Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive100

This Talk Page is well overdue for consideration. Please could the issues raised there be addressed. Otherwise everyone is wasting their time posting there. David Lauder 17:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Established editors have determined to delete The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc. and enforced the decision in deletion review: [1]. However, without consensus or any comment on the talk page, user:IPSOS has now unlilaterally merged the majority of what was that article into the main Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn article and reversed a decision made by editors previous in consideration for the neutrality of Wikipedia made a year ago here: Talk:Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn/Archive 3 . It seems clear to me that user:IPSOS is more interested in portraying a partisan view of the contemporary direction of the historical organization (which bears no direct historical relation to the original Order)rather than in reaching a stance of neutrality for Wikipedia and for the main article, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. As it even says at the top of the article "this article is about the historical organization of the 19th century." I take that back. User:IPSOS has now changed this as well against previous consensus. He says on the talk page that consensus can change, but one user is not enough for consensus. He didn't even start a discussion on it before making such edits which I would consider disruptive. Can someone take a look at this behavior? Kephera975 18:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I edit mostly science articles, and I don’t know how many times I’ve had to go looking for a science-related admin to help with a page move, topic specific help, or what-ever. With this in mind, I would suggest grouping admins by category (as well as by the alphabetized list). Basically, a Wikipedia:List of administrators of 1,100+ admins really doesn’t help editors find the help they need. In addition, with the growing number of admins, I would suggest that there is some effort using (requiring to have) admins that are knowledgeable in certain articles (or afds) to resolve issues (or close) in those areas to which they edit in or have knowledge in. An admin who was a degree in the history of science, for instance, would be well-trained to close on science history related afds, rather than random admins. In sum, I suggest that admins be categorized in some way and that there be some effort in the future to have admins close on afds to which he or she has knowledge in. In this manner, countless hours of volunteer work of well-intentioned editors can be spared, through needless mistakes. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 00:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

We're janitors, not golden robed priests. We don't need to be a historical expert to see that an AfD on The Ascent of Austrian Royalty shows a strong consensus to keep, etc. Categorizing by skills like 'history merges', 'AFD closers', 'Speedy deleters', etc would be more useful, if you were to do such. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 05:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest asking at the relevant wikiproject; most of those have a bunch of admins involved. >Radiant< 09:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, Radiant and I agree on something. Yeah! Find the appropriate project from the project list and ask them for help. Start here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Directory.Rlevse 10:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the loose ideas. The issue, however, is not just about afds; a grouping would be useful for subtleties, e.g. admins who like doing cleanup in the image categories, admins who like doing page moves, admins who can see the sub-topic (i.e. topic specific) issues in drawn-out edit wars, admins who like doing page protects, etc. I spend enough time as it is on project pages, this really doesn’t help speed the process. A good point to start would be a proposal to have all admins categorize themselves, beyond the standard:

• Category:Wikipedia administrators
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (science)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (who like doing page protects)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (who like to mediate)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (history)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (who like to help in troll issues)
• Category:Wikipedia administrators (images)

These are just rough ideas, but aren’t editors and administrators supposed to work together? Thus, when I see comments such as “maybe we should hide our mops for a while”, etc., I see an elusive wall building. Adding categories would help break down the wall, i.e. bring more of a connection between administrators and the editors. This is an idea (clean-up project) that I was hoping that one or two admins would take the lead on and get the other admins involved. --Sadi Carnot 17:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a very terrible idea, but I suppose the bureacracy watchers will disagree? :) Seriously though - if you asked me about page moves or history merges I'd have to point you to someone else, but I can more or less deal with vandalism, page protections and images, for example. ~ Riana ⁂ 17:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any harm in administrators categorising themselves as such, as long as there is no requirement to do so. I wouldn't say this is bureaucratic if there are no requirements or prerequisites to placing yourself in such a category. Of course, we'd have to work on the above names, as calling an administrator to help with a "troll" might be quite insulting if such a person isn't a troll.

WP:CREEP wouldn't apply... as they're on categories, not instructions. --Deskana (banana) 17:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest:

WRE) 18:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the purpose of more categories. Everyone knows I'm an admin, that should be enough... besides, there's very little a regular editor can't do when it comes to plain article editing. An expert user is the same as an expert admin. David Fuchs ^(talk) 18:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My inner smartass couldn't resist.[2] Durova^Charge! 06:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Here’s an example of where an editor was looking for Iranian admins to ask for a Farsi spelling. From the discussion, we see that admin categories are very useful for users (or serious editors) in need of janitorial assistance, i.e. clean-up things they can’t do on their own, because they don’t have admin tools. As User:Lar (admin) puts it: "It is useful to know who the admins are and categories have advantages over lists". --Sadi Carnot 13:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

One wonders why said user could not have asked a normal editor at

WP:IRAN if he was after someone who spoke Farsi. Oh indeed checked Category:User fa. Is there some reason why only administrators are fit to pronounce on spellings? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 14:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

One doesn't need administrative tools to do translations, though. Couldn't such questions be addressed by, say, the

Languages Reference Desk? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like this idea at all. --Cyde Weys 14:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of being an admin then if you’re not willing to make yourself available (by category) for users who need your help? --Sadi Carnot 14:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason not to have some categories,, just as for admins who will userify articles on request. DGG (talk) 21:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Being an admin has nothing to do with specific knowledge categories. Admins have the special ability to do a few special things, none of which have to do with actual content. I don't see the point, what is worse is that I see people taking an admin's(science) opinion of a user's(science) opinion.

The categories relating to specific type of behavioral problems may be handy, I seem to remember there was a cat for admins who would deal with heated issues, forgot what it is though. (

('Stop') : ('Go')) 21:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to bother you but I am halfway through filing a WP:SOCK and cannot finish the process because the title is messed up. I am at the point where I now need to label the puppet pages and the puppetmaster page with the templates. However, the title is fouled up somehow -- instead of reading "Jebbrady (2nd)" it's got brackets and whatnot, see here. Please, if anyone can fix it so it reads correctly, I can finish this process by giving the puppetmaster/puppets a good working link via the mandatory templates, which I've been struggling with for more than an hour. I'm sorry if I should have gone somewhere else instead of WP:AN. -- Lisasmall 20:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Better? --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

AnonEMouse, there are no words for my gratitude; thank you so much. -- Lisasmall 20:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! is pretty good. LessHeard vanU 22:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

 – I'm working with Vanilla2 & the others to resolve this without password sharing - Alison ☺ 04:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a member named Vanilla2, who wants to change his/her signature. But he/she can't figure it out. So what User:Hornetman16 wants to do is send an e-mail and get his/her password and do it for him/her. Would this be OK? Cheers, JetLover ^(talk) 21:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope it is.--Hornetman16 ^(talk) 21:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Giving away your password is not a good thing to do. Also, instructions can be found at

WP:SIG#Customizing_your_signature. Good luck, Navou ^banter 23:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

We know it's not a good idea or thing to do but is it against policy is what we want to know.--Hornetman16 ^(talk) 02:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's probably just a bad idea. Something to consider is creating a sandbox for code/examples, and asking the user to copy and paste the code into their signature preferences. Do you know exactly what issues from

WP:SIG#Customizing your signature the user is having a hard time with?-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

From the looks of Vanilla2's talk page, this is basically resolved. An admin is already involved there, so this discussion can probably be closed, and no need for password sharing.-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:20, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

 – for now, user blocked by User:Butseriouslyfolks

The above user has uploaded numerous non-free images without rationales. I tagged several today, which resulted in a discussion on my talk page. At first, the user was deleting the 'no rationale' tags from the images, now the user has begun changing the dates on the tags to 70 years in the future so they don't come up in the deletion categories. I don't want to get into an edit war and would appreciate some help. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 00:19, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted the date changes. Possibly one image is appropriate under fair use for identification of the game, but the remainder most likely won't. Cheers Kevin 00:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Houston, we may have a problem. My "friendly reminder" on the user's talk page does not seem to have worked.

WP:FURG for deletion three times, accusing another editor of "vandalism" for removing the tag. See [3] and [4]. Also proposed Category:All images with no fair use rationale for deletion here. The user seems to be motivated by a genuine belief that tagging and/or speedy deletion is inappropriate for articles with no fair use rationales...a legitimate point we have been discussing. But I'm afraid they need to be warned or stopped before making a mess out of the guideline pages. Also urged to discuss and work with the system rather than break policy as a form of protest. I'm a non-admin so this goes beyond my expertise and authority. Please help before it gets any worse. Thanks, Wikidemo 01:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Please examine the history of Roe v. Wade. Ever since the 12, and IP address from a Verizon account in Boston, Mass. has been adding the word "corrupt" to the lead. At least 7 different IP addresses have made the edit (all starting with 71.124.xxx.xx) I've only been an admin for a month an a half, so I'm still learning (and I probably won't stop learning either). Anyway, I've decided to semi-protect the page, at least for the next 48 hours as a measure to prevent those edits. I was wondering if this is what other admins would have done, and I'm also curious what can be done when it comes to dynamic IPs (say, if someone had reported a 3RR on this page). Thanks for the advice.-Andrew c ^[talk] 04:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

• That's kinda what semi-protection is for. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

A few months ago I recall a stastic that this site deletes around 5000 pages a day. Been looking for confirmation of that and can't find it anywhere. I'll accept estimates from the CSD regulars if that's the best we can do. Would appreciate help! Durova^Charge! 14:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

This (warning, may take a while to load) shows that the last 5000 deletions (including images, pages, categories, templates, redirects, and so on) took place over a span of last 24 hours 55 minutes. 5000 pages in 24 hours is probably a little high based on that (although it tends to be higher when school is in, thanks to

ム 14:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Here are the stats for all of august:

+---------------------+----------------------+
| date(log_timestamp) | count(log_timestamp) |
+---------------------+----------------------+
| 2007-08-01          |                 5375 | 
| 2007-08-02          |                 5042 | 
| 2007-08-03          |                 7971 | 
| 2007-08-04          |                 3733 | 
| 2007-08-05          |                 5767 | 
| 2007-08-06          |                 9873 | 
| 2007-08-07          |                 4379 | 
| 2007-08-08          |                 3551 | 
| 2007-08-09          |                 4240 | 
| 2007-08-10          |                 7756 | 
| 2007-08-11          |                 4273 | 
| 2007-08-12          |                 7056 | 
| 2007-08-13          |                 5546 | 
| 2007-08-14          |                 4425 | 
| 2007-08-15          |                 3214 | 
+---------------------+----------------------+
15 rows in set (31.88 sec)

August '05 we were deleting about 1000 per day, August '06 averaging 3000, and 6 months ago averaging 5000. --ST47Talk·Desk 15:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Beautiful! Thank you very much for the breakdown. Durova^Charge! 15:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

But how much if NawlinWiki went on break... --W.marsh 18:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That user only has bout 200/day, so not much of en effect - not even if our #1 admin in terms of deletions, misza13, left would there be much of a dent  :) --ST47Talk·Desk 19:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Any thoughts about breaking this down by ns? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 19:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Miszabot deletes mostly images though, right? I thought we were talking about articles. NawlinWiki's stats there are pretty staggering. --W.marsh 19:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually,Miszabot archives talk pages. Misza13 does deletions, but is presumably a real person. Natalie 22:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm making an effort to get the word out and address this on the non-Wikipedian side of the equation. When more people understand the scope of this project we may succeed in reversing the trend. Durova^Charge! 22:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Think about all the wasted effort that goes into creating pages that get deleted (and the admin efforts to delete them). Granted, some are created as vandalism. But I'm sure many if not most are due to users not creating appropriate articles/uploading inappropriate images. It is rather staggering. I guess that's what your hinting at Durova? Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 23:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Very much so. :) Durova^Charge! 04:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

There you go, per namespace:

Images seem to be most active, although my bot does at most one third of that. Mainspace is less fluctuating. Talk: stats are tained by DerHexer occasionally mass-deleting talk pages of redirects. There's also the BJAODN spike in Wikipedia: on 14th. Cheers, Миша13 20:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC) (I tweaked the table headings a bit to make them narrower. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC))

Thanks, that's interesting. I think that the image numbers are true for this period also, as opposed to most of July when we were clearing the 30 day backlog. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 23:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

If these are straight log counts, one small tweak is needed to adjust the numbers. Restorations are in the deletion log, and are effectively a -1 to the pages deleted per day count. In January, when I last did a

• I once asked what was the total number of deleted pages in total. Ever. I never got an answer, but I think it is safe to say that the dead (pages) on Wikipedia outnumber the living (pages). Carcharoth 00:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This needs administrator attention but I don't know where to report it. I'm posting here on the advice of

Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks! — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Would you mind giving an example or two of where he went ahead and performed a merge against consensus? Where there was a discussion, and the proposal was defeated, but he merged anyway? i ^said 00:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to get these together as I have time. I haven't done a great deal of research into this (haven't had the time, and I'm on a tight time budget now as well), but here's some evidence of his tendency to push things through:

• "There is no discussing this part" (preceded and followed by reverts)
• Merge discussion on Talk:Scrubs (TV series) - please read TTN's replies to the discussion. So far, everyone who has responded to the initial merge proposal has opposed it, and TTN has insisted on pushing through a merge anyway.
  • This seems to be the pattern in almost every merge discussion TTN takes part in.
• I cannot find a specific example where TTN violated a clear consensus, but see this diff and a few diffs following that one (linked to
  the CVGProj discussion
  ) where he merged without a clear consensus.
  • That discussion also has at least one user calling out TTN's apparent general practice of discounting the opinions of people who have dropped out of the discussion or haven't been able to reply in a timely manner.

I hope this will help. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 01:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

For the first diff that was ok per

WP:ILIKEIT or similar related opinions. As for Goomba, I read the discussion and when TTN merged them, he had asked at least twice for anyone else objecting, and no one did. The converstation had waned. The following revert war (including an admin) was awful. I personally agree with TTN on most matters relating to cruft, but I do agree he is a bit more agressive than he needs to be. i ^said 01:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to make it clear to those who ignore them that they cannot be ignored or passed off as nothing, explain it to the people that just don't get it, and deal with the turnabout people without trying to stab myself. They don't take it very well at all, and they are the majority of the people that I deal with. That requires constant pushing (or else everything just somehow falls apart), so sometimes that may leak into normal discussions that actually deal with how the articles can fit the guidelines and policies. I should probably watch that a little more, but otherwise, there really is no actual alternative other than just dropping any sort of merging/redirecting, which I don't plan on doing. TTN 02:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It appears that more people support TTN's merging, and as pointed out, there doesn't appear to be any clear violation of policy or consensus going on, so I withdraw my notice. Thanks. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• I support genuine mergers, but not mindless redirects. The JPS^{talk to me} 09:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The discussion has been going on for 9 days and seems to have slow down. I think it is time to close it. The discussion is taking place here at

Agreed. There is no consensus, with slightly more opposed to a merger. (Current count: 13 keep two articles [with some qualifications], 12 merge.) In the absence of consensus, should the "default" position be to retain two articles?

Kablammo 10:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Good catch, and one for the Signpost I would think. Have you tipped them off? -- But|seriously|folks  02:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

...see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions for more information! :) Cbrown1023 talk 01:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Appears to be an automated account that is violating numerous

Yes that does look odd. I've blocked for now and will inquire to its apparent owner. —Wknight94 (talk) 09:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Can administrators please check

WP:BRFA before blocking bots that are apparently unauthorized? When bots are in trial, they are not required to have a bot flag as implied by the blocking administrator's summary ("Bot running without bot privilege per http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=152012199&oldid=152008617"). They are required only to limit their edit rate to two edits per minute and to do only what the operator said they would do. Granted, User:RonaldBot

did not have a user page that was explicit enough regarding its function, and I'll talk to the operator about that. But please look into these things before interrupting trials.

Thanks! — madman bum and angel 00:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 01:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

 – All fixed back again - Alison ☺ 03:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone has moved

In short; I'd like

• The 1950 film to be moved to either
  Roundabout (1950 film)
  , and
• Roundabout (movie) to be a redirect to Roundabout (disambiguation).

Fourohfour 11:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It's messed up. The correct title is "La Ronde", as the Arthur Schnitzler and IMDB article will attest. While this is the English Wikipedia, this doesn't stretch to renaming books and movies like that (imagine if that happened to La Cage aux Folles. I'll see if I can fix it - Alison ☺ 12:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok - fixed (I hope!) How does it look now? - Alison ☺ 12:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

Currently, in Category:Empty pages for speedy deletion, the page Talk:Lucario is listed (even after a purge); however, nowhere in this page does the SD tag appear, nor does the category. Despite a purge of the category, the page is still here. Anyone has any idea what is happening (or what I am missing) ? Schutz 16:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Gone now. Problem solved, but I am still wondering what this was. Schutz 16:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I just purged the talk page itself, because of Talk:Lucario/to_do -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict, I should reply before fixing ^^)I don't know what triggered it (probably a template that was marked as {{db-empty}}), but there's a simple work around: just edit the page and save it again, that forces the page to be rebuilt and removes the incorrect category. -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This arbitration case has now closed and the decision may be found at the link above.

Please note that I have raised a COI issue about the following user on the COI noticeboard. User:Doctorjbeam. There are other issues too, including the silly listings for deletion which no person who seriously wanted the page modified or deleted would do, and the second nomination for deletion which is not what it seems. I suspect a Railpage version of the Lernaean Hydra. Can an administrator look into this, I can PM my other concerns.Tezza1 23:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is this article full-protected with constant unpleasant discussion on the Talk page? From a perusal of the various AfDs, Railpage Australia seems to be above the notability cutoff, and it is not terribly written. (I would shorten it about 20% if given a free hand). The article has existed for 15 months and attracted plenty of editors. Any remaining activity by editors with a conflict of interest (company employees and not just rail forum members) hardly looms large. User:Doctorjbeam, who may be an employee of a company connected to the site, has edited Railpage Australia a total of five times, and I didn't see him voting in any of the AFDs. (He added some rather boring information about the site servers). Thus the COI angle seems way overstated. I'd still advise Doctorjbeam to volunteer his affiliation on his user page, now that he's outed himself with an image upload. EdJohnston 00:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

 – indef blocked - Alison ☺ 03:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Obvious sockpuppet of User:Light current, see edit history even aside from name. Maybe I'm supposed to report this elsewhere, but I need to get to bed. Matchups 01:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sockie. Blocked indef - Alison ☺ 01:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Ive started a bot to move images to commons please see

Your list is broken at "Wikihermit", FYI. Incidentally, how did you make that list? I see I am on there. I have not had too much involvement in images, and it doesn't look like enough to be all admins. Prodego ^talk 05:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It started out as a subset of admins, (admins that I know) and then I tossed a few non-admins that I know I can trust. then there was the approval process.

β^_command 13:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Where was the discussion, apart from the Bot approval discussion? Was there a discussion at Wikipedia:Images (or where-ever the most active image area is)? Not everyone watches the Bot approval process. Also, when you say you've "started a bot", I think you might mean you have plans for a bot. The bot has been approved for trials (50 edits or 7 days), but doesn't seem to be running yet. You might want to word things differently, as I, for one, read "Ive started a bot", to mean that you were in the process of running it and operating it. Carcharoth 01:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the bot is currently operating, it transwikis images per the instructions.

β^_command 09:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see, this is still just a trial run. Can you point us to where the results of the trial run will be discussed? Thanks. Carcharoth 00:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

At the BRFA page... Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot Task 7. Cbrown1023 talk 01:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Would it be OK to post links at the BRFA page to the discussions about this function? Carcharoth 11:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Why wouldn't it be? :-D Cbrown1023 talk 17:06, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The archives for

Well, there are, I think, two issues here. First, to the extent that TFA archives are, one supposes, accurately to record, wherever possible, what a particular TFA looked like when it was transcluded on the main page, it might be useful for the community to confer on old TFA pages an

NFCC exemption (the requisite fair use explanation may, of course, for those images that continue to appear in the articles they illustrated in TFA, is the same as that already properly given on the talk page of each image, and it is unlikely that the diminution in article length is sufficient to render inappropriate any fair use claim); indeed, I would suggest that a consensus to that effect likely already exists. Second, it is not clear, I think, that the community ultimately will not countenance TFA's being granted an NFCC exemption (see, e.g., this discussion), such that a removal of all of the TFA-archived non-free images might be undone in the not-too-distant future. It may be that amongst the TFA archives are non-free images the use of which would be disfavored even in mainspace, and those ought probably to be removed, but on the whole I guess I mean to suggest that this should be about 9000th on our things to do; inlining images is rather trivial and may in fact be counseled by NFCC, etc., but I think one might, in view of the relative insignificance of this potential NFCC violation, do well to wait for the community to determine whether an exemption might be conferred. Joe 05:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

The "what it looked like on the Main Page" argument holds no water, as it can still appear in the page's history, so there's no need to leave it active. I do agree, however, that there should be an exception, but I also have a much more liberal attitude towards Fair Use images anyway (generally because my primary articles I edit are all of fictional characters or concepts, where there's no possibility for Free Use imagery to be used). EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

This problem has been raised before. A few months ago (May this year), I discovered that many of the archives for TFA had redlinks for images that had been deleted. I then replaced many of those redlinks with free pictures. While doing this, I noticed that many non-free images still remained, and raised this point. It seems that nothing got done. See

• Here is an example of ongoing updating of the TFA archives. An image was deleted on Commons, the Commons delinker removed the image link at the TFA archives, and someone replaced it with a free pic. Carcharoth 12:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I've been going through the archives from 2004 to 2006, and in most cases the pages are not fully protected. I am currently compiling lists of (a) TFA blurbs using non-free images; (b) TFA blurbs with red-link images; (c) TFA blurbs without pictures. This should only take a couple of hours. I will post the results at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article. It looks like a big cleanup effort will not be required - I can probably do most of this myself. I'd appreciate it if others held off until I've finished, as otherwise we will just duplicate efforts. Thanks. Carcharoth 12:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

• Update: Please see Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Images in TFA archives (redux). Carcharoth 13:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Resolved

 – The edits just took a couple minutes to show up in the history

A while back I deleted the history of User talk:XavierVE, as he's an indef banned user and the page is full of various personal attacks and links to attack sites and the like. Another user has requested I restore the talk page history as best I can (there is clearly some shit in there that needs to stay deleted), so I started to go through it revision by revision to restore whichever edits I could - but those edits I tried to restore just disappeared. They no longer appear in the article history or in the deleted edits history. Does anyone know what's going on? WilyD 13:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes it takes a little while for the cache to to catchup with a restore... give it 5 min or so and check again. ---

WRE) 15:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

There is persistent vandalism of

I think you went too far by giving a vandalism warning to an established editor for a good faith and legitimate edit (even though the edit was POV). Mugabe's last election was heavily criticized as unfair and he is seen as a dictator by a number of people around the world; the use of the word "illegitimate" is therefore valid (although such a POV word should have references to support it, along with wording like "seen by opponents as illegitimate". Either way, this wasn't vandalism and you shouldn't have accused him of such.--Alabamaboy 17:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It is possible that it was not vandalism, but the edits here indicate a previous history of unreferenced and inflammatory content added to the article. The editor has been around long enough to realise what you said about POV pushing, especially to an article about a living person. However, the issue of the accusation that I am a troll and the allusion to me possibly being a ZANUPF stooge remain, which I note you have not commented on (yet).  DDStretch  (talk) 17:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

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

I'm bringing this to AN as it's not an incident per se - while it hasn't edited, there are plenty of reasons why the IP should be blocked for as long as possible:

• Self-confessed IP of banned user Sixty Six (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• IP appears to be static
• IP is near-certain to be the person responsible for the (frankly sickening) ED biography on me.

I should elaborate on the third point - Sheneequa (talk · contribs), an ED admin, had performed a checkuser on my behalf and told me that the ED biographer, "Die clown die", had edited from two ISPs - one being RoadRunner (which was used by sock/meatpuppet Geoffrey Mitchell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)), the other being Grande Communications, a small Texan ISP that Sixty Six had edited from (WHOIS the IP if you don't believe me). The username "Die clown die" was most likely because of CSCWEM's block of the IP, so given the harassment of multiple admin and users in good standing, he should not edit Wikipedia under any circumstances. Will ^(talk) 01:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Usually we don't block until there has been abuse... While I am quite familiar with the abuse that SixSixty and his socks have dished out (to myself and others) I don't feel comfortable with the potential collateral damage until there is some abuse. ---

WRE) 02:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

With all the news this week, conflict of interest is a big thing. The conflict of interest noticeboard is flagged for backlog and has 99 open cases. Please pitch in. And if you aren't a sysop, you can still help by investigating and posting warnings or making recommendations. Durova^Charge! 20:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I must make a comment about a recent Fox News IP block by User:Adam Cuerden. It was universally agreed that a block of this IP was not at all appropriate here; however, Adam Cuerden went ahead and blocked it anyway here. As this is certainly an office issue, someone pointed out to Adam that he should do something. However, Adam has not been willing to respond to my comments on his talk page that the community thought a block was inappropriate; nor, for all I can tell, did he make a mention to the Communiations Committee. I ask for someone to address this, as the block was clearly overzealous, and Adam has not discussed the issue. The Evil Spartan 17:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this is a bad block to place without notifying the Communications Committee. Major government organizations and corporations need to be reported for abuse so the Foundation can take care of any implications that may arrive. — Moe ε 18:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, FoxNews has its own Abuse address, I'm sure. If we're talking about a very brief block, it's probably pre-emptive, but a long block of a range of IP's? No. Has anyone lifted the block? Evil Spartan, have you notified the blocking admin that this discussion is taking place? It looks questionable to block a whole IP range, but he should present his reasoning in terms of policy violations. (I cannot imagine any good coming from FoxNews, except a test pattern, but that doesn't matter.) Geogre 12:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I have unblock the IP, no vandalism or POV-pushing for quite a while Alex Bakharev 13:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I had two people, one telling me to remove it, the other asking me not to. I decided to let them fight it out. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You "decided to let them fight it out"? Seriously? Did it occur to you to thoughtfully consider their rationales and seek additional input from the community (which you should have sought in the first place) instead of washing your hands of the matter by simply ignoring it? —

David Levy 17:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Speechless. Sarah 15:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The IPvandal and other Wikipedia tools for WHOIS lookups went to the DNSstuff website, and they are now redirecting such requests to a subscription page. THF 22:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

You could try http://samspade.org// ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

WORKSFORME, I don't have a problem when I click the WHOIS link or any of the other ones. Cbrown1023 talk 22:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Also works for me, perhaps you have exceeded the number of permitted lookups. Check the dnsstuff banning info. Navou ^banter 23:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not admin, but just telling you that it still works for me, and I've looked up info like that like 100 times now. Thanks. ~

U) 23:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

See MediaWiki talk:Anontalkpagetext for more (brief) discussion related to this. It seems to be working for some, but not for all. Might be best to find a site that accepts everyone. - auburnpilot talk 01:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Does this explain the recent abrupt inquiry at my talkpage, perhaps? --Wetman 01:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)