Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive257

• sigh* What a surprise. I predicted this would end up at arbcom eventually. At the core you have Chris who wants to improve (and has, massively) the quality of Wikipedia's manga and anime articles, faced with Ryulong who wants to keep them in some sort of stasis of mediocrity. I have generally supported Chris since I encountered him because of his intent and willingness to take on a task against entrenched opposition. Mediation was never going to work, because it does not matter what reasoning or policy based discussion Chris uses with Ryulong, Ryulong just changes position and comes back with a different reason not to improve the articles. In short, interaction ban yes, but dont go topic banning one of the few people actually willing to put in the hard work on bringing the quality up. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:32, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment from ChrisGualtieri - Ryulong and I have already resolved our issues in private two days ago. We have both come to an agreement about the two project spaces. Ryulong himself will make that clear - and we did so right after his 24 block from AN3 that I did not file. I was about to bring it Arb Com, it was ready to go and save for Ryulong's contacting of me... I was going to do that instead of letting another drama like this occur. Ryulong has asked for assistance in his editing space and acknowledges that A&M is equally problematic - we may disagree, but we have finally agreed that neither is out to destroy Wikipedia and if becoming his ally on the admittedly terrible Tokusatsu articles than the MOSAM situation and the entire A&M dispute has come to an end. And don't consider Lucia Black in this thing at all. We've patched that up and worked together to get Ghost in the Shell (video game) to near GA standards and Ghost in the Shell (film) is now a GA and that was a joint effort. I'm not out to make enemies and the three of us have finally understood each other. Close the RFC, but not because it failed, but because the disagreement has been resolved and all parties acknowledge the communities consensus. The metrics may not be worked out, but I feel that this rough period is over and some third-party dispute on a page I responded to an editor's request online should not have been the "kill" action. My thin-skin about a certain "topic" is more of my own problem - and Ryulong did not intend it as such. And contrary to what some people have expressed - I do not want Ryulong gone, while I was considering Arb Com to make the decision, it seems unnecessary. Everyone can drop the pitch forks and look forward to 30 A&M GA's making their way up as soon as the Tokusatsu thing is dealt with to Ryulong's satisfaction. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  I did indeed contact ChrisGualtieri offsite two days ago and we came to an agreement as to what should be done and I implored for his assistance in cleaning up another topic area. Also, Nick, your statement that I should be banned from obtaining rollback rights is unfounded, as in the dispute that I was blocked for edit warring recently I did not use said rights in the first place. I don't see why it had to be revoked in the first place but whatever. I should be using the installed twinkle rollback for everything that I had been using rollback in the first place. Only in death, your summarization of what you see as my position on this site is insulting. I do not want these pages to "stagnate". I just have a different opinion as to how they should be laid out. And call it

  WP:Diva if you want but a topic ban from my entire editing area will drive me off the site for good. This place isn't worth the stress it causes.—Ryulong (琉竜

  ) 03:25, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

If you agree to that, I'll give you one more chance. If not, as far as I'm concerned, you had your last chance at the RfC and blew it. Heck, at this point I'm not sure that the rest of the community will even buy this as a solution, but if it solves the problems you two are causing, they might.

Wha?

03:55, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello. I'm an unrelated third-party in all of this. Ryu and Chris may remember me as that guy that pops up from time to time when discussions like this happen. If I may add my two cents, I've been watching a good portion of this drama unfold between Ryu and various parties ever since I was alerted to his ongoing (at the time) habit of reacting fairly confrontational with other editors. I was surprised to learn that Ryu is a former administrator; I would never expect the kind of quarreling he's done from an admin, former or otherwise. I then popped up when Ryu had an AN/I discussion started about him concerning said behavior. Ryu said he would straighten up his act and I thought it was a good intervention on all sides. But lo and behold, after that we have a gigantic RfC, a 24-hour block, removal of Rollback rights and a slew of AfD's created by Chris that seemed personally directed at Ryu.

This entire thing is a mess. As it stands from my perspective, Ryu's been taking far too much personal stake in his edits and reacts very arrogantly towards others. On the other hand, it seems like Chris is something of an enabler that just pours fuel on the fire to continue this drama between them. While I do not have the entire scope of the problem, from what it sounds like to me, this 'scorched earth' idea may just be the best way to go. It's unfortunate that two passionate editors should be blocked/heavily restricted for a long span of time, but with the way things have gone, it seems necessary. As I said on Ryu's AN/I, I don't think either of them are "bad" editors, but their passion for editing can very quickly turn heated. Antoshi ☏ ★ 04:31, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Ryulong actually voted to delete the card articles I tagged with deletion. These are ones he actually made.[4][5][6] We discussed this and some of the others should be merged instead of being deleted. I think only one was really questionable on his end and I've asked for it to be withdrawn.[7] ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• We have never resolved our problems prior. This isn't some "let's be buddies" for the moment and go back to fighting one another. As I write this, I am trying to get
  Cuban missile crisis and given that the community would either be done with one or both of us than resolve the problem has shown a clearly different and alternate resolution: Either work together or one or both of our topic areas get much much worse. I don't personally like the thought, but the last "issue" in the project space has been resolved through the calm interactions of each other. If the "RFC" must be closed by this mess, it wasn't going to change that both of us acted civilly and proper and a clear consensus on the main issue was resolved and no amount of time was going to get a further metric for it. And I think the fact Ryulong hasn't "blown up" over nominating over a dozen articles for AFD and single-handedly altering and building up the Wikiproject's categories and tagging, labeling and sorting them is a pretty good sign that we are working together. ChrisGualtieri (talk
  ) 04:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
  • And honestly Sven, I told you we resolved our issues before your dramatic post about us. The two of us worked it out and hence my surprise when I found this. Though I have been watching that Knockout page since November 12th.[8] I noticed an IP inserting racially charged text not found in the specific source and make a note at User_talk:72.92.132.215, he reverted me than reverted himself and I thanked him for doing so and dropped a welcome/help template. Race is a sensitive subject for me and I took offense without realizing Ryulong did not intend it as such, its not the end of the world. Misunderstandings happen, but the "issue" was not even tangentially related to A&M or Japan, so I'm not sure why there is this drama when we haven't done anything "dramatic" since prior to the RFC. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
    • By bringing up off-Wiki conversations, you are putting me in a difficult position,
      Wha?
      18:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Off-wiki? Huh? Since you sorta spilled that contact I'll be open, its no shame nor secret. I mentioned it in IRC on 1 line; but you did not respond to it and I thought you didn't even read it. It was hours before my question on portals was answered. Now if a question on portals is privileged, I apologize, but I don't care about IRC or whatever misunderstanding that exists here. Forty minute long conversation about us? So what. I made my peace at A&M and that was what I meant - IRC is semi-offwiki, semi-on, but I don't know what provoked the response above. Whatever conversation you had, it obviously upset you. I still believe the RFC was a success and mirror Ryulong's comment about it - which is why given the situation I was surprised about the above drama. If you know that some 3RR thing which is unrelated to the A&M and not even filed by me is enough to sink everything that's a bit sad. Though that misunderstanding preceded our breakthrough and alliance - the community has demonstrated that it cannot resolve our problems satisfactorily and that whatever disagreements we individually have no amount of DRN, RFC, ANI, Mediation and likely ArbCom will ever result in something mutually agreeable. Yes, I was tempted by the community's ability to force a decision to end it by overwhelming consensus, but aside from an already seemingly agreed upon stance the actual specifics are of only interest to about four people. For the next six months, let us work together - if it breaksdown fast-track an interaction ban, but I don't say "things are resolved" without meaning it. Ryulong's stressed out enough by this too, but its been handled and if the Tokusatsu alliance and positive response to the AFDs and Ryulong's own desire to reform the area isn't indicative that we've come to a clear agreement I don't know what is. Just give it a few months off the drama pages and you'll see that this is for real. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
        • The conversation you're referring to is most certainly not the one I was referring to.
          Wha?
          01:09, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

(

Why do you keep mentioning ArbCom when Chris and I have buried the hatchet?—Ryulong (琉竜) 10:34, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Possibly because the effort you two make to get along (as mentioned above) appears to be directly proportional to how close the two of you are to being sanctioned. Existing community policies have not succeeded in diffusing the no holds barred battle field that you two present, and the last time community endorsed sanctions were proposed they were short circuited for this last chance RFC. In my counting this has been the 3rd or 4th RFC held over this issue with each one being a failure to get the space to be settled down and to have you and Chris not at each others throats and at a various form of DR (DRN,3O, RfC, AN, AN/EW, ANI, etc.) every few weeks because one or the other throws a tantrum and those outside the topic space have to sort it out. Hasteur (talk) 12:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Well the RFC served its purpose. Sven's absolute refusal to participate in it any further shouldn't mean ArbCom is the next step to resolving a dispute that has been dealt with in private.—Ryulong (琉竜) 18:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• 206.127.96.82 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Please be wary of "backwards text" vandalism, see above for examples.

The vandalism changes the text to backwards, but without any additions or removals it doesn't show up as really anything modified as far as green/red text added/subtracted.

Dunno if there's a specific abuse filter or vandalism monitor way to check for this.

Perhaps someone could help and alert vandal patrol boards about this?

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I generally try to take a look at "(0)" edits on my watchlist, just because of nonsense like this (although I've never seen this specific kind of vandalism). Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:38, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

ykaens yrev woH... I've blocked the IP listed above. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:02, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

How is that done? The code looks as if nothing got changed, unlike if I spent a ridiculous amount of time to retype everything backward. Perhaps the insertion of some weird control character meant to support

Bi-directional text? Nyttend (talk

) 03:09, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

lmth.rotareneG-txeT-esreveR/moc.cinahcemtxet//:ptth gnidulcni ,gniht fo tros siht od taht seitilitu ffo dna enilno suoirav era erehT .dnuora dehctiws gnieb yllaer era srettel eht ,oN _{Hint: click on the link; it still works)} --Guy Macon (talk) 03:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Nytend, they are adding a Unicode format charater, such as a right-to-left mark. It adds three bytes (the size of the RLM in UTF-8) to the file size, but it is a zero-width formatting character, so it does not show up as a visible new character in a diff, and it has no effect beyond a new line. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 03:58, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

As a reminder, WP:VisualEditor has had at least one bug that causes this unexpectedly, and bug regressions are an unfortunate fact of life. Usually, people notice the problem and try to fix it before saving, but if you see this on an edit tagged with "VisualEditor", then please let me know at WP:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

If bug regressions are an unfortunate fact of life, the developers and testers need to start running an automated regression test every night. This changes the fact of life into a fairly rare occurrence. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:55, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I would like to redirect

Done. Nyttend (talk) 00:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The following RFC was opened on September 6th. I requested closure at

Thanks, GabrielF (talk) 04:30, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Would an admin please review the pending change to James McGibney. The article is fully protected as well as PC2 protected so a non-admin won't be able to review it. Given it could be seen as editing through protection in an edit war maybe it could be accepted with a comment like 'PC not used during disputes so this edit would be there anyway'. Thanks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I accepted all revisions since all of them are fine with the

WP:PC point of view. The rest should belong to the yalk page of the article or possible even a block log, but there is no BLP policy violations in the edits.--Ymblanter (talk

) 06:34, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

There is an active sock investigation [[13]] regarding this and also a request for review at

talk

) 10:35, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

• I've removed full protection since it seems that some more cleanup might be needed. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:05, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Apologies. I have just realised that my earlier post a couple of minutes ago about this vandal would have been better posted in the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents section.

I have now transferred the content into that section. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 21:39, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

You know, when a report is titled "long-term Alvin and the Chipmunks vandal" someone has jumped the shark. Viriditas (talk) 02:59, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

• While my computer has been down for 3 days, the work in Category:Candidates for history merging and Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests has piled up. Please, does ANY admin except me do history-merging and obstructed page moves??? It is 11.55 pm here in England. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:49, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

  I know how to do history merges, but I generally don't keep an eye on the category. Feel free to ping me if you're going to be away from Wikipedia again. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:47, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Per the recent Featured article review of the Natalee Holloway article, this articlespace editnotice (since removed) came to my attention:

• Edit notice on Holloway.

It was on the article for more than three years. I raised this query in a thread at ANI, but got no response; since the template was removed three days ago, it is no longer an "incident", but there are still issues to be clarified.

I had never encountered such an editnotice in articlespace, and didn't realize it could even be done. When I investigated, I learned that a) only an admin can place or edit an editnotice in articlespace, and b) there are editnotices on many articles where there are arbcom sanctions in place. I am not aware of any FA or article where there are not sanctions in place having a "warning" notice to this effect, although I have found some that include a mention of the date formatting used in the article.

Besides needing clarification on the issue of whether this level of "warning" about editing an FA because, essentially, "admins are watching" is appropriate or should be happening on other FAs, I'd also like followup on a) whether the most involved admin with the article should be placing an editnotice like this or who can place them, and b) considering our stance on admins being just like any other editor patrolling an article except as it relates to the use of tools, why the wording about "admins" having to clean up (anyone can clean up), which might be intimidating and off-putting. If this went on in an FA without even me (considering my involvement in the FA process) knowing it, how many other FAs might have followed suit? Others might now realize they can do this, or have done this. Here we have the ability on Wikipedia for an admin to influence editing on an article where s/he is the principle editor, without the broader community even becoming aware of it unless they edit the article.

Should we have these kinds of editnotices, should they be placed by admins involved with the article, and is there a way for us to find out how many of these are out there? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of editnotices, but many of them simply notify editors of existing discretionary sanctions (e.g. on Israeli-Palestinian articles). The editnotice in question probably crossed the line into inappropriateness, but since it's been blanked (and given the level of acrimony in the recent

WP:AN/I discussion) it's probably better to focus on the more general question of appropriate guidelines for editnotices. MastCell ^Talk

23:21, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is precisely the problem: there is not much said at Wikipedia:Editnotice. (We editconflicted as I was cleaning up my post to make it more general-- I had copied it from the earlier ANI which was too specific.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

From my experience edit notices are increasingly used in place of hidden comments, particularly for issues which affect most of the article or in recent articles on developing situations, to remind edits to require proper sourcing etc. Probably the strange thing about that edit notice was the mention of admins, it did seem out of place since it won't just be admins fixing the problems. I don't personally see a problem with reminding edits that poor quality may mean a burder on other editors. IIRC an editnotice was used in the Bradley Manning article while fullprotection was applied, that seems to be one of the few cases when mentioning admins would be appropriate. Perhaps editnotices are less important for FAs although they could potentially be cases without sanctions where they would be helpful.Nil Einne (talk) 04:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

See Template:Editnotices/Page/Amy Pond for an example I'm thinking of or Template:Editnotices/Page/Aslan (disambiguation) or Template:Editnotices/Page/69 (sex position) (not ones I think I've seen myself before) or Template:Editnotices/Page/Anders Behring Breivik (which I may have seen and I do know there was a fair amount of discussion over the issue if not the editnotice). Of course other than date formatting issues, their use in language ones is perhaps also not uncommon, e.g. Template:Editnotices/Page/Air New Zealand and perhaps more important Template:Editnotices/Page/Ape Escape (video game). Something slightly different but which was I presume deemed useful at least at one time Template:Editnotices/Page/Antonin Scalia.

P.S. Without commenting specifically on the appropriateness of any of these cases, nor suggesting that we as a community have to use them, wasn't one of the intentions of the development of editable editnotices their usage on articles? At least I've always assumed that since I first saw them since while helpful, they seemed not so important for talk pages, noticeboards, userpages etc particularly from the foundation POV. I also see from Wikipedia:Editnotice that there are a bunch of templates Template:Editnotice templates and Category:Editnotice templates, I think at least two of the earlier examples used these.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for more samples, which are all illuminating examples of effective ways to use editnotices. I wasn't even aware before the Holloway FAR that they were placed on articles, and now see that there are gaps in the guidelines about their application in articles at

WP:OWN#Featured articles. That is the one of the areas where I think some admin discussion of the broader issues would be helpful; that page needs to be expanded to include discussion of appropriate use of the template in ways that don't further ownership. I edit numerous Featured articles that have recurring issues and new editors don't always read the talk page FAQ. Another related issue is that I would have to request an admin to place an editnotice on one of those articles. Where would one make such a request, at ANI or here ? SandyGeorgia (Talk

) 16:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• [ec: Good morning Sandy!] I wouldn't object on principle to (such) an edit notice, but the mention of "administrators" in there is superfluous and possibly rhetorically loaded ("chilling effect"). I don't think we need more guidelines; I think the regular editing process can take care of it--though in this case very belatedly. Drmies (talk) 16:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks, Drmies! Ok, to specifics, would the wording at
  WT:FAC. Or should we run a bot to do all of them? Or do we individually approach an admin we know? Or do we subst a template? SandyGeorgia (Talk
  ) 16:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the edit notice. It could be phrased differently, but it was neutrally written and correct on policy. GregJackP Boomer! 16:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I support the idea of an editnotice conveying this kind of message; in my opinion, the only problem with this editnotice is the comma splice and other grammar problems. Nyttend (talk) 17:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I've added an editnotice to U.S. Route 131 (template-editors can add them, not just admins, btw), only because a section of the highway was rerouted. Once MDOT updates their maps online, I can revise the article to account for the change in mileage, etc. Until that update, I don't want every IP out there "being nice" and making a mess of those figures because "they're wrong!" or something. I offer that as just another example of where they can be useful, especially on FAs where stability and consistency is important. Imzadi 1979 → 18:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• As a bit of a tangent, it's worth noting that +ACC (in addition to template editors) can and do create editnotices, which may effect wording somewhat. Kevin Gorman (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Kevin Gorman, I don't know what you mean by +ACC. Could someone give me the dummies 101 version of what Kevin is saying? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
  • He means users with the "accountcreator" right. This is a side-effect of how create-protection of editnotices are implemented: through the title blacklist. Accountcreators are not subject to the blacklist (since it also prevents user account creation, and would hinder them in their tasks) and so can create editnotices. I don't know if that's a legit thing or just a known side-effect though. As far as the procedure, I know that people have asked me to add editnotices to pages in the past (mostly Bishonen, for some reason, who can do it herself), and I've complied with the requests when they seem reasonable. Not a big deal, really. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts are the same as Drmies's: only the bit about administrators seems off. This sort of notice might be useful, really, in helping good-faith editors add cited material to FAs. --Coemgenus (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• I added something not unlike this to
  talk
  ) 23:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you're wrong there, Beeblebrox. I just tried to edit Template:Editnotices/Page/Elk, and MediaWiki wouldn't let me. --Floquensock (talk) 23:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

This is the page notice for Elk.
This editnotice can only be created or edited by administrators, accountcreators, and template editors.
To request a change to the page, add {{

talk

) 00:36, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Editing an editnotice requires the same blacklist override that creating one does, since the "noedit" flag has been set for editnotices in its blacklist entry. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:42, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Well that's my bad I guess. I could have sworn that some of the edit notices had made had been modified by users without any superpowers.

talk

) 01:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I think I see clear consensus that other than the wording about Admins, the notice is appropriate, needed, and accurate per policy. I think they should be added to all FA's as standard. Perhaps someone is willing to be bold and suggest this be mentioned in a guideline as standard procedure? Regardless if it is spelled out, it should become our standard, I do not have the statistics on how many FAs have lost their status, but I would wager it is because of continual inane editing. I once saw the numbers someone got together on how many GAs have lost their status and it was quite a lot more than I was aware of; Im curious how many FAs have if we looked into it.Camelbinky (talk) 02:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Those numbers can be found at

WP:FAR has gone moribund and articles that should be defeatured are not being nominated; my personal estimate is that at least 20 to 30% of our current FAs are not at standard. Adding this editnotice will not likely change the percentages of FAs that fall from standard, but it can make editing easier for those who watch them. SandyGeorgia (Talk

) 15:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)