etc. There is, in all cases, a person behind the screen. We are not just words on a screen, though the impersonal nature of the medium is part of the problem. Carcharoth (talk) 06:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll turn that around and say: Carcharoth, why don't you just keep on trying, keep doing what you're doing, when people talk past your summarizations, try another summary, when people ignore your list of questions in favour of the convenient single answer, just regroup and try again. Basically, ummm, exactly what you've been doing, exactly the same way, only into the foreseeable future. Impact doesn't come overnight, but here's one who's ideas have changed from watching you. None of ArbCom, Beta, Giano nor a swathe of others are stupid, corrupt, malicious nor any other epithet. They are all people who care deeply about Wikipedia, however each in their own way, and all with due care to their own selves and self-images. As do we all. It's amazing that this project can possibly function, think about it - there are a million reasons why it shouldn't exist. Carch is one of the reasons why it should - keep on keeping on! Franamax (talk) 10:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to second Franamax's thoughts here. Your continued work on these challenging situations has made a difference that helps the individuals, the interrelating groups, and the encyclopedia. Do keep it up. Risker (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes please. Paul August ☎ 14:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll second Risker's praise - re your comments on my talk, perhaps I should have worded it better "your offer suggestion to provide commission stats" - either way, it'll still be eagerly taken up as a way of promising possible jam tomorrow rather than today. --Joopercoopers (talk) 14:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Hey, thanks all. I'll reply here in case this section gest out of control. It's nice to have the message bar light up like this for such nice messages. Doesn't take any time to deal with anything either! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 14:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  For the record, my initial post of this thread was intended as a compliment to your character, in case it was taken any other way. Bellwether ^B_C 23:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

For the support[6]. Narratives work better, I think, than bars and charts and arrows and timelines. Everyone involved is just a human at the other end of the screen...well, you said it better up above. Risker (talk) 05:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories basicly a dead project? It does not seem that anyone is watching / replying to the talk page entries. Dbiel ^(Talk) 05:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Replied over there. Carcharoth (talk) 06:56, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies to those who sent me e-mail. I only picked it up this morning, though lots of it was about yesterday. Will try and reply to the e-mails at some point later today/tonight. Carcharoth (talk) 07:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The page is no longer protected, and the discussion seems to be over. Would you do the honours? Regards, Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. It's not my intention to limit (reasonably civil) discussion (although I'm not certain where we should draw the line at which the behavior becomes outright harassment of the blocking admins). In any case, there are a number of technical means by which one can assist block evasion without modifying the original block, including proxying for the blocked user, playing games with autoblocks to allow the user to create a new account, and so forth. The general idea here is that, once properly blocked, the user would stay blocked, regardless of anything else.
2. I'm not sure why there'd need to be any agreement moreso than usual; all this does is reduce the pool of potential blockers to a very small group. Certainly, I would expect that anyone in the group would be mature enough to accept a difference of opinion.
3. Yes, I suppose that's true.

Kirill 14:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]