We had a poll. It came out strongly against Autoformatting. So why on earth haven't we removed the stupid Javascript that mangles linked dates, meaning that anyone who changed their preferences setting, thinking it only had to do with history pages of articles and the like, is going to get nasty, and sometimes ugly surprises.

Please get this undocumented surprise removed, or at least add a note about it to the preferences.

Seriously, it took a person five minutes to add the Javascript that started this whole misbegotten mess. It should take no longer to remove it, and restore proper function. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:59, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chill out - there's still an arbitration case to deal with. All will be sorted in good time - there's no need to rush things for the sake of rushing them. There's also a lot of dates that need fixing up before autoformatting of dates in articles can be turned off. At the minute, we'll have a sea of broken links if it's turned off. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 10:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not, there is no consensus for removing auto formatting. A narrow majority is not consensus. I strongly urge anyone thinking otherwise to read WP:CON until they get it through their heads that making divisive decisions like this on a slim majority is a very bad idea. Better to consider compromise approaches which may actually attain a true consensus from the community. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So, in other words, so that you can have date autoformatting in the *tiny minority* of articles that support it, I am unable to set my preerences so that the history tabs show my preferred date formatting without breaking things for myself when I see those articles? And woe betide anyone who likes 2009-05-08 in their history tabls! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan has said it all. The margin was not narrow, at 55 to 40%, with some neutrals. It comes after the same message was conveyed by the community in several previous RFCs. In addition, the removal of the obstructive syntax that turns dates blue will inevitably need to be addressed. Tony (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the definition of narrow Tony, and it definitely doesn't represent consensus. Please stop speaking for the community, your projections of your desire are the problem here. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

'Narrow or broad in the last RfC vote (Ryan's) is not all relevant, as that vote was not about dynamic dates but about the general concept of DA (at the insistence of Locke). DA by linking markup was deprecated three and a half months earlier. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That same RFC showed support for "some form" of auto formatting. As many of the issues with the current system can be fixed, it's more sensible to fix them rather than send out bots to make hundreds of thousands of edits to remove the markup (only to turn around and add it back when the bugs are fixed). —Locke Cole • t • c 02:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how anything is broken if the articles show dates in the format you desire. Can you explain? —Locke Cole • t • c 14:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The date preferences were originally meant to modify the appearance of dates in article histories. However, I am now unable to change this without changing dates in articles as well. At the moment, the original functionality is broken, unless you want articles modified as well - which might be fine if you want American or British dates, but if you wanted 2009-05-08 style, then you're going to face some very ugly articles.

In short, this unwanted and opposed feature prevents use of a desirable one. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be simpler to add a checkbox, "Format dates in articles as well"? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no interest about autoformatting, so I am speaking entirely as a disinterested party when I point out that it is established practice not to consider that a consensus exists for a proposal until at least two-thirds have voted for it, the more Wikipedians the better. If Jimmy Wales can't introduce Flagged Revisions with less than two-thirds approval, then we're stuck with autoformatting for the time being. Sorry. -- llywrch (talk) 18:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't think that removing code that already is discouraged from use by all policies and guidelines on the subject requires such. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• If a widespread, full-participation vote of at least two-thirds is required to have a consensus, then there was no consensus in the first place for Wikipedia to have begun using DynamicDates, nor was there three years ago when Wikipedia started using the IEC prefixes like “kibibyte (KiB)” instead of the “kilobyte (KB)” everyone else on the planet uses when communicating to a general-interest audience. Since there was no consensus in the first place to begin using the IEC prefixes, it wouldn’t have taken a two-thirds supermajority vote to undo that myopic, ill-considered move and bring Wikipedia in line with the rest of the planet. The Wikipedians who wanted to adopt a futuristic proposal from the IEC on a “new, unambiguous” set of binary prefixes all certainly had good intentions: something along the lines of helping improve the world by leading by example©™®. But the lesson learned was that, like all other encyclopedias, Wikipedia follows the way the world really works in order to communicate to its readership with minimal confusion.

  As for turning on DynamicDates and making linking of dates be responsive to users’ preference settings, there was no “consensus” by the community in any shape, form, or fashion to turn that thing on in the first place. Like the IEC prefixes (kibibyte, mebibyte), it was thrust upon us by a small cabal (developers in this case) without community input. Well intentioned, perhaps, as it was intended to eliminate edit warring by editors who couldn’t act like grownups. But it was an unwise move as it ended up in creating outright junky looking text for our I.P. users. It is they (I.P. users are 99.99% of our readership) that we are really here for. Exceedingly few humans on this planet are 1) registered editors who 2) keep logged in after thirty days, and 3) set their date preferences to something other than “no preference.” It’s not about us. Since there was no wide consensus of Wikipedians to make the decision to start up DynamicDates (there was no consensus at all), it does not now enjoy the privilege of magically being grandfathered in where only a supermajority can undo it—that is the exact same argument one last “IEC prefix” hold-out is still making. A simple, clear majority is all that is required to give DynamicDates the boot. It is absurd to think that one or two developers acting on their own initiative can start something but a clear majority is powerless to undo it; that is an utterly bankrupt notion.

  The reason Wikipedia doesn’t define “consensus” purely in terms of shear vote tallies is that “consensus” comprises a variety of factors, including how widespread the participation is and how widely it was advertised, how logical and meritorious the arguments are, how consistent the logic is in one camp or the other, and how thoroughly the issue has been worked and how much voter fatigue there is. We’ve done the best we can do and have gone as far as we can go. One option that would be worse of all is declare that the “wining” side actually loses, and an unwise move by one or two individuals must always be grandfathered in unless it can be overridden with an overwhelming supermajority in a high-profile RfC. Such arguments make no sense and have zero credibility.

  Moreover, this latest ArbCom-sponsored RfC doesn’t supersede the previous RfCs; it supplements them, and RfC results like this one add more insight into what the community thinks. The teachings of all the RfCs makes it exceedingly clear that most Wikipedian’s want DynamicDates turned off and think that editors should look at the exact same article content that our I.P. users see. That is the will of the community. Whining by the losing side is just that: whining.

  Getting to Shoemaker's Holiday’s point and Ryan’s response: yeah, what Ryan said. Patience. Greg L (talk) 21:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Heh. I thought you were ignoring my comments -- as well as those of countless more -- Greg. -- llywrch (talk) 23:21, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FFS, the problem with all the polls and RFCs is that they're hopelessly vague. The poll showed that a small majority opposes the "general idea of date autoformatting." If you want date autoformtting in its current state to be disabled, just have a poll that addresses the issue directly: Should MediaWiki's dynamic dates feature be disabled for the English Wikipedia. Have the poll, and if the result indicates that it should be disabled, file a bug. Mr.Z-man 23:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Too late. The last poll was most certainly not vague; it was very clear. It asked the question: “Does the Wikipedia community support the concept of date autoformatting?” We can trust the community to have an attention span sufficient to last ten words (in bold, no less). The answer: No. And a Bugzilla has been filed to turn autoformatting off. And, no, we don’t need to go back to the community (again) and ask “Now… are you really, really sure you want some developer to set the fnangle dangle binary screw-pooch invertotron nano-black hole parameter to ‘false’?” Like Ryan pointed about above, Wikipedia must first get its editorial house in order to fix dates that would look like utter crud when autoformatting (DynamicDates) is turned off.

  Ryan has been in the middle of all this from the beginning and understands all the technical issues, what has transpired, and what needs to transpire to move forward. He’s been given the responsibility of managing this circus, so let’s all not stand over his shoulder and give him all sorts of advise while he’s kneeling in the dirt actually doing the work of tightening the lug nuts. Greg L (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• A link to the bug would have sufficed, but thanks for the hostility. Mr.Z-man 01:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Oops… ♬ sorry♩. I didn’t intend for hostility to come across. The green-text passage was intended as humorous, in fact. That’s one of the shortcomings of written prose: someone’s mood can be hard to discern. I was not angry when I wrote the above—I was just intent on plain-speak. Greg L (talk) 02:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Since you like plain speaking, in simple English according to policy, getting a majority in a poll means nothing. However, Wikipedia doesn't go quite as far as Meatball Wiki in claiming voting is evil.-- llywrch (talk) 23:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lurch, you linked to "Polling is not a substitute for discussion" and called it "policy". However, it is not WP:POLICY but a WP:GUIDELINE. I'm sure it was an inadvertent mistake on your part.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 11:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Rangeblocks enabled again. Black Kite 14:51, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Bambifan socks are getting very active again and he has now lowered himself to blatant wikistalking, deliberately seeking out myself and a few other editors who have been active in dealing with him to call attention to himself and get noticed so he gets blocked.[1][2] (diffs just from today's current sock) I'm having to keep my userpage in a pretty much permanent state of semi-protection because of his actions, and I suspect User:Cactusjump‎ may join me soon. In one of his recent IP socks, he made a vicious personal attack on his talk page that has since been deleted. He also claimed he wants to "go on a killing spree"[3] He is also continuing his favorite trick of hitting with an IP and a named account back to back so often times only one gets reverted leaving the actual vandalism behind until someone checks the contribs of both (with some missed for days and weeks). Its been mentioned before, and done before, but I think it is really time to get some more range blocks in place. Even if it only slows him down, its still better than nothing.

From the last week or so:

• Madagascar Esape 2 Africa (talk · contribs) - today
• 70.146.241.63 (talk · contribs), Mooveeeingfox (talk · contribs), 65.0.182.144 (talk · contribs) - yesterday (7th)
• Dreampapertotalwatch (talk · contribs), 70.146.201.104 (talk · contribs) - 6th
• The Seventh Brother (talk · contribs), Legalnotes, powerbrokes (talk · contribs) - 5th, double named socks doing the regular ip/named combo trick
• Hopeuwinforever (talk · contribs) - 3rd
• 68.220.190.5 (talk · contribs) - Apr 30th

-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I have re-enabled or extended all four rangeblocks for six months. This will undoubtedly cause a minor amount of collateral but we can always IPBX registered accounts caught in the ranges. Black Kite 14:51, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He's hit again under a new IP. User:98.225.100.59 and reactived an old sock that had gone unblocked User:Okapi7. 00:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agnapostate (talk · contribs)

An IP has requested unprotection of the above user's TP. After a bit of perusing it as well as reading the block log, I am of the feeling that unprotecting that page would not be helpful at this time; however, he does not seem to think he's banned (indeed, his unprot request states he seeks to appeal an "indefinite block". I have two questions here:

1. Would it be prudent to unprotect the talk page, since he stated that he was unaware that private correspondence wasn't to be posted on WP and he has stated he will not do it again, and
2. Should we consider this user banned, and not blocked, since his block is currently running on 8 mo.?

I've no opinion on the latter, except that it affects the former. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Cardmaker)} 05:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point in doing this on the request of an IP, but if the user logs in and requests it, I would have no objections. Stifle (talk) 16:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agnapostate cannot edit whatsoever because he's blocked and his userpage is fully-protected. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Cardmaker)} 04:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The ban doesn't permit any editing. 71.103.106.177 (talk) 04:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this needs any action, but at Talk:Triple Goddess we have an editor who has not only been making personal attacks but has now said " this entire discussion is quite possibly going to be featured in a documentary/student film." and I am wondering if his posts have simply been trolling to get an effect. Dougweller (talk) 05:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The filmmakers must be really desperate if they are seeking talk page discussions as content for their work. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Non-admin comment: I don't think that 68.19.97.110 (talk · contribs) has yet crossed the line, but he/she's worth monitoring. Being "featured in a documentary/student film" may, ultimately, be a plus for Wikipedia. Deor (talk) 05:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. A GFDL film.... - Nunh-huh 06:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it would have to be if they are using GFDL comments. I can't imagine how much fun they'll have including the entire GFDL in the credits roll, too. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

n.b. I don't want to go into specific cases here, I'm more interested in the bigger picture. If a user gets blocked and / or banned, for, say, civility issues, then sockpuppets to get around that ban, writing constructively for the encyclopaedia, is deletion of that content by an admin (after the charade is revealed) always unavoidable / automatic? Is it a point of principle to accept a little collateral damage in order to discourage sockpuppeting? Or can the content be userfied by an admin, reviewed by a "good" editor, and then put back into mainspace? I'm interested to find out what the guidelines are in this area, feel free to fire three letter links at me. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 08:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a question that should be posted to the Helpdesk; there are knowledgeable editors who are not necessarily admins (on this page you might find admins who are not necessarily knowledgeable) who can point you toward the policies and guidelines you are looking for. The short answer is that, yes, good information can be harvested from a banned users socks - but there needs to be accountability. The helpdesk will give you better details. LessHeard vanU (talk) 09:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I just thought admins might be better placed to give de facto answers on the topic, as they're the ones actually doing the deleting and userfying. De jure might be the way to go though, so I'll direct knowledgeable admins to the help desk. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 13:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Was doing my usual stumbling around WP at 4 am and came across this name (Lukas zpira in the category living persons. Looking at the article, I can see why the notability warning is on there, but a quick google search comes up with 12k+ results. I think with clean-up, it will remain. Reason for this notice is because it looks like the page Lukas Zpira has been protected from creation (based on a copyvio in 2006 according to the note.) In order for this page to conform to naming standards (i.e. capitalization of names), any chance we can get that page unprotected and Lukas zpira moved to the appropriate location (with a redirect left at the old page of course)? Thanks!Gnowor^Talk2Me_{did wha?} 12:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea why this was protected (with only one deleted version) but you might want to ask the protecting administrator, RHaworth (talk · contribs), directly to unprotect it. Regards SoWhy 12:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sod that; I've moved it. Clearly uncontroversial. Stifle (talk) 14:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not see any reason for controversy as well but I was wondering why a page was protected with only one deleted version. There might have been some reason behind that... SoWhy 16:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was deleted as a copyvio and protected due to "persistent self-promotion". I think the page we have got over those problems. Stifle (talk) 16:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the word "controversial" from the lede, since there are no 3rd party sources for use of that term. In fact, there are no 3rd party sources at all, which is problematic for a BLP. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 21:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Barnstar awarded. — Jake Wartenberg 00:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Free barnstar for whichever sysop closes WP:DRV#Red_cunt_hair! (Void in RI. No purchase necessary. No cash alternative. No edit warring.) Stifle (talk) 14:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done, although it wasn't fun. I've closed the DRV as deletion endorsed. The AfD was within the discretionary range and I was not convinced by the arguments for a "no consensus" close. TNXMan 15:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, does anyone here know how to mark a page as patrolled? Veraladeramanera (talk) 15:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Help:Patrolled edit - the link only exists if you follow an unpatrolled link from Special:NewPages (those with yellow background). Regards SoWhy 16:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have been as yet unable to find an answer to this question, but it requires some admin help, so: interwiki links from the pt wiki were inlined into an article here on en, and I believe that those other articles are nn, and there's a case to be made for COI and a few other things as well. So, I'd like to AfD them, but I don't know Portuguese, so I can't do it myself. Generally speaking, is there some way to find admins on here who are also on other wikis to help with language issues like this? MSJapan (talk) 15:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can find users from pt-wiki willing to help at Wikipedia:Local Embassy#Português (for example Beria (talk · contribs) is an admin at pt-wiki and Husond (talk · contribs) and Kungfuadam (talk · contribs) are admins here). Regards SoWhy 16:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Someguy1221 redirected one to the other. hmwithτ 23:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is the story with Naomi King and Naomi Rachel? Looks like identical pages to me. Should one be a redirect in such a case? Debresser (talk) 22:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I redirected to the newer one. Both were created by the same user in pretty close proximity, but no edits to Naomi Rachel were made after creating Naomi King. Presumably, the article's creator simply didn't know how to move a page, or couldn't because they were not autoconfirmed. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:47, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds plausible. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 22:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is an edit war going on in the 1990's article, You might want to take a look at it. thanks South Bay (talk) 00:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see the IP has been blocked for 31 hours. It is apparently a sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked account. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:06, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Checkusers are already aware of this and are handling it accordingly --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 03:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following was apparently sent to a Wikipedia administrator who is now inactive and who prefers to remain anonymous. It was passed to me through an intermediary who wishes to keep his own name and his account name out of this. I generally trust that intermediary, and believe this to be exactly what it appears to be.

Begin forwarded message.

From: Wp freedom fighter <wikifreedomfighter@googlemail.com>

To: [redacted]

Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2009 7:14:22 AM

Subject: Wikipedia e-mail

Dear [redacted],

We notice you haven't edited Wikipedia for some time. Perhaps you grew disillusioned with the project after seeing the corruption and bureaucracy at every level? If so, why not help us to help you. We are currently expanding our portfolio of administrator accounts, and as yours remains dormant perhaps you could consider donating it to us - to do so will take you only two minutes: change the password (if desired) and then reply to this email with your login details. We'll do the rest!

Thank you for your time and consideration, and naturally do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,

The Wikipedia Freedom Fighters

----

This e-mail was sent by user "Wp freedom fighter" on the English Wikipedia to user "[redacted]". It has been automatically delivered and the Wikimedia Foundation cannot be held responsible for its contents.

The sender has not been given any information about your e-mail account and you are not required to reply to this e-mail. For further information on privacy, security, and replying, as well as abuse and removal from emailing, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Email>.

End forwarded message.

It seems likely to my correspondent (and to me) that someone wishes to hijack an account with administrative privileges to use in a manner counter to the interests of Wikipedia and/or the Wikimedia Foundation. This target turned them down, but there may be other such targets.

At the very least, if this can be taken at face value, User:Wp freedom fighter - an account that exists but has never edited - is up to no good, and we should probably investigate what IP addresses that account has used and who that account may have contacted by email.

Also, we should be on the lookout for any long-dormant account with administrator privileges that comes back to life and behaves maliciously. Quite possibly, we should proactively contact anyone with long-dormant administrator accounts, let them know this has been going on, and make it clear to them that they would be responsible for anything done by someone operating under their account. - Jmabel | Talk 03:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That very last bit seems unnecessary. I'd like to think that administrators, even retired/semi-retired ones, have the good sense not to give out their passwords; no need to give them a templated warning not to. –xeno ^talk 03:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the report! The checkusers are aware of such e-mails being send and we're investigating it accordingly. --Deskana, Champion of the Frozen Wastes 03:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that Template:R from other capitalisation's TfD was closed without seeking wider community input. For a template that affects so many pages (around 263,120), I believe that an RfC, a post at the Village Pump, or something should be done in order to get more people aware of what is happening. We all know that TfD and CfD have very low traffic to their respective pages. Granted that this discussion had more users involved than the average subject in those discussion pages, I just feel like the more people involved the better. So I'm asking that this discussion be unclosed, or reopened or something. Additionally, at this very moment a bot is running that is removing the template from all the redirect pages and putting Category:Unprintworthy redirects on them. Perhaps this bot could be stopped, at least for a bit? Killiondude (talk) 03:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked Erik9 to pause this task while we mull this over. –xeno ^talk 03:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there is an absolute necessity to remove the category, all 28 templates should simply be modified as redirects to the unprintworthy template instead of editing 260k+ pages. That will still allow bots to still detect the redirect type. This still doesn't solve the issue of editors removing redirects and replacing them with piped links though, which is what this template helps mitigate, see [4] Tothwolf (talk) 03:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For that fact, this type of change [5] isn't what was discussed at all, I assumed the bot was adding {{R unprintworthy}}, not the category directly... Tothwolf (talk) 03:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At very minimum, it is a huge waste of resources to edit every affected page rather than just redirect the template. --ThaddeusB (talk) 12:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(break)

I have a number of concerns with this issue, none of which have yet been addressed. As I previously pointed out at the TfD, [6] CfD and TfD both do not get enough coverage from the wider community for this issue to be addressed properly in either of those venues.

The template itself is very much in active use as of this very moment, see Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Redirects from other capitalisations

I find it troubling Erik9 began an immediate removal of the template with Erik9bot less than an hour after he closed the TfD as a delete. It's clear he did not fully read the entire discussion or research this issue before starting this task. There were lots of 'per nom' and WP:IDL "votes" but still little in the way of discussion of a working alternative to this template and category. Because this is an unusual case and because Erik9bot has only recently been granted approval for TfD work I still can't fault Erik9 too much.

Many other things should have taken place before even attempting such a deletion, and while the actual discussion leaned more towards redirection, none of these address the issues that this template and category were created to address.

There are 1000s of editors actively adding this template, by hand, using functionality in AutoWikiBrowser and Friendly, and probably other tools as well.

There are multiple bots [7] that currently add this template to redirects, and the officially approved bot, BOTijo is still hard at work.

This template and category are used for at least two tasks...

1. The template informs editors that this redirect should not be replaced with a piped link [8] and
2. The template and category are used by projects such as Version 1.0 Editorial Team and the Book tool when generating offline readable content.

This template (and others) have gone though previous TfD discussions [9] and as pointed out by Michael Z.: "These help clarify the purpose of redirects, and keep editors from mistakenly deleting or changing them. Unfortunately during some MediaWiki upgrade they stopped displaying on the redirect page. Is it possible to make them show up again?"

I also want to state for the record that while I do not think it was appropriate to send the category used by this template to CfD instead of taking it to the Village pump and seeking wider input via a RFC, I do not have a grudge against MZMcBride for his nomination of the category at CfD. This is something he has accused me of today off-wiki.

--Tothwolf (talk) 01:06, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The TfD seemed straightforward enough, and there was little support for keeping the template. (In fact, only one voter used the word 'Keep' in their statement, though other options were proposed). It was hard to understand what function the template actually provides. If that decision stands, then it still does not seem necessary to edit all 262,000 redirects to change or remove the existing template. Causing the template to redirect to something else would be less work. A temporary halt to all bots (both those that add the template and those that remove it) might be logical. I was one of those who suggested that the task of the bot that ADDS the template be de-authorized, and then others proposed a TfD of the template as the right way to handle the situation. EdJohnston (talk) 03:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Question answered. Oren0 (talk) 07:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I was wondering if a user could get away with being User:Administrator is that user was indeed an administrator. Same with User:Bureaucrat (obviously non-existant).--Launchballer (talk) 05:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. Per WP:USERNAME:

Your username should not give the impression that your account has permissions which it does not have. Thus it should not contain the terms "administrator", "bureaucrat", "steward", "checkuser", "oversight" or similar terms like "admin", "sysop" or "moderator", or end with "bot", which is used to identify bot accounts.

This is a pretty hand-and-fast rule. Since people need to have accounts for some time before becoming admins, it's not possible unless there was a username change after adminship. The name User:Administrator would imply that the given person was the only administrator or that the person speaks for all admins, so I can't imagine that'd be a name change anyone would process. Oren0 (talk) 07:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I'm not sure where else to go. I tried WP:VP/M, but didn't get much reply there.

What does it mean, to feed a troll? I've noticed that experienced Wikipedians disagree, and we don't seem to have much guidance in the project namespace or at meta:. WP:DFTT is a soft redirect to a page at meta, and if we look there, we're referred to WP:DENY, but that page was about getting rid of our huge shrines to specific vandals. Trolling situations seem to me to be quite different from that.

Trolls want to provoke a response, and maybe a fight, right? Is giving them the response and the fight they want a good idea? My own approach is to kill them with boredom, which I find to work, but I've been savagely attacked by other established editors for doing it. (This leads to a curious paradox where I say, "see it worked, he went away" and receive the reply, "it didn't work; he just got bored w/ your nonsense and went away".)

The contrary position seems to hold that anything other than "revert, block, ignore" constitutes feeding. This position seems to assume that we can successfully identify trolls, and I'm a little concerned about false positives.

Is there an empirical or objective way to decide this question, or is it even a question worth asking? Opinions? -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think they just wanna waste people's time for LULZ, which is basically a huge pain. So I think troll food is basically feeding their egos and falling into their traps. They wanna be talked about here so they can brag to their loser troll friends about it. Personally, I think its all just a substitution for the sex none of them are getting but that's just me. :-) Anywai, just ignore them. If you don't they'll figure out some way to harass you. There's some pretty nasty people out there, sociopaths and stuff. :-(Iggy pop goes the weasel (talk) 06:45, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not asking for advice for myself, really. I'm quite comfortable handling so-called trolls. However, I think it would be smart for us to somehow document this question, in a way that we do not currently. We pretend to have a policy about this, but we haven't actually got one. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Troll with shortcomings 2.jpg suggests that your theory may be correct. Cheers, This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 12:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll bite: Are you trying to provoke a response here? Is that not a curious paradox itself? Isn't the objective definition "someone who is satisfied by demonstrations in acknowledgement of their effort to contribute," or just "someone who is looking for attention to their contributions, period"? Either way, isn't that just the same as everyone here? Putting myself at the risk of becoming the proud nail, what about false negatives? Steveozone (talk) 07:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, what's the harm in a false negative? If someone asks a trolling question, and I answer it without becoming upset, what harm is done? The harm from a false positive seems very clear to me; not so much the false negative. -GTBacchus^(talk) 12:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Billy goats, isn't it? LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Funny you should ask. Usually the best way to handle trolls is to ignore them altogether. Occasionally (for the very brave) it's possible to troll them back. Despite the green rubbery exterior, most trolls are exceptionally thin skinned. Ideally one sets them to work trolling each other. Then their energies and anger dissipate harmlessly. This is very good for the rest of the Internet's denizens, and even amusing to watch. Remember: there's a little troll in all of us. Cheers, _Hamlet, Prince of Trollmark^{bugs and goblins} 14:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My preferred response to a question, if I think it might be a troll, is polite and informative. If another editor then posts "OMG WTF DFTT", I don't think it's me that's giving the troll the attention they crave. I realise this is pretty much what GTBacchus said above, but hey. Maybe we need a three wise monkeys approach: see no trolls, hear no trolls... SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:57, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or is that three wise ostriches? Better to (when necessary) deflect attention from the troll and correct the trolling. Comment on the edit, not the editor.LeadSongDog come howl 15:44, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See, this is what I'm asking about. That was cryptic. Why can't we state our advice for dealing with trolls aloud and clearly? What do you mean by "deflect attention from the troll and correct the trolling?" How does one "correct" trolling, and what has that got to do with, "Comment on the edit, not the editor?" I know people for whom those are contradictory statements. That's the kind of ambiguous language that people will interpret in diametrically opposite ways, leading to unnecessary conflict.

What does "when necessary" mean? What if there's no edit, but rather a question on a talk page, "Why doesn't this article explain about [ethnicity] being dishonest and stupid?" Do you block that person, and call them a racist? Do you answer their question? ("Please see race and intelligence for information on that question. If you have a specific edit that you propose making in this article, what is it?")

I know what I do, but we don't seem to provide any guidance in the form of guidelines or policies. A consequence of this is that some areas are inevitably dominated by people who are "doing it wrong" - whatever that means - and I think that results in harm to the project. This is all just food for thought, I guess, because I'm not seeing any particular thing to do about it. I'm interested in what others think. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – speedy deleted by Closedmouth. --ThaddeusB (talk) 12:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure of the proper venue for this, so I'm just posting it here.

New user User:CheepSk8 has posted a user subpage that is a spam advertisement for an arcade game website. User:CheepSk8/Books/Games.

Just bringing this to the community's attention so that someone can take the appropriate action. McJeff (talk) 06:50, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tagged as spam.--CalendarWatcher (talk) 08:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Tags removed by original user. Oren0 (talk) 07:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really THAT new here, or at least I read a bunch of these policies some nice person left on my talk page a while go. Anyway, so I wrote my fist article and I thought I did a good job, but someone put a speedy delete tag on it. When I tried to ask him on his talk page about it he just did this [10] deleted my message and ignored me. I don't know what I did wrong but tht seems kinda rude, no? If I was gonna try and get some page deleted I'd at least be willing to discuss it with them. The article has three independent sources so I dont even see why it should be deleted anyway. Iggy pop goes the weasel (talk) 07:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC) Anyway Ima goin to bed so I'll come back and see if my articles is gone in the morning. :-/ Iggy pop goes the weasel (talk) 07:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The user has removed the tags he/she placed on the article, so no harm there. As for the removal of your question, the user has a big disclaimer on the top of his/her talk page that says to discuss such matters on the article's talk page. It's not the most civil thing in the world to remove a question from your user page without explanation, but there's nothing strictly wrong with it either. For future reference, it would help if you'd link to the article in question (here and on a user's talk page) so we all know what you're talking about. Oren0 (talk) 07:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is called "shit and run", and many people do it to any new article that appears in recent changes that doesn't spring fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. It's definitely a violation of WP:CIVIL, and usually also WP:BITE. Jtrainor (talk) 16:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd guess that your statement itself would probably not be what WP:CIVIL is hoping for... – Toon^(talk) 16:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends though. The user doesn't say that they won't discuss the tag at all, only that they'd prefer to discuss it on the article talk page. The discussion is more visible there anyway. I'm not sure what harm there is in replying to the message on your user talk saying "I'll answer you on article talk" but that's a style issue I suppose. I do agree that it's a tad WP:BITEy but I don't believe it's outside accepted norms. Oren0 (talk)

Toon, do you deny that this happens frequently? Jtrainor (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if this action seemed rude, but the reason I removed the question was to continue the discussion on the talk page. This makes sense as people needing to follow the discussion can see it all in the one place, rather than going to a handful of user talk pages.

As for your article – a few times a day I have a quick look at new articles, and weed out what appears to be articles without enough notability to remain. At first glance, your article had only a few lines of text without references, and I tagged it for that reason. However, very soon after I saw it had expanded with good references and removed the speedy tag. Can I suggest adding the ‘under construction’ tag for new articles, or making mention that you are adding refs in the edit summary. I now do this, as I myself have had my article tagged or deleted as I was slow putting in references.
Welcome to WP, and I’m sure we’ll meet again.--Dmol (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or create your article in a user subpage where you can get into shape for the mainspace before moving it there. – ukexpat (talk) 00:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – page undeleted by Stephen! --ThaddeusB (talk) 12:26, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I deleted a page Shot heard round the world, as there was a lot of copied material from [11]. I removed all the copied material, and as there was hardly anything left, I deleted it. However, I then started having doubts. I wondered if it was that this site was a mirror site to Wikipedia, in which case the material on the article was not a copyright infringement, and my deletion was an error. Could someone please do a check for me, either on the article's validity or my sanity? Thank you! Stephen! ^Coming... 11:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The content provided on AbsoluteAstronomy.com is aggregated from a variety of content providers." I'd say mirror. --Stephen 11:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the content of this page has been disseminated on dozens of sites at least. Just a mirror among others. No doubt, the page has 612 revisions, has been heavily modified along the years, should be restored. Cenarium (talk) 11:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, I've restored the page and removed the CSD notice now. Stephen! ^Coming... 12:06, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi admins,

I suspect my post was accidentally archived - it had not been commented nor acted upon.

Thanks,

Hunterd is back! 20:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, next time don't place your report in a collapsed box - it's a great way to have it ignored and archived without comment ;> –xeno ^talk 20:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

 – Lag is all better now. — Jake Wartenberg 00:43, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone know what's up with the huge srver lag? Conversation at village pump. Thanks. Athanasius • Quicumque vult 22:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to the latest edition of the Wikipedia Signpost, Wikimania 2010 will feature "creative outing plans." I demand that all en.wikipedia users unite to foil this blatant violation of WP:OUTING. Deor (talk) 23:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At least they're being creative about it. I hate the same old boring WP:OUTINGs.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As another editor has expressed concern over ListasBot 3's approved functions (in short, whether or not talk pages of redirects should be replaced with a redirect to the new talk page), I've set up a discussion on how to proceed with this bot. Input would be appreciated. The discussion is at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3.

Thanks, Matt (talk) 02:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's kinda hard not to see leading questions like this, spammed onto over a hundred WikiProject talk pages, as ballot-stuffing. Hesperian 02:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I probably could have phrased that better...but since the objecting editor indicated that WikiProjects were the ones that were primarily using the talk pages in question, I felt that I should give them some sort of notice. Matt (talk) 02:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you spam over a hundred talk pages? Just because a few people don't like your bot? WTF were you thinking?! Hesperian 02:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well let's see here...I posted a notice at WP:VPP when the bot was going through the approvals process, and no one responded to it. So let's say I'm sick of asking for consensus on something and having no one answer me. Matt (talk) 02:59, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to alert administrators about two users (possibly one user with two accounts) who have continually been uploading blatant copyvio images, despite receiving dozens of warnings/notices regarding Wikipedia's policy on such images. Not sure if this is the place to report it or if there's a specific place for reporting repeat copyvio offenders...? —BMRR (talk) 04:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]