Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive167

Resolved

Would appreciate an admin to deal with protected edit requests at Sarah Palin - thanks. Kelly ^hi! 06:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

• Done, though I'm sure there will be more. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

In re the

Since {{

Done, back to fully protected. --Bongwarrior (talk) 08:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thx Bw. Now if you could just get select and update and access to the en:wiki DB, we could fix those rotten pagesincategory parser-function errors! Franamax (talk) 08:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

 – Editor warned — Realist² 18:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I was going to warn the editor directly, but after reviewing Charmed36 talk page I realized that this editor pay's zero attention to warnings. I haven't done an extensive review of Charmed36's edits, the snappy edit summaries and talk page warning were enough to concern me. The issue that drew my attention to Charmed36 was a recent edit summary whereby Charmed36 reverted an IP with the edit summary "your just an IP". Just as concerning was the fact that the IP provided a source and Charmed36 reverted to the previous UNSOURCED version. See this.

Charmed36's edits, use of edit summaries, elitism and general OWNERSHIP issue's should be punished. Charmed36 has control of a number of articles relating to varies singers and groups. This needs to be handled and Charmed36's recent contributions need an extensive review to find the true extent of potential damage. — Realist² 03:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that isn't even an insult. That's is...pure, demeaning disrespect. If anyone ever told me that when I was starting I would never come back to Wikipedia. Wow. --mboverload@ 04:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree it is bad, first time I've seen that. Well, I'm sure an admin will read this post eventually....— Realist² 13:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I've placed a AGF level 3 warning template on their talkpage. If this is disregarded like everything else on that page I would consider a 2 day long block sufficient to get their attention. LessHeard vanU (talk) 15:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm gonna keep a close eye on it for a few weeks, see what occurs. I'm shocked that Charmed36 hasn't been blocked since 2006. Charmed has been unduly lucky. — Realist² 15:47, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the talk page, I agree this is a problem editor, but I still want to point out that blocks are preventative, not punitive. We don't 'punish'. We do sometimes decide that someone is irredeemably not a useful contributor. Regards, Ben Aveling 13:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

This page needs moving (due too incorrect name - see talk page), however I have no privileges to do this. Skalee (talk) 12:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Moved as uncontroversial.

talk

) 12:43, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Please, please, I'm begging - will someone help with the BLP-violators, POV-pushers, and edit-warriors on Sarah Palin? I can't even keep up with BLP violators, much less research diffs in hundreds of revisions per hour to report edit-warriors. Please help! Kelly ^hi! 23:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Or alternatively, could we have full protection for a while to calm things down? Kelly ^hi! 23:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I second this. Palin's and associated articles are under full onslaught by SPA's and POV pushers. Kelly and a couple of others can't watch the articles every second, 24-hours a day. Please provide full protection for a few days. Cla68 (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Admin only, unfortunately, until next Monday (sept 8). We all need a break, per Kelly's rationale. Keeper ǀ 76 23:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I think the article is relatively complete with the actual information we have so far, any major updates can be handled through edit requests. Kelly ^hi! 23:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

And thanks for your edit summary. I love me too! Keeper ǀ 76 23:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

(a few e/c) I've been watching the page ever since I first saw it at

talk

) 23:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I also support full protection. There are a lot of things that need discussing and refining before they can be included, and there's no reason to let the article continually fall to The Wrong Version in the meantime. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 23:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Support, and also support keeping an eye on related articles, such as Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal... if those get hit too, we may want to protect them as well. SirFozzie (talk) 23:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure administrators will

talk

) 00:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

"if disruptive editing goes too far"?!? That bridge was crossed a long time ago. As has been said elsewhere, the article is the first Google result for the name of the subject and we have clear responsibilities here. But, sadly, some seem to feel keeping the encyclopedia free for all to edit is more important than stopping casual libel slip through to a worldwide audience every few minutes. It's in situations like these where it is easy to realise how a project that initially offered so much promise can also be used for all the wrong reasons. Lock it - and lock every BLP while you're at it George The Dragon (talk) 00:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the protection but could you make the huge banner a bit smaller? I find it a bit distracting on such a high profile high visibilty article. Hobartimus (talk) 00:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This snuck in post-protection. Just for The Wrong Version procedural grounds it should be reverted by GlassCobra, I left him a note. Kelly, good luck. I'm not touching this article for at least a week, its gotten far too annoying. I left him a note. He probably just missed the protection.

I think you should

assume good faith in this case and not ask for this to be reverted. It takes a bit of time to prepare an edit and they happened virtually at the same time AND it also had consensus that it's a borderline BLP vio/should not be in the article. Hobartimus (talk

) 00:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

That absolutely is good faith, I told him it was probably a mistake and asked him to revert. The protection policy doesn't allow people to make massive edits/reversions of contested content dispute material. What as bad faith about what I wrote? Admins simply can't do that except for really trivial stuff like bjweeks tweaking a citation format or removing "obvious" BLP violations. I'm just looking out for GlassCobra so no one tries to screw or politicize him for this.

T

) 00:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Asking him to revert. Hobartimus (talk) 00:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Please don't split up the conversation any further, we can discuss it here. It's not bad faith to ask him to revert to the wrong version. That's how our protection policy simply works.

T

) 00:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing the lengthy diatribe about the AIP was good, as it's prejudicial and basically trying to prove a point of some kind. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Actually, don't think that edit should be reverted, the content is a borderline BLP vio. That secessionist-party meme has been heavily discussed on the article talk page and there really is no consensus for its inclusion (if anything, consensus is against). Should be discussed at the article talk page. Kelly ^hi! 00:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey, if theres consensus to keep it out, cool beans. I just didn't want to see the crazies running around take it out on GC, he seemed to just honestly leap in there.

T

) 01:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

OK then we all agree that it was an honest edit that didn't circumvent policy that was written to stop abuse of protected pages and there is no reason to ask for it to be reverted. Hobartimus (talk) 01:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

And support full protection, but till September 8th is a bit too long. 48 hours, maybe 72 max.

Good call on protecting. POV-pushers trying to cram every scandal they can come up with into the article. A feeding frenzy like I've never seen here. There's plenty of juicy stuff still in the article, but all or most of it is mainstream info. We do need some rest here. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

In addition to it being a high-importance article on a current event with partisan overtones, I think some of the problem was editing volume. It was the fastest editing environment I've seen here, hard to sort already-discussed proposals from bold edits, and simple mistakes from vandalism. The same edits and discussion topics came again and again - assuming they were mostly good faith it must have been from inexperienced editors or those who could not easily read the entire 350K talk page or edit-a-minute history before proposing the same bad idea that someone else had proposed hours before. I tried to help but most clean-ups of BLP and NPOV violations would only stick a few hours before they were back. I hope the cooling off period works by itself but if not, it might help to figure out a plan of getting from here to there in terms of a stable unprotected editing environment. Wikidemon (talk) 00:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hell yes, support. I've never seen such a riot of BLP violations, SPAs, unreliable sources, and general meanspiritedness on every side. A little break is what everyone needs to calm down and reason things out together. Coemgenus 01:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I second the call for a reduction in this page's protection. A cooling off period is fine and necessary, especially for all the editors doing their best to keep the POV pushing out, but new information covering the entire spectrum of her biography (including the future!) is appearing by the minute. I would hope that this could go back to semi-protection within 24 to 48 hours, which is where the Obama, Biden, and McCain articles now stand. Joshdboz (talk) 01:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I would support, but please let's wait to see if the media frenzy dies down a little first. I really need a break. :) There is no sign of many other BLP-sensitive editors (in sufficient numbers to handle this article) coming out to help with things. I know I'm not doing it all, but I'm doing a lot, and few people are helping. Kelly ^hi! 01:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course Rootology and Baseball Bugs are doing fantastic work too, and a couple others. :) Kelly ^hi! 01:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I totally have to agree with the decision to lock it down. She's going to be speaking at the RNC in like an hour. God, I don't even want to imagine the hell that would break loose if we relax the protection. Thingg^⊕⊗ 01:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I have an idea. We can keep the mainspace version protected and create a sandbox version of the mainspace article for continued article development. QuackGuru 01:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that would be a good idea - the BLP violations will just show up somewhere else then. At this point I think we just need to get the editing volume down, get people consensus-ing on the talk page, and identifying the malefactors who have have been causing problems. Right now they're getting away with it because the volume is too high to ID them. Kelly ^hi! 01:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

We could put it in a talk subpage with a {{

noindex}} tag to keep it off Google. Standard procedure with protections is to create a sandbox. Quackguru (if memory serves) has experience with these sandboxes. BLP violations might occur, but they won't fight so hard because it's not the "real" article. Users would nominate the posting of specific revised versions for consensus. Cool Hand Luke

01:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The talk page already has a list of 3 or 4 controversial points, and the discussion needs to be kept there for now, rather than allowing more edit wars to foment. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

May I respectfully remind people that

WP:BLP covers talk pages as well as article space. Thanks George The Dragon (talk

) 01:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The talk page and archives of that article are lousy with BLP violations now - I don't even know where to start on cleaning them up. Kelly ^hi! 01:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm tempted to suggest "oversight the entire lot," or at the least delete as I genuinely believe this issue is far more serious than some "ideal". George The Dragon (talk) 01:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I know, but there are going to be talk space BLP violations unless we lock the whole thing down as well and spend the next few days scrubbing. I thought it might be useful to create a sandbox, but Baseball Bugs is probably right. No time for edit wars. Proposed edits will have to be insular, I guess. Cool Hand Luke 01:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of the so-called BLP violations are reasonable questions that have been raised. It's not appropriate to be censoring the talk page unless somebody blatantly makes something up that's slanderous. For example, the Enquirer story is not appropriate for the article at present, but it has to be talked about, because it's out there. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Baseball Bugs. I have been through most of the current talk page and it's mostly innocent questions/people who don't understand Wikipedia. Comments that are violations of BLP are being reverted on sight already. --mboverload@ 02:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the protection here. To pick a relevant example, the level of editing activity and problematic edits was a lot higher than that at John Edwards as the latest scandal was breaking. Indeed, so much was coming so fast that even the active editors were having trouble keeping track of what disputes were still disputes and what were settled. And we protected Sen. Edwards article for a week, unprotecting less than 24 hours after a clear and sticking talk page consensus was formed. I make no predictions as to whether we'll be able to form any consensus here - but hopefully with 5 days to work with editors will at least be able to sort out how many different issues they are dealing with.

I'd also suggest that with the article protected would be a good time to review the histories to see if there are editors that need counsel, warnings, or other attention.

GRBerry

02:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The problems here are exactly the kind of thing broad and sweeping sanctions are designed to handle. I propose that an uninvoled admin, at his or her discretion, may take any actions he/she feels neccesary to remove disruptive users/POV pushers/SSPs/vandals/etc from any page related to the 2008 election, until it's over. Let's face it, this kind of crap is not going to go away, and in fact, it's going to get worse. Jtrainor (talk) 03:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even notice this until after the protection was a fait accompli. I'll record for the record my view that protecting this article at this time was a huge mistake. The serious problem here is the volume, as noted by Wikidemon. Perhaps we need to split the talk page into separate subpages to deal with the barrage of topics. I'm not sure how to deal with it but I don't see how protection will help, except by discouraging some people from contributing to the article at all. They'll go do other stuff and come back when the protection ends. We'll be right back where we were except for having spent a few days with this highly visible article protected at a crucial time (global black eye for Wikipedia). JamesMLane t c 07:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I suggested a sandbox for article development. Improvements can continue to be made while the article is protected with a sandbox version. QuackGuru 07:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think that full-protection for a week is too long for an article of this nature. I would of fully-protected it for 24 to 48 hours, I think a week is excessive, especially for those good-faith users (including myself), who are now unable to edit the contents of the page. D.M.N. (talk) 09:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• Use {{
  editprotected}}, anything that has obvious consensus will be in in no time. The sheer volume of egregious policy violations on this article makes full protection amply justified. Blame the idiots, not the admins. Guy (Help!
  ) 11:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Article appears to have been downgraded to semi-protection by Jossi (talk · contribs). D.M.N. (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I missed that above discussion, but after reading it, I still see no need for full protection, in particular on a current event high-traffic article. Semi should do. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 12:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I do trust the people that watch this page when they say they are overwhelmed and are unable to maintain the quality of the article. I would have preferred if you had erred on the side of caution and undone your change, but I won't join the wheel war. I have restored the move protection though. -- lucasbfr ^talk 12:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Erring on the side of caution is actually keeping the article uprotected. There are ongoing developments on the subject of the article, and material will continue to be added as it emerges. Granted, it would be a battle to keep the hordes at bay, but we cannot simply close the gates. Editing should continue despite the challenges. If a few admins are getting overwhelmed, they should take a wikibreak. Others will step in. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 12:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Though we really shouldn't be writing articles as news reports adding items as they are reported; instead, the most significant points should be brought in after time has been allowed to digest if news reports are truly significant and finding the best sources to reference those (in light of this being a BLP). If it was only IPs with the occasional SPA, semi would seem fine, but as I see it, there's a lot of signed-in users attacking the article. I've seen articles granted full protection for less on RFPP. --MASEM 13:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Further, many of the SPAs that registered when the story first broke will no longer be barred by semi-protection. Users are autoconfirmed after 4 days, right? I don't have much experience in this area, but it seems to me that a flood of angry trolls is about to bust loose. Full protection seems warranted for the time being. Coemgenus 14:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Simple, any accounts persiting with disruptive edits, we

WP:BLOCK. Let other productive editors continue editing rather than shutting down the article. This is the most trafficked article in WP right now, and we need to show the project and the community can afford people the liberty of editing. This is WP and a wiki, after all. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk)

14:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I take your point, and while I don't disagree completely, I find the use of

WP:IAR here to be quite unseemely. Maybe occasional blocks will be sufficient, but let's decide before we act. Coemgenus

14:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

See the comments above. The editing volume is too high to deal with BLP-violators, edi-warriors, and POV-pushers, and there aren't any admins helping with that article! Kelly ^hi! 14:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Protection removal was against consensus and needs restoring

Consensus should be honored and the protection restored; lone admins have no authority > consensus. If Jossi can't restore protection, can someone else? It would not be a wheel war situation as there is full support from the majority of the regular users there. I left Jossi an extra note. Since Jossi's move was against clear consensus I don't believe we'd need to wait for his OK, especially as Palin is a BLP.

Some edit warring has already resumed from this unprotection.

T

) 13:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It is insane to downgrade this article to semi-protection. There is no way editors can keep up with volume of POV and WP:BLP violating edits.--Paul (talk) 13:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Please re-establish protection per consensus above. Kelly ^hi! 13:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

There has been constant POV-pushing by muckrakers, and the issues remain unresolved. Un-protecting it was inappropriate. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. A current event page as trafficked as it is should not be protected. This is one of the times in which I will

Shameful drama-inducing escalation. There's an extraordinarily clear consensus about this above. It's not "IAR", it's called "wheel-warring against consensus". --

barneca (talk

) 14:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with barneca. It should be an

WP:IAR case to protect this page against what might seem like common sense (protecting a high traffic article), vs the protection of the subject of the article. Based on this discussion, there appears to be a quick consensus to protect, we do not have time to have a week long discussion in this case to discuss ad-nauseum. I strongly agree with protection and strongly disagree with jossi's actions. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider}

14:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not just protection vs. unprotection; while I disagree with unprotecting, I can understand the theory. It's the blatant disregard for consensus, and playing chicken with the tools. At least 17 people voiced an opinion above, and 13-14 were in favor of full protection for 48 hours at least, with many supporting the full week. Dismissing this as "a short discussion" isn't just hyperbole, it's just 100% wrong. If I were someone else, I'd be tempted to nominate

barneca (talk

) 14:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Restored protection. I am now off my wikibreak, and this is my first action - nice. I'll take it up with any admin who thinks I'm wrong, but both consensus and rationale are correct here. I'll go talk to jossi Fritzpoll (talk) 13:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Erm. Welcome back? :) Synergy 13:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Almost all edits since full protection was lifted have been constructive. Way to go. Joshdboz (talk) 14:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Jossi has removed the protection. The rationale for removal is reasonable, and although I am uncomfortable with this due to the consensus above, I won't take any further action with this. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:14, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Please stop the insanity and restore the protection. A single admin should not be ignoring the consensus. Kelly ^hi! 14:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The

CBM · talk

) 14:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Carl, have you seen what has been going on with that article while it was semiprotected? Have you been helping to deal with it? Kelly ^hi! 14:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

To kelly: I agree with your point of view, but I'm not going to wheel-war over it. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I have stepped in to try and help. I am not very familiar with the topic and am fairly apathetic when it comes to politics. I do however recognize a reliable source from a non reliable one and POV pushing. I will try and keep an eye on it. I however feel it should be re-protected and that jossi should undo his wheel warring actions. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider} 14:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Re Kelly: I think there are more than enough people who know about the article to keep it well watched. We do need to be more proactive in using the blocking provision of WP:BLP. My philosophy is: one stern warning, then a short block (12-24 hours) with autoblock enabled. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Protection has been re-re-restored, and I'm going to start handing out blocks to anyone who continues to war over this. You all know better. Establish a consensus, then take an action. The time for boldness is past. WilyD 15:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Establish a consensus, sure. But the status qu of Wikipedia articles is that they are free to be edited, and not the other way around. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The original protection came from some substantive discussion, now there's been a second and third. We all know better than to protection war over this; I haven't expressed an opinion on whether it should be full or semi, and don't plan to, but we shouldn't be playing tug-of-war. WilyD 15:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLPBAN

Under the

A very bad idea. There's nothing here that can't be handled by blocking. This is the sort of article that we expect to have an editing frenzy for a while. — Carl (

CBM · talk

) 15:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLPBAN is not an excuse for wheel warring. Cenarium ^Talk 15:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Then establish a strong consensus to end full protection. That's needed anyways, nevermind the special enforcement garbage. There has been a solid consensus to full protect, with only a couple dissenting voices, which frankly have been pretty meritless. Continued warring over it isn't going to be tolerated, regardless. WilyD 15:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Note the wording of the ruling that requires discussion at WP:AE; a

discussion thread there has commenced. Mike R (talk

) 15:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, first i'd like to thank you for the protection as the article's edits were unbearably and icreasingly chaotic. Unfortunately it seems that as a consequence we now have BLP violations like poor citations, controversial materials and lots of bad editing on this very prominent BLP. I don't know the solution, I just wanted to point out the new problem that now we're stuck with a potentially libalous BLP. Thanks. --98.243.129.181 (talk) 22:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Unprotection Wheel Warring on Sarah Palin and RFAR

Any further admins that unprotect again are into total wheel war country against consensus and will be brought to RFAR. If you enjoy being an admin, respect the community consensus, please. This is shameful for a BLP. I'm as liberal of an American as they come, probably more than most of you, and I'M advocating protection on Sarah Palin. BLP and consensus > your wishes. And I just removed a vote that Jossi put up about BLP protection. We vote on a lot of stuff, but not that. Sorry.

Log so far: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Sarah_Palin

Please refrain from refactoring this page. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

And that is not a !vote, but a way to assess what kind of consensus, if any emerges. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Please refrain from misuse of admin tools over BLPs, and obey consensus like all of us are required to.

T

) 15:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll have to agree. Wheel warring over protection is not the way to go about doing it, especially when you cite "IAR" and "consensus" for semi-protection, when I can't find consensus for that -- among others who agree. In addition, who "enjoys" being an admin? :) seicer | talk | contribs 15:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Until the first flush of frenzy settles down, there won't be any happy way to handle this. I support semi-protection but do understand why some editors think full protection is more in keeping with

WP:BLP for now. Gwen Gale (talk

) 15:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The wheels on the war go round and round. MZMcbride just semi-ed it again. :P Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

At least two admins have said they'd block any more admins who protection warred this page. What, if anything, should be done regarding this? Oren0 (talk) 17:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I've blocked him for three hours, and left a note on his talk page. WilyD 17:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Considering MZM was urged not to take this action by his peers on irc before he did it and was aware of the special circumstances and the discussion at AE, I would say this block was appropriate.

Chillum

17:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I was about to assume good faith. Then I read the arbcom started on him. *sigh* Why can't we all get along? Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:RFAR#MZMcBride for reference. MBisanz ^talk

17:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I posted warnings just about fuckin' everywhere to stop warring over the protection and have a god-damn discussion and it was fuckin' working and people were sitting down to discuss it like good colleages over tea and crumpets like we are all friends or coworkers or shit and rational fuckin' human beings and someone who already knows fuckin' better comes along and does some shit disturbing? Inexcusable. MZM knows better. Every admins knows better.

Sorry about my sailor talk but this all is a wee bit stressful. WilyD 17:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Wheel warring is NEVER appropriate. Wheel warring with as many "don't do it" red signs as are out there is unbelievable. Kyaa the Catlord (talk) 17:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Without being so colorful myself, I will say that the discussion was pretty much settled at AE before this wheel warring happened, there was a developing agreement that the protection was good and that we should reconsider on Saturday. This latest action by MZM has only served to reduce productivity in this area.

Chillum

17:51, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Since I didn't think anyone would actually be so stupid as to wheel-war over the (appropriate) full protection, I didn't comment a few hours ago, when I last logged on. Since I was obviously wrong, and the Arbitration thread contains several claims that there is no consensus for full protection, please add me to the list of admins who support full protection. Horologium (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oh bloody hell, what a mess. I really don't think that fighting out ideological differences with admin tools on a
  editprotected}} - I am minded of the way the railway companies handled the first Glastonbury Festival in about 1970; they were taken completely off guard by traffic to Glasto, but for the returns they pulled in every loco and carriage they could find, removed the station windows to make extra ticket counters, brought in everybody who was off duty, sent out a small army of clerks with every portable ticket machine they could pull in from around the network, and processed the massive crowds in something approaching order. To stretch that particular analogy somewhat, lifting protection is a more like removing all the barriers and gates and handing out first-aid kits to the station staff. Protection keeps the worst absurdities off the article and out of the headlines, and takes the patently acrimonious debates to the talk page which is slightly less high profile. That page can then be clerked to within an inch of its life and good suggestions moved into the article in an orderly manner well before the deadline. Guy (Help!
  ) 19:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• Wow... after seeing the first few edit comments I assumed that there was a brief wheel war which was quickly ended, but this is train-wreck-tastic. Whatever the correct level of protection for the article is, the wheel-warring has to stop. If we can't agree on what that level is, that's all the more reason to discuss the matter here, rather than for individuals to unilaterally impose their own view. IAR is a wonderful thing, but we have to take extra care with it when we can't agree on which course of action constitutes "improving Wikipedia".sorry if this sound sanctimonious; trying to help SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 20:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• Any wheel war is a trainwreck. Protection was implemented after days of dealing with an unprecedented volume of edits from POV vandals in a blp and nowhere near enough editorial help dedicated to keeping it compliant 24/7 as the frenzy continued to rage. Removing the protection without a realistic plan in place how to manage the page wasn't a helpful solution, and now editor resources are further compromised arguing about the justification for protection or its removal instead of producing workable solutions.Professor marginalia (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• In fairness, I've never seen a topic with so many edits/hour over so many days, it's a cultural fluke beyond the bounds of what Wikipedia has been built up to smoothly handle (that's ok, this is going to happen now and then and editors do learn from it). Cheers to Kelly for all she's done throughout the trainwreck. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Ditto - Kelly deserves special praise for her strenuous efforts on behalf of that article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support full protection for 24 or 48 hours. The BLP issues have gotten too far out of hand for now. If the article on 44 years or Sarah Palin's life is missing one or two days worth of material that is a small price to pay - if it is important the information will be available in any newspaper anyway. And invoking
  WP:IAR to ignore consensus and instead wheel war by unprotected a page in desparate need of protection is ludicrous. Rlendog (talk
  ) 02:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

modest proposal for Sarah Palin

I think that the structure of the article, as a whole, is pretty stable right now. Therefore, my proposal is to leave the main article protected, but to break out most sections as semiprotected transcluded subpages (with their own faked-up "edit/view source" and "talk" buttons). This would untangle the edit history and talk pages of the separate sections. The scurrilous rumors would tend to be confined to certain sections, and defending, or, if necessary, protecting those sections would be much easier. If they showed up in inappropriate sections, they could be easily recognized and treated as vandalism. I think that this would help resolve this issue, and free up the article from a lockdown which I don't think is good for its quality.

I recognize that this proposal is unconventional, involves some degree of work, may have unanticipated consequences for some bots/spiders/whatever, and might be seen to set a precedent. However, in my opinion, it would be worth it, as it would be helpful for the article itself, which is my main concern here. Homunq (talk) 21:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no mechanism in the MediaWiki software to support such an action, unless there are some extensions that I don't know about. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 03:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure there is, you just create some subpages and transclude them into the main page. Where's the difficulty? --Tango (talk) 03:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's keep this simple. Just create only one subpage and editors can continue to update the article and when consensus is reached it can be placed in the real article. QuackGuru 04:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The primary advantage of my proposal is that it splits things up. Each section has its own history and talk page. This makes it much easier to revert vandalism, because there are not always three unrelated edits before you notice it. It makes it easier to see who is doing what and to catch 3rr, too. And the discussion can be a little more organized and focused. A single subpage has no such advantages. 216.106.170.103 (talk) 14:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposal reposted at

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#Another_proposal:_transcluded_subpages, move discussion there. Homunq (talk

) 15:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for making such a request here, but as a lot of articles need move-protecting, I didn't want to clog up RFPP by making a request for 50+ articles. Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 14:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts, but I think some IP blocks are better remedies here. Also, when I look at lists like

Face

14:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Grawp hops from IP to IP on a daily basis, causing mass-destruction to articles by moving them. He's been doing this for most of the year. The only suggestion I can think of is to make the "Move" tool available to admins and/or rollbackers. D.M.N. (talk) 14:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I was going to say something similar: perhaps "Move" needs to be granted only to trusted users. Whether it's bundled with rollback is a different question. As a not-developer, I don't know the costs of implementing such rights-control features. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 14:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

If it is possible to set a very high edit threshold in order to be able to move articles, why not do that? The time it takes to accumulate that number of edits would be a disincentive to continuing this kind of vandalism, but the number would have to be high enough to prevent a would-be vandal from doing a lot of extremely minor edits just to reach the goal. Why not 500 edits, or a thousand? Ed Fitzgerald "unreachable by rational discourse"^{(t / c)} 14:33, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I would strongly agree to a 1,000 edits. D.M.N. (talk) 14:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Silly way to go about this unless the same page is being targeted repeatedly, and even then the "indefinite" setting is a bad idea. Once the people doing this realize that indefinite move-protection is the knee-jerk response to a single instance of page-move vandalism they will probably

I've move protected a set of core biochemistry articles that are at their correct title, such as DNA, enzyme, photosynthesis or metabolism. There is essentially zero chance of these ever needing moved, indeed I can't even think of any reasonable alternatives for these titles. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Deoxyribonucleioc acid? Enzymatic proteins? Conversion of sunlight to energy? Biological energy flow? Ed Fitzgerald "unreachable by rational discourse"^{(t / c)} 18:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Sunlight is energy, not all enzymes are proteins and metabolism is a larger subject than energy flow - it is the sum total of chemical reactions occurring in an organism (that title would a mouthful indeed!). The only possible move contender would be DNA, and the abbreviation has been chosen as the best title on the talkpage several times over the past few years, so that consensus seems very stable. Honestly, the chances of any of these articles needing moved is near zero. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Obviously something needs to be be done, look at the logs of ClueBot: [1], [2] for a small sample. What can we done ? We have move-protection for articles with no need to be moved. Think of what is best for Wikipedia, and the subject of the articles, example [3]. Our existing tools are not able to deal efficiently enough with this. Cenarium ^Talk 18:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

RBI seems to be working just fine. ClueBot is catching it, what's the issue? We could give admin rights to ClueBot so it could delete the redirects and block the vandals, or we could get a consensus on installing the

Abuse filter extension. Both of those would be far better than mass move-protection (since the vandal will just move on to other titles) or creating ridiculously high standards for allowing pagemoves. Mr.Z-man

19:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Has the abuse filter still not been installed? Tim Vickers (talk) 19:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion kind of died around the end of July. Mr.Z-man 19:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

We could try restricting moves of pages with more than 1000 revisions (or some other arbitrary number) to admins. Since we already have a limit for deleting pages it can't be too hard to implement, the high profile pages will tend to be those with lots of revisions and such pages should have some sort of discussion before a move anyway. Hut 8.5 19:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that's going to stop Grawp- he'll just find articles that have less than that, and move those instead. We have to limit moves entirely if we want to stop him. Or, we simply remove all rules against him. He's willing to play dirty, so maybe we have to fight back harder. Aggressively DMCA his host for anything we have a legitimate claim on on a certain other wiki he hangs out on. Or even start complaining to the host- they're a well known hosting firm, and I doubt they'd want to be associated with the scum we're talking about here. Publically speak out about the other wiki on any site you can. Checkuser and publically release the IP addresses of all his socks- there's got to be non-Tor IP's behind him or his imitators, and why are we providing any privacy to one of the worst vandals ever? No more abuse emails- have volunteers call the ISPs personally to report abuse. To hell with the privacy policy, and to hell with it all- revert, block, ignore is what he's counting on. Once we're done cleaning up the mess he makes, he makes another one, then gloats about it.Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 00:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not that bad, juvenile and annoying, but nothing that we can't deal with. It's just a complete waste of everybody's time. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The Abuse Filter is coming, I promise. :) — Werdna • talk 13:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Possibly one of the worst AFD nominations I've ever seen. See the last few contributions for the nominator. D.M.N. (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Speedy closed. Not an article so shouldn't be at AfD. Also, I think the prohibition on memorials is about encyclopedic content not projectspace/userspace. WJBscribe (talk) 17:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

One outstanding question: Should the AfD notices on the pages be simply deleted? I'm thinking that there's no point filling out the {{

oldafdfull}} notice. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK

17:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The {{

oldafdfull}} is irrelevant in cases where the discussion was closed on procedural grounds (as the above was) since it is primarily a tool for judging "former" consensus in future deletion discussions. Shereth

17:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with keeping it, I think the rationale is slightly off. I fear the rationale utilized in WJB's comment above and in the AFD imply that people can come here and create memorials in their Talkpages. I do not believe this should be allowed and is the implication for not a memorial. That being said, there is a difference between coming to wikipedia with the intention of starting a memorial and memorializing an active contributor to the project. The former shouldn't be allowed, the later I have no problem with. The later kind of tells people why a colleague they may have worked with is no longer active.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 17:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but you might be talking about my rationale, in which case, I may simply have worded it sloppily- I think a memorial for an active Wikipedian is useful, because his absence is noticed and affects the project. I don't necessarily think that my userspace would be a good place for me to create a memorial for my late grandfather. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with 100% wit this. I just wanted to make sure that we don't set a presidence that memorials are ok, if they are in people's userspace. I think by countering Jeff's memorial with it's not applicable to

wp:NOTMEMORIAL because it's in the userspace, open's that door for others to say, "But my memorial is in my userspace."---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon

17:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not the place to honor departed friends and relatives. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must be notable besides being fondly remembered." The guideline is clearly focused on articles. We may still want to delete memorial pages outside of articles, but they should nominated at

WP:NOTMEMORIAL. As ever, we are more relaxed about the userspace of good contributors. If a good contributor wants to use a subpage of their userspace to remember a deceased friend or relative, I suspect few will have a problem with it. If someone's sole purpose here is to create such a page, rather than to be involved in creating and maintaining an encyclopedia, I suspect opinion would be quite different. WJBscribe (talk)

17:13, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

When you start making memorials in your userspace, I think you are starting to get into the realm of

wp:NOTMYSPACE---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon

17:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. And you are entitled to that opinion and would no doubt voice it were such a page to be nominated at

WP:MFD, which is where the matter will ultimately be settled. A speedy closed AfD of a non-article doesn't establish any precedent at all... WJBscribe (talk)

17:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. In the end, this was a bad AFD and was correctly closed.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloon 17:22, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This is an editor (KoshVorlon) who routinely attempts to enforce his/her complete and utter misunderstanding of policy. KV has also nominated numerous articles (

WP:NOT prohibits lists. I've never been a fan of the mentor/adopt a user program, but this editor could be the test case. - auburnpilot talk

17:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

BTW - comment on contribution not contributor please! KoshVorlon > rm -r WP:F.U.R 20:41, 4 September 2008 (UTC)20:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on whether these things should be deleted or not, but from this edit you still seem to think that

talk

) 20:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)First,

Deaths in 2008 is not a memorial; it is a collective list of notable people who have died, and links to their own articles - for which notability has already been established. It is also useful for generating new articles, even stubs, for these people. And the AfD, which was inappropriately so per procedure, was closed by a 'Crat, not an Admin. --Rodhullandemu

20:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

We can have a proper understanding of the policy, and no need for the assumed dichotomy; WP:NOTMEMORIAL specifically refers both to articles, and has language that refers to the creation of pages. The Jeffpw page is in userspace, and it evolved from an ordinary userpage - none of which is covered by the policy. I would also we had this same discussion around about the time when the page became what it is, and the consensus (you may be surprised to find we have a policy regarding that concept, but I assure you we do) was that it was to be kept. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Even if KoshVorlon follows proper procedure to nominate this as MfD, it just really stings as very poor taste, and insensitive in the extreme. The idea that Jeff, or for that matter, any Wikipedian including KoshVorlon or myself, could be so easily erased from the community because of policy is misguided. I don't know why Jeff's page, or any talk page expression of sorrow or grief would have to be deleted. This community is obviously made of editors. When one of them dies, it is a natural response for the community to react to the loss. We do not function as a community unless we allow ourselves (without going crazy myspace style) to communicate with each other. --Moni3 (talk) 20:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• {{courtesy blanked}} and full protected the AfD discussion. That was an embarrassment. Viridae^Talk 01:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Viridae, yes it was. An innapropriately closed nom with an invalid reason with too little time. I totally agree. Just so we can all drop the bullshit, if I put up a page in my userspace with a memorial for the deceased father (who recently passed) it would be AFD'd and gone by now, for the exact same reason I nominated both memorials for . It would have not mattered one bit if I tried to tell you "It's not an article" or "that was in poor taste". YOu'd remind me first, that wiki is not a memorial, and secondly you'd point me down to the bottom of the page that appears when you edit that says:
If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it.
Bottom line, this was not done right at all, and it was embarassing.
HEY! Here's an idea, why not just throw out the policy since you don't seem to want to follow it when it becomes "inconvenient" for you to do so. Just so you know, I will re-nom both items (not today, nor over the weekend) for no other reason that they don't comply with current policy. You know I'm right. KoshVorlon > rm -r WP:F.U.R 16:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

For the love of God, KoshVorlon, are you really that dense? Maybe it's an age thing, or a language barrier, I don't know. But clearly something is standing in the way. That page WAS NOT AN ARTICLE. You cannot send a page that is not an article to AfD (Articles for Deletion). Do you really not understand the difference between a page that honors a committed Wikipedia editor and one that honors your father? They are not comparable. If you nominate either page again, you will find the same result. The AfD close was correct; no debate. - auburnpilot talk 17:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Drop it and move on. At this point it is approaching

a certain level of disruption to make your point. Everybody has tried to explain it to you and you are just ignoring it. Chrislk02 ^{Chris Kreider}

17:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Could an administrator please look at the article Vanceburg, Kentucky? It's showing a lot of activity lately regarding some police scandal, and there are some very questionable usernames editing the article. Special:Contributions/Reformcorruptrivercity, Special:Contributions/Vanceburg, Special:Contributions/ReformVanceburg, Special:Contributions/ReformVanceburgNow, Special:Contributions/Lewiscountyky. -- plushpuffin (talk) 23:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Should I bother to inform these users that I've posted this, or is it not worth it? -- plushpuffin (talk) 23:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's customary to do so. I've removed the section, as it was completely unsourced. Dayewalker (talk) 00:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've notified the users. -- plushpuffin (talk) 00:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... this hits very close to my hometown. I do recall the incidents being in the newspaper (the latter, about the officer) and the charges that were wiped under the rug, so to speak. I'll try to dig up some sources tonight or tomorrow and at least give some credibility to that. The former, about welfare and all that jazz is completely garbage. seicer | talk | contribs 00:02, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Indef'ed the socks: ReformVanceburg, ReformVanceburgNow, Reformcorruptrivercity. The main account appears to be Vanceburg, and if they wish to discuss the matter, they can use a single account. seicer | talk | contribs 00:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift action. I wasn't sure if I should have posted on

WP:SSP. It just seemed too obvious to be sock-puppetry. -- plushpuffin (talk

) 01:08, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

JUST FOR THE RECORD THIS IS THE USER VANCEBURG AND I AM NOT THE MAIN USER!!!!!!!! THE ONLY THING I POSTED WAS ABOUT THE BASEBALL TEAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vanceburg (talk • contribs) 16:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess it was too obvious. I'm sorry, Vanceburg. I noticed all of those edits adding unsourced material on the police scandal and all of them had the city name as part of their username. I grouped you with them by mistake. -- plushpuffin (talk) 17:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

thank you very much.VANCEBURG. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vanceburg (talk • contribs) 17:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll amend the notices on the other talk pages, but leave them indef'ed as it is obvious they are stemming from one account. seicer | talk | contribs 17:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The image Image:Ambox style.png is broken right now. I haven't seen this behavior from MediaWiki before (either the image page exists or it does not, but an image page with a broken image is new to me). This is affecting any use of, for example {{prose}}. -207.172.212.147 (talk) 13:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Mmm, it works for me. I have purged the image just in case. Do you see it in every page or only in a single page? -- lucasbfr ^talk 14:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It's working on commons, and popups gives me a thumbnail - but the full image view is a red x. Commons had some image issues this morning, could this be related? UltraExactZZ ^Claims ~ Evidence 14:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is to download the commons version, delete the en version, and reupload. It looks like the server lost or corrupted the en version of the image. MBisanz ^talk 14:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:ANI#.svg image issue...Wikipedia or me? Try and keep it it one place. Might be something to do with this. 3000 images were accidentally deleted from the database. Woody (talk

) 14:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's already been  Done. Thanks! UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 14:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Y Done - Right, when I read about these problems on other pages I immediately checked all images I am "responsible" for and fixed the two damaged ambox images.

Lucasbfr: At the time you typed your message above I had not yet fixed those images, so your browser was probably showing you an older version of the image that was in your local web browser cache.

MBisanz: For the future if similar things happen: Don't delete the old image page and re-upload the image, instead just re-upload the image to the current image page. Otherwise you loose the image page description, image history and the protection settings for the image.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahh good to know, I assumed a corrupted base image would cause problems to the new upload. Thanks for the info. MBisanz ^talk 15:53, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

If people were interested, this discussion has restarted, probably prompted by the recent annoyance of cleaning up after that juvenile pagemove vandal Gwop. See